apple davy?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/20/2010 09:56 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
>...
>>But if you meant that "scone" was obscure, or if you ask one what a
>>dormouse is, well ... for the first, Americans could go to Starbucks.
>
>Well, given that there's even an English/Scottish problem here, since I
>pronounce "scone" to rhyme with the past tense of the verb "to shine" and
>the English mispronounce it to rhyme with something a dog gnaws,

Now just a minute.  If the past tense of "to shine" is "shone" and
the thing that a dog gnaws is "bone", I pronounce them identically.

>I'm
>reluctant to try to discover just what Americans understand by "scone"  by
>making a field trip to the nearest branch of Starbucks and ordering one.  I
>mean, the confusions which could be generated by the dialogue might be
>awkward.
>
>        "He jimmy, seeuz a treacle scone wi ma cappochino."
>
>        "Uh.  Just what do you mean by that, sir?"
>
>        "Whit dyae mean, whit dae I mean?  Snow that obvious?  Ah mean ah
>want a *coffee, an a black bun tae go wi it, but!"
>
>        "Right, that's it, you're banned.  Out you go, you and the ass you
>rode in on."

I merely get hung up on whether to pronounce it "skohn" (like "shone"
and "bone"), as I expect the server would say, or "skahn" (like the
preposition "on"), as I think I heard it in Scotland -- and instead
order carrot cake.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org