Eddystone Light Fwd: Re: buoy [boy] ~ [BOO-ee]

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Apr 1 01:07:14 UTC 2014


On Mar 31, 2014, at 6:50 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com> wrote:
>
>> The OED says that the standard British pronunciation is now "boy",
>> but used to be  "bwoi" (N.B. not "booey" -- the glide is at the beginning).
>> It does add, tho, that "some orthoepists" give the "booey" version.  The
>> AHD, OTOH, gives "booey" first & "boy" second.
>>
>
> I'd like to have been able to hear someone say "bwoy," in the wild!
>
> My wife remembers Lifebuoy soap from her childhood, too. Nevertheless, she
> prefers "boo-ee," anymore.
>
> [Just kidding, though I get the impression, from posts to Facebook, that
> positive "anymore" is spreading all over the country. I've heard it used by
> Seth MacFarlane, a Connecticut yankee.]
>
Interesting.  I've noted a lot of cases in which a New Englander or New Yorker is a positive "anymore"r, but in which on closer inspection (often involving Wikipedia) it turns out s/he (usually he) went to college in the Midwest or lived in Pennsylvania, etc.  As you say, MacFarlane is from CT and went to school in Kent, CT and later RISD (Rhode Island School of Design in Providence), before heading right out to Hollywood, so I'd expect  to hear perhaps a "so don't I" from him, but not a positive "anymore".

LH

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