Pronouncing "Massachusetts"

[Dennis Preston]

Beverly,

This is pretty common with continuants, especially with identical
vowel on either side; the number of syllables is reduced but the
moras (morae for the fussy) are not. This reduced pronunciation of
Mississippi has a long (geminate) first /s/; I bet the Minneapolis
one did too. In Indiana, there is an amazing three mora /n/ in the
fast speech pronunciation of what sounds like "nnnapolis."

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Pronouncing "Massachusetts"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Speaking of pronunciations, has anyone else noticed that Anderson Cooper
>has been talking about the River with only three syllables?  It's Missippi
>for him.  But then, some old-timers in Minnesota used to speak of
>Minn-ap'-o-lis, with four instead of five syllables.
>
>At 12:21 PM 8/3/2007, you wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>Subject:      Pronouncing "Massachusetts"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Some months ago one of our distinguished scholars confessed to a "boyhood
>>pronunciation" of "Massachusetts" that might be regarded as highly
>>insulting by residents of that state.  Indeed, I had a student from
>>Tennessee some twenty years ago who was using that very pronunciation well
>>nto his college years.
>>
>>    The following true incident of sociophonological conflict is reported
>>  by J. Douglas Harvey in his WWII memoir, _Boys, Bombs, and Brussels
>>  Sprouts_ (Toronto: McClennd & Stewart, 1981), pp. 118-19. Harvey was a
>>  pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force:
>>
>>    "We were standing at the bar of a pub one night, enjoying the convivial
>>  atmosphere, when we were joined by two English couples....The
>>  conversation finally got around to the fact that [Arnold Rose] was an
>>  American and...[o]ne of the wives asked Rose where he came from in the
>>  United States.
>>    "'Massachusetts,' Rose said.
>>    "'What?' they all asked. 'Where did you say?'
>>    "'Massachusetts,' he repeated.
>>    "'Massa-two-shits!' squealed one of the wives. 'Massa-two-shits!' She
>>  was screaming with laughter....'Massa-two-shits,' she bellowed,
>>  completely out of control. 'Oh, I say, can you imagine?
>>Massa-two-shits!'....
>>    "Rose was furious. 'For Christ's sake, what's funny?' he
>>  demanded....'Come on,' he yelled at me. 'Bloody stupid limeys, they make
>>  me sick!'  Rose dragged me towards the door. 'We should let them fight
>>  their own goddamned war. Stupid bastards!'"
>>
>>    One might object that intoxication or a slight hearing defect combined
>>  with an unfortunately naive sense of humor was responsible for this
>>  _contretemps_, but the reports of linguistic professionals adduced above
>>  suggest that more is going on here.  Observe that, despite superficial
>>  appearances, the erroneous pronunciation is not a typical case of
>>  metathesis, as both the original phoneme /C/ (the voiceless palato-velar
>>  affricate) must be analyzed into component phones before the
>>  transposition can be made; and that the original palato-velar /s/ must be
>>  correspondingly made an affricate.
>>
>>    It is all very curious to me, unless one posits that a desire for
>>  simple, ribald paranomasia lies behind such occurrences.  This
>>  interpretation I am not prepared, as yet, to accept, for it does not go
>>  quite far enough in explaining the seemingly genuine dialectal, rather
>>  than merely _ad hoc_, examples of transposition.
>>
>>    JL
>>
>>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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