crayon/crown

[Charles C Doyle]

It came to light in my folklore class this morning that several students have as their normal pronunciation of the word "crayon" "crown."  I don't find that variant recorded in the standard dictionaries, although there's been some discussion of it on the Internet.

The OED gives just one pronunciation.  Webster's Third gives four, including the monosyllabic [kraen], which is my own normal pronunciation.

I had not been familiar with this "crown."  I was tempted to regard it as a product of folk etymology, except that my students knew that the word is spelled "crayon."  Maybe the awareness of the spelling came later for them than the folk etymologizing?  Maybe it's just an odd (thought perhaps explicable) vowel change.

--Charlie

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