"Diphthong" in the mouth of the South

[Wilson Gray]

The "problem" that I was referring to is that of being so fully
persuaded that you and everyone else are using the pronunciation X
that not only do you fail to notice, in casual speech, that everyone
else is actually using the pronunciation Y, but you also fail to hear
any distinction between your X and everyone else's Y, even when it's
clearly pointed out to you. The situation has been a staple of sitcoms
since radio days. And my point is that it's not just for sitcoms. It
happens in real life.

-Wilson
–––
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.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Scot LaFaive <slafaive at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Scot LaFaive <slafaive at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Diphthong" in the mouth of the South
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>Have any other Southrons had a similar problem?
>
> I'm not sure which problem you are referring to, but I will say that most
> people in the field that I know go with
> "di[p]thong."
>
> Scot
>
>
>
> On 12/10/08, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "Diphthong" in the mouth of the South
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> I was chatting with Carol, a white linguistics prof (phonetics) of
>> about my age (32) at UC Davis in the late 'Sixties, at a party. In the
>> course of the conversation, it came out that Carol and I, despite our
>> respective standard-sounding accents, were natives of the same part of
>> the country, she from Shreveport, LA, a mere hoot and a holler
>> (ca.35mi.) from my natal town of Marshall, TX.
>>
>> Laughing, she pointed out that, despite being a professor of
>> phonetics, she had only recently come to realize that she had been
>> mispronouncing a very important term in that field.
>>
>> C, Yes. After all this time, come to find out that I've been mispronounci=
> ng
>> it!
>>
>> W. Really? Which one?
>>
>> C. "Di[p]thong."
>>
>> W. And how were you mispronouncing it?
>>
>> C. Well, I've always been saying "di[p]thong."
>>
>> W. [confused] Ah, how should it be pronounced?
>>
>> C. "Di[p]thong"!
>>
>> W. [his head bugging] Oh, of course! Uh, you're saying that it should
>> be "di[p]thong," right? And not "di[p]thong"?
>>
>> C. Right!
>>
>> W. Oh, wow! I'm glad that you brought that up! Because I've been using
>> that same mispronunciation! So, it ought to be "di[p]thong" and not
>> "di[p]thong," right?
>>
>> C. Exactly!
>>
>> W. [wondering, a la Richard Pryor: "Is the gull crayzih?"] Good. I
>> think I've got it. Well, I'm going to get another beer.
>>
>> C. Okay.
>>
>> It was some five or so years later, while I was at M.I.T., that I
>> *finally* flashed on the fact that the pronunciation is "di[f]thong."
>>
>> Have any other Southrons had a similar problem?
>>
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> 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.
>> -----
>> -Mark Twain
>>
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>>
>
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