Pavarotte lives in infamy

[Mark Mandel]

On ADS-L, Larry wrote:

Maybe they thought Pavarotti was a plural and hypercorrected to the
> possible singular Pavarotte (on the assumption that the singular
> *couldn't* have been "Pavarotto" or they'd have noticed).
>

And from Jonathan:

  I've heard the "Pavarotte' " pronounciation many times, usu. with the
> rolled "r" that means "now I'm speaking real Italian."
>

Naah. They were both using American [ae] and retroflex/bunched [{turned r}].
And the man mentioned /'nEs^n'dOrm@/. And they did say /dZ@'sEpi/, the usual
American for "Giuseppe" (as in Joe Green).

Well, maybe they *thought* they were correcting something. No way to tell.

m a m

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org