LaGuardia, La Bomba

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/8/2009 11:06 AM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>There is no way for me to demonstrate to you that your use of yourself as an
>informant is inaccurate, but what you say flies in the face of thousands of
>hours of tape-recorded speech of
>Americans. If you always use [a] in "LaGuardia," you must sound like a very
>artificial and and stilted speaker to those who hear you.

I don't appreciate insults.  As an educated New Yorker, I probably
distinguish more phonetic variations than you do, and I also know how
an Italian name was pronounced.

>Unless of course you
>put significant stress on the first syllable (cf. "Lafayette").
>
>In a message dated 2/8/09 10:01:18 AM, Berson at att.net writes:
>
>
> > At 2/8/2009 10:48 AM, RonButters at aol.com wrote:
> > >In most (all?) varieties of American English, [a] reduces to schwa
> > >when unstressed. The pronunciation of "LaGuardia" with two schwas is
> > >totally normal in ordinary speech cadence. It is totally unremarkable.
> >
> > Not in my normal speech, and I would remark on it (or silently wonder
> > if the speaker was from out of town).
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> > >In a message dated 2/8/09 9:25:30 AM, Berson at ATT.NET writes:
> > >
> > >
> > >>At 2/8/2009 10:04 AM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
> > >> >I checked the written transcript of Flight 1549 talking with New
> > >> >York TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control).  There were only a
> > >> >few words with "awe".  One, repeated several times, was "LaGuardia",
> > >> >which is most often pronounced /l@ 'gwawr dee @/.  This is odd,
> > >> >since it is an Italian name which Fiorella pronounced I don't know
> > >> >how but his ancestors pronounced /lah gwahr dee ah/.
> > >>
> > >>l@ by analogy with "the"?
> > >>
> > >>BTW, it's "Fiorello", not "la".  And while I listened to his reading
> > >>of the comics, I can't attest to his pronunciation, only mine --
> > >>which is /lah gwahr dee ah/.  Are recordings of his readings
> > >>extant?  Possibly he introducing himself.
> > >>
> > >>Also BTW, checking on the year of his readings, I notice that the
> > >>Wikipedia article separates La Guardia.
> > >>
> > >>Joel
> > >>
> > >>------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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>------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org