Fwd: Westconsin

[Dennis Baron]

> From: Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu>
> Date: April 20, 2010 3:08:04 PM CDT
> To: ronbutters at aol.com
> Subject: Re: Westconsin
>
> A phenomenon of vowel lowering, centralizing from ɪ to ɛ (don't  
> know if these characters will show in your email) results in  
> pronunciations for these two words in particular:  "wes-consin" for  
> Wisconsin, "melk" for milk. I don't know how common this is, or the  
> geographical spread, but it's common enough to attract attention  
> from non-lowerers of the vowel.
>
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 20, 2010, at 2:30 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header  
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
>> Subject:      Re: Westconsin
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Were the sports teams also known as "Badgers"? That should have  
>> given you a clue. How many schools would have chosen a rodent for a  
>> mascot? (Of course, there are the Minnesota "Gophers"--opposed,  
>> perhaps, to the Mini Sewti "Go-fors").
>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Date:         Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:05:21
>> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] Westconsin
>>
>> For an embarrassingly long time, I was under the impression that my
>> father had attended the University of_West Conson_, even after I had
>> come to know that there was a state named "Wisconsin." Sometimes, I'm
>> slow to make connections and corrections.
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu 
>> > wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header  
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: Westconsin
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> At 1:14 PM -0400 4/20/10, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>>>> One of my adult literacy learners today spelled that The Badger  
>>>> State
>>>> as "Westconsin."  I thought it was a possible eggcorn, and in her  
>>>> case
>>>> I think it was, but I got 175k raw ghits on it, most of which  
>>>> referred
>>>> to businesses in western Wisconsin where it seems to be a conscious
>>>> blend to name the region.
>>>>
>>>> Herb
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>> Also some hits (all self-conscious coinages, I suspect) for  
>>> "Eastconsin".
>>>
>>> Of course people in and around the states typically destress the
>>> first syllable drastically and even resyllabify (w@ SKAN s at n), which
>>> would make any such reanalysis (to "Westconsin") all the more
>>> unlikely in situ.
>>>
>>> LH
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -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
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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