southmore

[Jim Parish]

Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> well, there's a question here about what you mean by "rhyme".  i'm
> guessing you mean that "sophomore" and "Swarthmore" occur in
> positions in the song's pattern where rhyming words would be called
> for.  but that doesn't mean they actually rhyme; half-rhyme is all
> over the place, especially in rock music (i've written several times
> on the subject).  we'd need to listen to recordings, of course, but
> it would be not at all unexpected for the words to be pronounced
> [safmor]  and [swaTmor]


Having just listened to "Creeque Alley", I can confirm that Arnold's
conjecture here is correct, or nearly so: the consonants at the end of
the first syllables are, indeed, /f/ and /T/. (The vowel in the first syllable
of "sophomore" sounds more like open-o than /a/ to my ear, but I may
be mistaken on this point.)

Jim Parish

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