Heard on Springer: _strewn_ [stroUn]

[Paul Johnston]

OED has this as from OE streawian (or streowian).  The [stroU] pronunciations come from forms with the diphthong stressed on the second element; any /j/ ghost of the first would disappear after the /r/; Stress-shift, helped by the palatal before, like this also happened for show (cf. earlier shew); sew; and dialectally, ewe and shrew, which give forms from ME /Ou/ in the North of England, Scotland, and the Southwest of England.  But there is no general rule telling you what words have /ju/ and what words /oU/ or the like, even on the other side of the pool---Scots can have /Su/ for sew but /j^U/ for ewe (/stru/ sounds good to me, but I suspect many guid aul-fashiont Scots dialects have /str^U/.  As for chew, forget it!  Chew, chow, and chaw all exist, even over here.   Knowing Early Middle English vowel classes doesn't help either:  sew had /iu/ (like stew, yew); chew and ewe, /eu/ (like new, brew, and past tenses like blew, knew); show, shrew and strew, /Eu/ (like dew).  It!
  does seem that a preceding palatal, or sometimes /r/, helps the stress shift.

But screw, from French, doesn't alternate like this, so you can't scrow something (or someone).,.;;;;;

Paul Johnston
On Aug 30, 2011, at 3:44 PM, 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: Heard on Springer: _strewn_ [stroUn]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Just heard an instance of what the OED terms the "now arch. and dial." pronunciation of this verb, as above, in a traditional ballad, "Poor Ellen Smith" (this version sung by Wilma Lee Cooper).  In the relevant verse, "strew" would rhyme perfectly with "goes" if it weren't for the latter's inflection:
>
> Some day he'll go home
> And stay when he goes
> On poor Ellen's grave
> Pretty flowers he will strew ["strow"]
>
> Curiously, none of the several disparate web-compiled versions of the lyrics of this ballad (which deals with a loafer who was convicted, possibly wrongfully, of the eponymous Ms. Smith's brutal murder) include this verse or the line "flowers he will strew", a string which in fact shows up in Google only once, in a plot summary for Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_.  I probably wouldn't have noticed the line myself if we hadn't had this recent thread initiated by Wilson (and Springer's guest).
>
> LH
>
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