Three pairs of pronunciation

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:43 AM -0400 6/28/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>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

I suspect I also misparsed "mourning dove" the first time I heard the
reference, and from googling "morning dove" I suspect I'm not alone
in doing so.

LH

>
>On 6/28/2010 11:19 AM, Laurence Horn 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: 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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>
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