Heard on The Judges: "mother dear," "souphomore"

[Marc Velasco]

>From what I hear, "sophmore" seems the standard pronunciation, while
"sophomore" would strike me as hypercorrect, and rare.



On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Heard on The Judges: "mother dear," "souphomore"
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>
> Judge Joe Brown addressed the mother of a litigant as "mother dear":
>
> "_Mother dear_, step forward!"
>
> In  addition, he referred to a college student multiple times as a
> "souphmore" [sawfmowr].
>
>
> I was mildly surprised to hear "mother dear" used as a term of address
> for someone else's mother. I thought that that that usage had pretty
> much died out. Obviously, I just haven't heard it used, because I've
> been living Boston's Back Bay for the past twenty years.
>
> OTOH, "souphmore," "souphmo'," etc. are pretty much "standard" in BE.
> Only people like me who've made the effort to learn sE say
> "sophomore," which is felt to be a hypercorrection in the 'hood.
>
> -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
>
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