antedating "donkey"

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

Although I don't have time at the moment to investigate this in detail, I believe this is part of a sporadic sound change that caught a number of /oHn/ words, including Montreal, Moncton and perhaps some others. Margaret says [d^nki] (she and Larry share the same geographic origins) so this may be somewhat regional as well. I have a reference on sound-spelling correspondences, but it's at my office or I could dig further into this.

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2013 6:48:04 PM
> Subject: Re: antedating "donkey"

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: antedating "donkey"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> It's / 'd^Nki / for me. Always. My grandparents too.

> JL

> On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Laurence Horn
> <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: antedating "donkey"
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Feb 17, 2013, at 2:56 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> > > <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Dunkey
> > >
> > > Assuming [d^NkI], it matches the BE pronunciation of "donkey," as
> > > opposed to, e.g. BE "hunky" [hONkI].
> > >
> > > --
> > > -Wilson
> >
> > I pronounce it that way too (well, actually, [d^Nki]), rhyming with
> > "monkey", and get teased for it (e.g. by my children). I think in
> > my case
> > it may simply have arisen as a spelling pronunciation, caused
> > precisely by
> > the fact that it *is* spelled like the more familiar (to me)
> > "monkey". I
> > certainly didn't realize it was a diminutive of "Duncan"--but that
> > will be
> > useful to bring up next time I'm teased about it.
> >
> > LH
> >
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> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."

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