old pronunciation of "Los Angeles"

[Charles C Doyle]

Sam Yorty, the controversial mayor of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, used the /-g/ pronunciation regularly (even, perhaps, belligerently).

--Charlie

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 8:53 AM


When I naively suggested, some years ago, that a / g / in the middle of a
straightforwardly English pronunciation of "Los Angeles," Wilson observed
that both the / g / and the now universal / J / (if you see what I mean)
sounded normal to him.

But the / g / still sounds bizarre to me, and presumably to many others.  I
feel compelled, therefore, to report that the never-to-be-forgotten Loretta
Young also used the / g / in at least one episode of her TV anthology
series, copyrighted as late as 1959.  (A story in which a dying American
visits Lourdes.)

JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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