Three pairs of pronunciation

[Dan Goncharoff]

I am fairly certain I have never talked about "mourning coat/dress/attire"

I accept your point about the Aeschylus/O'Neill plays. There would be no
way to divine the proper spelling from my pronunciation.

DanG

On 6/28/2010 11:19 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Three pairs of pronunciation
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:29 AM -0400 6/28/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
>> In each case, if asked to pronounce the pair, I would say them the same.
>>
>> OTOH, I doubt I would ever use "mourning" in a sentence and make it
>> sound the same as "morning" when I am greeting someone while in a good
>> mood on a glorious day. Likewise, I would never stress the word "for"
>> the way I clearly enunciate a digit while communicating a telephone number.
>>
>> So, while I confidently claim to pronounce them the same, I doubt they
>> ever sound the same in context, except for "horse" and "hoarse", unless
>> I am the one who is hoarse, and explaining my affliction.
>>
>>
> How about
>
> morning coat/dress/attire vs. mourning coat/dress]/attire?
>
> [when someone is describing it that way and you don't have visual access
>
> Or even "Mourning Becomes Electra"?  [I wager that this is frequently
> misunderstood by those unfamiliar with O'Neill and/or the Oresteia
> trilogy.]
>
> LH
>
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