either

Thu Mar 12 02:04:32 UTC 2009

thefreedictionary.com has EE-ther (~eether) for USA and EYE-ther (~iether) for UK.  I would say that EE-ther (~eether) and NEE-ther (~neether) predominate in USA, or at least used to.

Hearing EYE-ther (~iether) a couple of times in TV media tweaked my ears.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com

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> Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:08:06 -0400
> From: hwgray at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: either
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: either
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
> 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 Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Â Â Â Laurence Horn
>> 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 wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Â ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> Â -----------------------
>>>> Â Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society
>>>> Â Poster: Â Â Â Tom Zurinskas
>>>> 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>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>>
>>>
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>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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