LaGuardia, La Bomba

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:11 AM -0500 2/8/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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.

Strictly on the phonetics here--I'll leave the sociolinguistics to
others--I'm with Ron on this one, although I think of myself as an
educated New Yorker too.  (That's a Joel- and not Ron-triggered
"too".)  Particularly for the eponymous airport (since I wasn't
around when the Little Flower himself was), I blithely and
guiltlessly turn the unstressed vowels into schwas.  (And pace TomZ,
I won't try to determine if they're "spoken with a short i or short
oo".)  If I were pronouncing the name of Fiorello's non-existent
brother Lionello LaGuardia, mayor of Naples, I might well preserve
the /a/s and even try rolling the /r/.

LH

>
>>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
>>>  >>
>>>  >>------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>  >
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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