LaGuardia, La Bomba

[Kari Castor]

Regarding Lafayette:
I lived in West Lafayette, then Lafayette, IN for several years.  As I
recall, when I first moved there, I pronounced it 'lah-fie-'et (with the
main stress on the first syllable, middle syllable rhyming with "pie," and a
lesser stress on the final syllable).  This is still my typical
pronunciation when I am speaking more carefully.  By the time I moved away,
(some five years later), I believe my pronunciation in casual and fast
speech tended (and still tends) much more towards lah-fee-'et or lah-'fyet.

West Lafayette and Lafayette (which may as well be the same town aside from
being separated by Wabash River) are college towns.  West Lafayette is the
home of Purdue University; Lafayette sees a lot of spillover of the college
population.  It seems to me that the latter type of pronunciation was more
typical among the "townies," and perhaps Hoosiers in general.  My husband is
an Indiana native, and regularly pronounces it lah-fee-'et.

Kari


On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: LaGuardia, La Bomba
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't understand the purpose of Ron's insults, but --
>
> Having lived in NYC for a few years (1999-2002), I can say I've
> definitely heard people there pronounce the first "a" in LaGuardia
> variously with a schwa and an [a].
>
> Strangely though, I've never heard the "uar" part as [woɚ] (lower-case
> O and right-hook schwa), but always as [wɑɚ] (script A and right-hook
> schwa).
>
> Lafayette is interesting as well.  In Cincinnati, I once lived on a
> street called Lafayette, and everyone pronounced it la-fee-'et, though
> now, other than that specific context I would say la-fye-'et.
>
> Randy
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: LaGuardia, La Bomba
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I vary--schwa always in the final -a, but both /a/ and /@/ with the
> > first one.  My parents had schwas, both from NY, neither Italian.
> >
> > Paul Johnston
> > On Feb 8, 2009, at 2:04 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >
> >>>> artificial and and stilted speaker to those who hear you.
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Randy Alexander
> Jilin City, China
> My Manchu studies blog:
> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>
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