"San Antone"

[Wilson Gray]

My feeling is that, in Texas outside of  San Antonio, "Sanantone" is
the quasi-official pronunciation. I remember being in the Greyhound
Bus station in Lubbock in the '50's and hearing the announcement, "Bus
no.X now departing for here, there, elsewhere, and SANANTONE!"
[emphasis in the original].

If there were foreigners or even just non-Texans, waiting for that
bus, sad on them, because the relationship between "San Antonio" and
"Sanantone" is less than transparent. My father "ran on the road"
during WWII, on a train called "The Sunshine Special." (Yes, it is the
same train immortalized in the blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson.)
The train was said to run "from Sant Louris tuh Sanantone," passing
through Marshall, Texas, my birthplace, on the way.

-Wilson


On 1/23/06, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "San Antone"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "The German Barber's Joke"
> _Dallas Morning News_ 1885-10-19, Page 3 col 3
> "Tutchy, gif me a San Antone shingle on der halluf shell, und a shampoo
> cocktail."
>
>
> "Off for San Antone" [cite in headline]
> _Dallas Morning News_ 1885-10-19, Page 3 col 6
>  1890-08-10  Sec: Part 2 Page 16
>
>
> "San Antone Letter" [cite in headline]
> _Dallas Morning News_  1894-06-17  Page 18 col 3.
>
> "A View of Conditions" _DMN_  1897-03-27  Page 4 col 2.
> "Not long ago it [the Dallas Morning News] sang the praises of Uncle
> Jake McGaughey, the poet legislator, who churned up the gulfs and seas
> of literature with the great epic, "Excurting to Fair San Antone." "
>
>
> >
> > I don't believe this familiar pronunciation of the name of
> > the Texas city is well documented before Bob Wills and His
> > Texas Playboys released the song, "New San Antonio Rose" in
> > 1940. (The "old" "San Antonio Rose" was an instrumental.)
> >
> >   1899 Will Levington Comfort _Trooper Tales_ 135: Back to San Anton'.
> >
> >   JL
> >
> >
>
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>

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