low back merger--austentacious

[Leslie Decker]

I live in Austin, TX, and a normal play on words here is to call
something Austintatious. Of course, the local dialect here has the
low-back merger.

Leslie Decker

On Friday, March 12, 2010, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: low back merger--austentacious
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3/12/2010 11:11 AM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>>CNN had a story this morning, which I haven't been able to find on
>>their site, on the question of whether spellcheck is making kids into
>>worse spellers. Â One of the misspellings they showed was
>>"austentatious." Â I was in a noise room when I saw the story, so I
>>didn't see the location. Â The teenage boy behind the misspelling at
>>least had a perceptual contrast, if not also a productive one.
>
> Perhaps he's merely into the (long) 18th century -- its email list is
> Austentatious.
>
> Joel
>
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