I say "Lusitan-i-ay"
    Jonathan Lighter 
    wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
       
    Wed Aug 20 23:46:11 UTC 2014
    
    
  
In this thread from many years ago I noted that Matthew Arnold formally
rhymed  "Lusitania" with "I say" back in 1879.
Here's another, if less formal example of the same principal.
Fiddlin' John Carson and His Virgina Reelers recorded a song about the
Civil War called "Dixie Division" in 1924.  You can very distinctly hear
Fiddlin' John a-singin' "Georgia, Alabama, Flori-day."
That's the normal "George-uh" and "Alabam-uh," Not "Georgy" or "Alabammy."
Go, as they say, figger.
JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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