Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

Language is strange. I once overheard two middle-aged, white,
middle-aged Cantabrigians chatting. One, just back from a trip to
California, laughed as she said, "... California [k&l at fOrnj@]. That's
the way they say it in Cali-phone-ya [k&l at fonj@]."

"California" [k&l at fonj@] is also the way they say it in Southern BE,
spoken a thousand miles and more from Cambridge. BE adds such forms as
"foam  cone," for "farm  corn," to the mix.

It's also strange what pronunciations are considered ridiculous, as
you move from one part of the country to the other. In East Texas, the
pronunciation, [k_u_pr], for "Cooper" is a real thigh-slapper - people
hearing that [u] literally laugh in your face! - among BE-speakers,
who use [k_U_p@]. I've read that Cooper, the eldest of the Manning
brothers, the one who *doesn't* play football, refuses to acknowledge
Northern reporters who pronounce his name with [u] instead of [U].

-Wilson

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:42 PM -0400 6/16/09, Mark Mandel wrote:
>>Jonathan Lighter:
>>> Â >> ? My friend from rural Middle Tennessee - a distinguished
>>>attorney - always
>>> Â >> ? says "fum."
>>> Â >>
>>> Â >> ? Other than that and maybe one or two other items, he's got all his r's.
>>
>>MM:
>>>And even that isn't r-lessness (arrhoticity), which AFAIK refers to
>>>loss of *postvocalic* /r/.
>>
>>Laurence Horn:
>>> Â Why isn't the /r/ in "farm" an instance of postvocalic /r/?
>>
>>I assumed that this was Jonathan's friend's pronunciation of "from";
>>JL didn't say.
>>
>>--
>>Mark Mandel
>>
> Oh, right. Â I didn't even think of that; I automatically processed it
> as < "farm" to get the post-vocalic reading.
>
> LH
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
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

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