Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:02 AM -0500 2/10/09, Neal Whitman wrote:
>I haven't read the full article, but there's probably more on this topic in
>David Bowie's spring 2008 American Speech article on the 'cord/card merger'
>in Utah. (Or for the more scatologically minded, the 'fort/fart' merger.)
>
>Neal

I think I've mentioned here a while back that
John Lawler informed me 40 years ago that in Utah
one lays a fort in the fart.  I found it hard to
believe, but evidently it's true for at least
some Utahns.

LH

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 11:38 PM
>Subject: Re: Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn"
>
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>Subject:      Re: Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>And the ones who visit the Saint Louis Zoo in "Farest Pork." My
>>high-school Latin teacher, who was from Omaha, used to claim that that
>>was the way that we talked. Ridiculous! We said "Farest *Park*."
>>
>>I've noticed that there are speakers who, to my ear, strangely don't
>>distinguish between "war" and "wore."  OTOH, I don't distinguish
>>between "Worf" and "wharf."
>>
>>-Wilson
>>â?"â?"â?"
>>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>-----
>>-Mark Twain
>>
>>
>>
>>On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:38 AM, 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: Eggcorn? "warn" > "worn"
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>I'd imagine the warn/worn distinction, for those who have it, would
>>>be parallel to things like horse/hoarse--going back to an old /Or/:/
>>>o:r/ distinction.  The possibility of a distinction shown in OED is a
>>>relic of that--in really old fashioned British Received
>>>Pronunciation, you would get /wO:n/ vs. /wO at n/, but most people born
>>>after Winston Churchill wouldn't have that.  I'd suspect it survives
>>>nicely in the American South--or at least many parts of it.  Wouldn't
>>>a pronunciation of warn with /A/ be possible in St. Louis, and a few
>>>other Midland areas, incl. the ones where people are "barn in the born"?
>>>
>>>Paul Johnston
>>>On Feb 9, 2009, at 12:46 AM, Randy Alexander wrote:
>>>
>>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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