"kin" for can

[Paul A Johnston, Jr.]

Around here, Kalamazoo, MI, there is a car dealer whose accent is undeniably local (very marked NorthernCities Vowel Shift) who has a slogan, "Yes, We CAN!" .  The "can" is stressed and comes out more like "ken" than "kin", with a short vowel, no centralization, no ingliding diphthongization.  It's similar in quality, but not quantity, to the vowel in CAT class words I've heard from older Chicago speakers. I suppose you could get shifted forms like [kI at n~keaen] too, and the first could be written as "kin", but I'd associate that spelling in this area with the unstressed variant.

Paul Johnston

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
Date: Friday, May 9, 2008 6:15 am
Subject: Re: "kin" for can

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------
> ------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "kin" for can
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
>
> I agree, and these are tough calls for dctionary writers - to
> portray a word either as "citation" pronunciation or "real"
> pronunciation by most speakers.  In my version of VOA's beginner's
> dictionary I give both, with "can" as ~kan and ~ken.  Also "and"
> which is a very popular word, is also given as ~en, also "for" as
> ~fer.  There are many of these.  Dictiionaries should give these
> popular versions as well as "citation" versions.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
> Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>
> > Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 19:49:50 -0400
> > From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> > Subject: Re: "kin" for can
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ---------
> --------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Laurence Horn
> > Subject: Re: "kin" for can
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> >
> > At 6:13 PM -0400 5/6/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>Very probably merely one of a great many with that feature,
> especially>>in the South and in the Southwest.
> >>
> >>-Wilson
> >
> > And in most of the U.S., including the Northeast, when it is (as is
> > usually the case) unstressed, as in "We can do it" as opposed to
> > "Yes, we can". Are you (W.W.) referring to contexts like the latter,
> > which would then come out "Yes, we kin"?
> >
> > LH
> >
> >>
> >>On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 5:23 PM, William Warren  wrote:
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>>-----------------------
> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>> Poster: William Warren
> >>> Subject: "kin" for can
> >>>
> >>>----------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps my question should be directed to your newbies list
> since I am not
> >>> a professional or student linguist:
> >>> many people in Michigan ,my late father from SW Michigan and a
> late>>> uncle- first husband of my maternal aunt in rural Perry
> ,and a
> >>>naval recruiter
> >>> in Lansing pronounce "can" -the verb- as "kin". Could anyone
> tell me any-
> >>> thing about what dialect this would be ?
> >>>
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> >>
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