coffin pronunciation

[Lynne Murphy]

I grew up with 'calling hours' and thought of 'visiting hours' as something
from other regions--but I think it's pretty widespread now.  I now live in
a country that doesn't have them, mostly...

Lynne

--On Friday, March 14, 2008 10:23 am -0400 Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
wrote:

> Lynne,
>
> It's interesting that you cite "calling hours" as the term
> accompanying the preferred in-group items (as a replacement for
> "wake"). Is "visiting hours" also "unprofessional"?
>
> dInIs
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: coffin pronunciation
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>>
>> At 9:36 AM -0400 3/14/08, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>> Raised in a funeral home in NYS, therefore I pronounce it 'casket'.
>>> ('Coffin' is for people who say 'undertaker', 'funeral parlor' and
>>> 'wake' instead of 'funeral director', 'funeral home' and 'calling
>>> hours'.)
>>
>> Ah, but
>> "It wasn't the cough that carried him, but the coffin they carried him
>> off in" doesn't work nearly as well when you replace it with "casket"
>>
>> LH
>>
>>>
>>> But I also have a caught/cot distinction and would use the open-o when
>>> obnoxiously 'correcting' people on this matter--which I felt much need
>>> to do as a child...
>>>
>>> Lynne
>>>
>>> --On Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:53 pm -0500 Matthew Gordon
>>> <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I was listening to a podcast featuring 2 thirty-something New Yorkers.
>>>> One of them pronounced 'coffin' with an open-o, and the other
>>>> ridiculed him, saying something about how it's not 'coughin'.
>>>>
>>>> My question for those of you who maintain the distinction between /a/
>>>> and open-o: Do you all have /a/ for 'coffin'? I'm wondering whether
>>>> this is another example of a word that varies in its phonemic
>>>> assignment.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dr M Lynne Murphy
>>> Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
>>> Arts B135
>>> University of Sussex
>>> Brighton BN1 9QN
>>>
>>> phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
>>> http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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