Wilson's St. Louis vowels . . .

[Wilson Gray]

"Lilac" is (or, perhaps, was, since it's been half a century since I
last lived in Saint Louis) pronounced like "LYE lock," not like
[lail at k]. I was surprised by the "LYE lock" pronunciation when I first
heard it because I'd assumed from the spelling that the pronunciation
was "LYE lack." (We were on an eighth-grade field trip to the Missouri
Botanical Gardens before I ever heard "lilac" pronounced by anyone
from anywhere.) As far as I can recall, my learning to pronounce
"crappie" as though it's spelled "croppie" antedated my learning
"crappy" = "shitty." Besides, I've heretofore been under the
impression that "crap" and "crappy" were euphemisms for "shit" and
"shitty" and not words that themselves required euphemisms or
avoidance in the kind of language used among men and boys in
discussing fishing. You never know.

As coincidence would have it, I once knew two women who were both
named "Tara." Torra and Tarra both  agreed that the name was derived
from the Sanskrit word for "star," though only Torra was from India.

-Wilson

On 11/1/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Wilson's St. Louis vowels . . .
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'd always assumed that, rather being part of a patterned system, the pronunciation of "crappie" with [a] was motivated simply by the desire to avoid a perceived vulgarity! As for "lilac" with a schwa in the last syllable: isn't that pretty standard everywhere?
>
> In high school, my son had two friends named Tara--pronounced differently. Those damn vowels.
>
> --Charlie
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:10:18 -0400
> >From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >
> >I, too, have always known topaz to be kinda dark yellow(ish). BTW, in Saint Louis, it's pronounced "topoz," as lilac is pronounced "liloc", crappie (a fish) is pronounced "croppie," tassle is pronounced "tossle," etc.
> >
> >-Wilson
>
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