"The Battle [and bottle] of Bataan"

[Charles C Doyle]

I notice, to my surprise, that some dictionaries (e.g. M-W 9th Collegiate) now show [neesh] as a variant pronunciation of "niche."

Regarding the name "Gandhi":  Hasn't the pronunciation with ash been most common in Britain (and perhaps India), with "aa" widely heard among Americans (trying to out-Brit the British?)?

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Joel S. Berson [Berson at ATT.NET]
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 12:03 PM
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At 1/14/2013 06:49 AM, W Brewer wrote:
>WG:  <<<"the Battle of buh-TAHN">>
>WB:  Well, WG, when you hear about "the Bottle of Baton", we're all in
>trouble.

Fits well with our discussions of Spoonerisms and intoxication (see
"laeNgw at zh").  And perhaps said when after the Battle of Hastings one
has drunk too many bottles of Guiness.

But I must ask a serious question, which I may have asked here
previously.  Does W. Brewer know of something he might call a "bottle
of Baton"?  In a circa 1740 Boston newspaper there is an
advertisement by someone selling "a Parcel of choice Vidonia & Battan
Wines".  I've not been able to identify "battan wine", except
perchance as something produced in El Battan, an area in northern
Tunisia where the Spanish (whose Canary Islands produced vidonia)
traded.  But I have not found the place name actually attached to a wine name.

Joel

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