old pronunciation of "Los Angeles"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jul 15, 2011, at 6:16 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>
>
> 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.)

the Firesign Theater used the /g/ pronunciation to comic effect (suggesting an old-fashioned pronunciation, and possibly alluding to Sam Yorty) in "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger".

arnold

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