Saying 'pope' (was standard US English Dialect)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 4/16/08 11:40:30 AM, truespel at HOTMAIL.COM writes:


> I'd hate to hear him say the word "pope".
>

Just about anyone who was alive in the 1950s in the USA would have heard Ed
Sullivan (and speakers of his dialect) say the word "pope." So far as I know no
one ever expressed any "hate" for what they heard.

Of course, words with similar pronuncations have always been the subject of
puns and jokes, some of them bawdy--and dialect miscommunication between
speakers of different dialects sometimes happens. C'est la vie. Better to tolerate
such occasional problems than kill all nonconformers (which is the only way to
eliminate accentual differences).


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