Lego vs. Legos: Americanism? Regionalism?

[Bradley A. Esparza]

Born and raised in Seattle, 1962, and still play with my original childhood
Legos.

On 7/30/07, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've heard only [lEgo] (<sigh!> Yes, I do remember "Leggo my Eggo"). I
> had no idea that [lego] was a possible pronunciation. Before I heard
> the [lEgo] pronunciation, I said [ligo] in my mind and I'd since
> assumed that [lEgo] was a foreign pronunciation of some sort, since it
> doesn't match the spelling. I've never had occasion to discuss Lego in
> real life and I'm not even really sure what it is. A game of some
> sort, I suppose.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 7/25/07, Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at ohio.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Lego vs. Legos: Americanism? Regionalism?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I've never heard anything but "Legos."  But more interesting to me is
> the
> > shift in pronunciation (understandable in AmEng) from [lego] to [lEgo],
> as
> > in "Leggo my Eggos" (remember that one?).
> >
> > At 02:56 PM 7/25/2007, you wrote:
> > >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > >-----------------------
> > >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > >Poster:       James Callan <james.callan at COMCAST.NET>
> > >Subject:      Lego vs. Legos: Americanism? Regionalism?
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > >
> > >On his blog, Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings recently discussed what one
> > >reader considered an error in his book Brainiac: Lego vs. Legos.
> Jennings
> > >says "Legos," which LEGO (the company) and many Lego fans don' t care
> for.
> > >As Jennings says:
> > >
> > >Some households say "Let's play with Lego." Others (a majority in
> America,
> > >I'm guessing) say, "Let's play with Legos."
> > >(http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=496)
> > >
> >
> > >I say "play with Legos" -- born in '70, raised in Wisconsin's Fox
> Valley
> > >and Milwaukee suburbs.
> > >
> > >How does the Lego vs. Legos issue break down elsewhere? National
> > >boundaries? Regions?
> > >
> > >  -- James Callan
> > >
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> >
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> >
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> >
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>
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>



--
Bradley A. Esparza

"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think." Dorothy
Parker, when asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence.

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