Odd rhyme claim

Thu Dec 17 12:06:00 UTC 2009

Tom,
You can, I can, and I'm sure Emerson could too.  But not when a poetic rhyme is at stake.  And this is a long tradition, too.  I'm working on a book about the dialect of the York Plays, composed between 1376 and the mid fifteenth century.  They're in rhymed verse.  The playwrights generally rhyme using their own, Northern English system, but employ Midland rhymes if it suits them.  There, you're dealing with the interplay of two different full dialects.  As I recall, Shakespeare could use rhymes reflecting currently-in-progress Great Vowel Shift changes, or use the old values, according as to whether it enables him to rhyme the right words, too.  Emerson is doing something like that, if not EXACTLY the same thing.

Yours,
Paul Johnston
----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
Date: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 9:47 pm
Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header ------------
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Odd rhyme claim
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------
>
> I don't understand why "patriot" spoken as PAY-tree-ought would
> have secondary stress on the ought.  I can say it without that.
> What is stress anywhay?
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
> see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> > Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:58:48 -0500
> > From: Berson at ATT.NET
> > Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------
> -------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> > Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------
> >
> > At 12/16/2009 12:21 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>As Alice says, for _patriot_ actually to "rhyme" with _thought_,
> there would
> >>have to be a noticeable secondary stress on the final syllable
> plus a
> >>unreduced or at least barely reduced vowel.
> >
> > That (I think!) is what I'm imagining I might hear here in
> > Boston. And if we say pay-tree-AH-tik -- and the local assistant DA
> > says dee-fen-DANT -- why not PAY-tree-OTT?
> >
> >
> >>Here again is the stanza:
> >>
> >>Though loth to grieve
> >>The evil time's sole patriot,
> >>I cannot leave
> >>My buried thought
> >>For the priest's cant,
> >>Or statesman's rant.
> >>
> >>Joel may be right: / at / ("ott") in both words. But / at / in
> _thought_>>in Concord in 1847? Hard for me to imagine.
> >
> > Dunno. Is there an English or Irish dialect with that
> > pronunciation? Did Emerson affect an English pronunciation? There
> > were Irish immigrant workers camped at Walden Pond when the railroad
> > was being built through there. The web tells me the Fitchburg
> > railroad laid tracks past Walden the year before Thoreau took up
> > residence, and he resided at Walden from 1845 to 1847.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> >>JL
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >>On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >>
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> >>> Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>
> >>>
> >> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> >>>
> >>> At 12/15/2009 11:00 PM, Jerome Foster wrote:
> >>>>For a current example listen to Click and Clack, the Magliozzi
> brothers on
> >>>>NPR.
> >>>
> >>> Do they say "ought" ("awt") -- which I can't relate to "patriot",
> >>> even in New England, or "ott", as in the baseball player Mel --
> which>>> I can imagine in New England for both "patriot" and "thought"
> >>> ("thott" -- the vowel a little like "cah" for "carr"?) I'll
> have to
> >>> listen next Saturday.
> >>>
> >>> Joel
> >>>
> >>>>----- Original Message -----
> >>>>From: "Tom Zurinskas"
> >>>>To:
> >>>>Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 7:22 PM
> >>>>Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail
> >>>>>header -----------------------
> >>>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>>>>Poster: Tom Zurinskas
> >>>>>Subject: Re: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>
> >>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> >> ---------------
> >>>>>
> >>>>>"Patriot" rhyming with thought" wouldn't work for me from
> Conn. but for
> >>> my
> >>>>>=
> >>>>>neighbor from Mass it would. For her "ot" would be spoken
> "ought". The
> >>>>>le=
> >>>>>tter "o" often took the "awe" sound. She would call me ~Taumee
> (~au as
> >>> in
> >>>>>=
> >>>>>"awe") and her son as ~Baubee (Bobby). This is over 40 years ago.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Tom Zurinskas=2C USA - CT20=2C TN3=2C NJ33=2C FL7+=20
> >>>>>see truespel.com phonetic spelling
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>=20
> >>>>>=20
> >>>>>>Date: Tue=2C 15 Dec 2009 16:27:28 -0500
> >>>>>>From: wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
> >>>>>>Subject: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>>>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>>>>>=20
> >>>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail
> >>>>>>header -----------------=
> >>>>>------
> >>>>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>>>>>Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> >>>>>>Subject: Odd rhyme claim
> >>>
> >>>>>>--------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> >> ----------=
> >>>>>------
> >>>>>>=20
> >>>>>>The poet John Hollander asserts that New England is "the only
> region of
> >>>>>>t=
> >>>>>he
> >>>>>>nation" (or was in Emerson's time) "in whose dialect
> _patriot_ rhymes
> >>>>>>wit=
> >>>>>h
> >>>>>>_thought_."
> >>>>>>=20
> >>>>>>Really? I'd have guessed that _patriot_ "rhymes" with
> _thought_ nowhere
> >>>>>>o=
> >>>>>n
> >>>>>>Panet Earth. Or is Hollander being facetious at Emerson's
> expense? Yeah=
> >>>>>=2C
> >>>>>>that must be it. Sorry.
> >>>>>>=20
> >>>>>>On the other hand....I'm curious.
> >>>>>>=20
> >>>>>>JL
> >>>>>>=20
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> >>>>>
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>>----------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> >> ---------------
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
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