[Ads-l] Trivial obs. re "cow" > "cowl" in BE.

[Wilson Gray]

Those with long memories may recall my mentioning that, as a child, I heard
and pronounced "cow" as "cowl," eventually correcting that some time after
I learned to read.

In times of pswaydo-nostalgia, I listen to rap and hip-hop by St. Louisans.
I haven't really done the research, but I have the impression that the St.
Louis school is considered by critics to belong to the Atlanta/Southern
school of the genre. This is considered to be insulting, because The Lou is
*not* in no *South*! It is in the *Mid-West*! So, you hear proclamations
and declamations intended to show that St. Louis, if not exactly Northern,
is *definitely* not Southern or "country." St. Louisans do *not* wear
"dookie-boots," the overshoe-like rubber boots worn while mucking about in
the barnyard. Their name escapes me. "Wellington boots"?

IAC, a Louietowner raps,

They say we from the country?
*My* _cowl_ is a forty-ounce!

Unfortunately, in that context, it's not possible to know whether the /l/
is "intrusive" or is an integral part of the word, as was true of my
"cowl." And neither do I have any idea whether this is a feature of
 current StL BE or just a peculiarity of the idiolect of this particular
rapper.

-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org