either

Thu Mar 12 13:23:08 UTC 2009

Add "aunt" to the list of words that sound pretentious to some folks with [a] or open o--which are the normal unaffected pronunciations for many (rather than rhyming with "can't").
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-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>

Date:         Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:43:28
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] either

Sorry, folks, but my thoroughly unpretentious NYC family always said
"tomahto" at least as far back as the 1890s (unless both my grandparents
suddenly switched for some reason), and so did I until Southerners ridiculed
me out of it. In fact it still sounds normal to me, as do both either and
either. But "avviator" sounds better than "aviator."  My grandfather also
favored "raddiator" and "raddio," but my grandmother did not.

Now "potahto" - that's pretentious.  I've never heard it outside of the
song.

JL

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: either
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> > 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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