Liddell

[Mark Mandel]

Ask on ANS-L. ... AAMOF I am taking the liberty of crossposting this message
there.

m a m

On Jan 31, 2008 10:39 PM, on the mailing list of The American Dialect
Society - http://www.americandialect.org -
James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:

> My understanding has long been that in English names ending in -ell,
> the -ell is originally unstressed, and where it has gained stress it
> has done so because the current rules would normally have it that
> way. I assume, when seeing names such as Twitchell, Winchell,
> Liddell, Meynell (the last name of a professor of mine in undergrad
> -- pronounced ['mEn at l], not, as some said it, [maI'nEl]), Tyrrell (a
> paleontological musem in Alberta -- ['tIr at l], not [taI'rEl]) etc.,
> that the stress is on the first syllable until I find that it has
> shifted.
>
> Are there any onomastics experts here who can discourse on the origin
> of the -ell suffix?
>
> James Harbeck.
>
>
--
Mark Mandel

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