"Lehman"

[Wilson Gray]

When I mentioned this "Leeman" to my wife as "weird," before she went
to work this morning, she was taken mildly aback. She reminded me that
two of her nieces, whose high-school graduations we had attended, had
gone to Lake-Lehman ['liy.m at n] High School in Harvey's Lake (on the
shore of "the largest man-made lake in Pennsylvania!"). She doubts
that there's any connection to the banking family.

Since the family members had no reason to mention the name of the high
school, I had assumed, from the spelling on the programs, that its
name was Lake-Lehman ['ley.m at n].

-Wilson

On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Lehman"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Also generally /'ley.m at n/ in the NYC area. AFAIK the /'liy.m at n/ pron is
> restricted to this firm, and presumably (though not certainly) the family
> that founded it.
>
> m a m
>
> On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As a consequence of the failure of the investment bank, Lehman
>> Brothers, I've discovered just a few hours ago, that this surname,
>> _Lehman_, is routinely pronounced as though spelled "Leeman," in at
>> least some locales outside of the greater Saint Louis metropolitan
>> area. In Saint Louis, _Lehman_ is a well-known local surname routinely
>> pronounced as though spelled "Layman."
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>
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