either

[Wilson Gray]

My experience is that a lot of people use "EYE-ther" instead of
"EE-ther," regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation,
social status, or level of education. I personally use "EE-ther," but
a random assortment of friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc., uses
"EYE-ther.

Among blacks, at least, the use of "EYE-ther" by a speaker indicates
nothing at all about him, other than that he uses "EYE-ther." Back in
the day, in Saint Louis, my brother and I used "EE-ther" and our ace
boon coons,the Brothers Simms, whose parents were from Louisiana,
which adjoins East Texas, used "EYE-ther."

-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



On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:15 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: either
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2:30 PM -0500 3/11/09, Jocelyn Limpert wrote:
>>Oh, my -- I thought that it has disappeared into word "heaven" or "hell"
>>years ago, whevever currently "dead" words or pronunciations go when they
>>lose their life.
>>
>>It always sounded so pretenscious -- sort of like pronouncing "tomato" with
>>the "ah" sound, as opposed to the long "a" sound.
>>
>>It for some reason reminds me of people trying to use "proper" speech, which
>>is more often than not incorrect -- as in saying "between him and I" for
>>"between him and me" -- that sort of thing.
>
> Maybe it's a regional matter, but growing up in
> New York I heard "eether" [iD at r] and "eyether"
> [ayD at r] more or less interchangeably. Â The latter
> never struck me as particularly pretentious, and
> I'm sure I use both pronunciations myself.
> "Tomahto" is quite a different matter--British,
> pretentious, or both. Â  (In the UK, "tomahto"
> isn't at all pretentious, incidentally, it's just
> the way it's pronounced. Â And "potahto" only
> exists within the song.)
>
> It's fine if you think [ayD at r] sounds pretentious
> to you, but you should bear in mind that speakers
> of other varieties of the language aren't
> necessarily using it in order to be pretentious
> or to use proper speech; it's just the way
> they/we talk.
>
> LH
>
>>
>>
>>On 3/11/09, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Â ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> Â -----------------------
>>> Â Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Â Poster: Â  Â  Â  Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>> Â Subject: Â  Â  Â either
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Â Lately I've been hearing the word "either" pronounce EYE-ther on TV. Â I
>>> Â would go for the long e EE-ther and always thought it predominated in US. Is
>>> Â someone teaching media folk a different lingo.
>>>
>>>
>>> Â Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> Â see truespel.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Â ----------------------------------------
>>> Â > Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:24:53 -0400
>>> Â > From: bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
>>> Â > Subject: Re: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
>>> Â > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Â >
>>> Â > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> Â -----------------------
>>> Â > Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Â > Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
>>> Â > Subject: Re: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
>>> Â >
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Â >
>>> Â > On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 1:52 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>>> Â >>
>>> Â >> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 1:34 PM, Baker, John wrote:
>>> Â >>>
>>> Â >>> I recently was surprised to hear my adult nephew and niece
>>> Â >>> pronounce "texted" with two syllables. I am forced to admit the logic
>>> Â >>> of that pronunciation, since I pronounce "text" and "texted" as
>>> Â >>> homophones, but it still sounds weird to me.
>>> Â >>
>>> Â >> I found your pronunciation of the past tense of "text" surprising.
>>> Â >> Morphologically you're treating "text" as a member of the cut/hurt
>>> Â >> class of weak verbs that are invariant in their principal parts. It
>>> Â >> would be the only such verb ending in a consonant cluster, although it
>>> Â >> does have the requisite final coronal.
>>> Â >
>>> Â > A commenter on the Visual Thesaurus website recently expressed
>>> Â > discomfort with "texted". Dennis Baron's Web of Language piece on the
>>> Â > anniversary of the telephone was reposted there, and a commenter
>>> Â > wrote:
>>> Â >
>>> Â > "On the other hand, the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph
>>> Â > may represent the first time I have seen 'texted' in print, and I am
>>> Â > not sure I have ever heard it used orally to express the past tense of
>>> Â > the verb 'text'. Though that construction may follow grammatical
>>> Â > convention, something about it sounds decidedly awkward, like a child
>>> Â > practicing the language and exploring the possibility that the past
>>> Â > tense of 'read' must be 'readed'."
>>> Â >
>>> Â > http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/1768/
>>> Â > (subscription req'd)
>>> Â >
>>> Â >
>>> Â > --Ben Zimmer
>>> Â >
>> Â > > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Â > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>>>
>>
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>
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