Neugebauer

[Herb Stahlke]

Randy Neugebauer, Congressman from Texas, is now famous for shouting
"Baby killer!" at Congressman Bart Stupak.  I've been puzzled by the
pronunciation of his name by such as Rachel Maddow and Lawrence
O'Donnell.  When RN was first reported as the shouter yesterday, the
first syllable of his name was pronounced "new."  By evening, the
pronunciation had changed to /nV/ or /nA/.  That change started to
make sense this evening when Maddow had a video clip in which
Neugebauer pronounced his name.  He seemed to be pronouncing the /OI/
diphthong of German <eu> leveled, with the offglide dropped nearly to
/O/.  Could the Maddow/O'Donnell pronunciation be a Northern
interpretation of the leveled Southern diphthong?

Herb

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