spelling pronunciation--words in -or

[Charles Doyle]

E. E. Cummings's lovely poem "I Sing of Olaf" (1931) begins:

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

The rhyme and the hyphenated spelling certainly suggest stress and an "open o" in the final syllable (or, if you must, an /o/).  For what effect I'm not sure--perhaps to suggest the pretentiousness of the bureaucrats who assign the classification or of the politicians who denounce it?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:06:42 +0800
>From: Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: spelling pronunciation--words in -or
>
>In 1966, Mr. Spock consistently pronounced -or endings as /or/ as a secondary stress instead of the standard unstressed /er/.  Does anybody know of any earlier examples?
>
>--Randy Alexander
>Jilin City, China
>My Manchu studies blog:
>http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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