stars and ours

[Dennis R. Preston]

Help? What Canadian practice cause "my" and "eye" to not rhyme?
Neither is a candidate for so-called "Canadian raising."

dInIs

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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Sarah Lang <slang at UCHICAGO.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: stars and ours
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I can just give a cheers to the W. CND. pronunciation. That is how I
>would say it. (I'm still happy I don't consider "my" and "eye" to
>rhyme though--Brown's MFA poetry program was a very interesting study
>in pronunciation.)
>
>
>S.
>
>On May 31, 2007, at 8:09 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
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>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: stars and ours
>>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  ---------
>>
>>  It sounds like Philadelphian to me. It's a feature of Chomsky's
>>  speech.
>>
>>  -Wilson
>>
>>  On 5/30/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
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>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>>>  Subject:      stars and ours
>>>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  ----------
>>>
>>>  Just read a poem by a high school student from western Canada that
>>>  illustrates a standard Canadian pronunciation rather well: it rhymes
>>>  "stars" with "ours" -- quite reasonably, though I'm not used to
>>>  seeing those two words matched, perhaps because at least in my
>>>  generation and earlier ones, we were taught that "ours" was properly
>>>  pronounced like "hours," even if it almost never really was by us.
>>>  Evidently even that awareness of [aUrz] as a citation form is
>>>  disappearing. (This is from a well-educated kid, too -- a gifted
>>>  student, graduating high school at 16.)
>>>
>>>  That one's also common in much of the US, no?
>>>
>>>  James Harbeck.
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>>
>>  --
>>  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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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu

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