sumetary

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:43 PM -0500 3/31/09, Matthew Gordon wrote:
>I wanted to add a couple of points to what others have responded:
>
>1. The man's name is Labov, and he pronounces it /l at bov/ (i.e. to rhyme with
>'stove').
>
>2. As Herb noted, the Northern Cities Shift (NCS) has been around for much
>longer than the kinds of "whole language" approaches Tom seeks to pin the
>blame on. I'm not sure I'd date it back 100 yrs. but it's at least 5 or 6
>decades old.

It was definitely well established when I arrived in Rochester in
1961 from the New York City area and learned quickly to pronounce it
['raeC at st@r] instead of ['raCEst at r], and (after a bit of puzzlement)
learned that when my frosh handbook date told me she was interested
in studying "salads" that she was referring to chemical processes and
not lettuce with oil and vinegar.

LH

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