"The _hopper_"

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

These are two unrelated phenomena. The 'hopper' discussion was prompted by the distinctive pronunciation of the vowel in the stressed syllable. In Boston (as in many areas) the traditional short-o vowel (of LOT) is merged with the traditional "open-o" vowel (of THOUGHT). The merged vowel is usually rounded in eastern New England, so that 'hopper' sounds like "hawper" (unlike across the West).

Also in Boston, as in most r-less regions, you can hear "intrusive r" as in "the idear of it" or "lawr and order". This is simply the introduction of a non-etymological /r/ at the end of a word when the next word begins with a vowel. This pattern is motivated by the same rule governing when the final /r/ in words that have them historically is pronounced. Thus the /r/ in 'car' is dropped in, e.g., "car by the house," but pronounced in "car in the garage"; ditto for 'idea' except that this word didn't historically have an /r/.

-Matt Gordon
________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Victor Steinbok [aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2012 11:02 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "The _hopper_"

If we're talking about Boston accents, how is this different from
regular overcompensation in words like "idea[r]"?

     VS-)

On 6/24/2012 11:09 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> Are we talking about the DISH Satellite TV commercial, where all the
> accents are clearly from Boston??
>
> DanG
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>wrote:
>
>> the "hopper

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