Punxutawney Phil

[Tom Zurinskas]

Feb 2 is Groundhog day in US.  If Punxutawney Phil, the groundhog at Punxutawney Pennsylvania, sees his shadow, it's 6 more weeks of winter.  He's been about 60% wrong in this prediction.

Locals pronounced it as punks-a-TAW-nee   ~Punksuttaunee

Poor Phil has fallen victim to the awe droppers.  A local weather forecaster hereabouts in S FL has renamed the rodent punks-a-TAH-nee (~Punksuttaanee) Phil.  Have they no shame.

To me this means that some folks either will not say the sound "awe" or have some sort of speech impediment.  Will Milwaukee now be pronounced mil-WOK-ee ~Milwwaakee instead of mil-WALK-ee ~Milwwaukee.  Well if you listen to the speaker at m-w.com it already is (event though the notation indicates the "awe" vowel.  But when you listen to "awe" at m-w.com, the same lady speaker says "ah".  Not good for this otherwise very good product).

I wonder if Milwaukee'ns prefer walky or wocky?

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com













----------------------------------------
> Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 23:42:53 -0500
> From: jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA
> Subject: Re: "dungarees"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: James Harbeck
> Subject: Re: "dungarees"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> We didn't use it when I was growing up in Alberta (though my parents
> were from the Buffalo area), so it stood out for me when I saw it in
> a Dave Berg cartoon in MAD Magazine (in the 1970s). It was clearly a
> normal word for Berg and, evidently, for his editors at MAD.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Hotmail®:…more than just e-mail.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_explore_012009

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