[Ads-l] pronunciation of "onion"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Close enough for, you know, government work.

JL

On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 1:14 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: pronunciation of "onion"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >
> wrote:
> >
> > The stage-Irish dialect of the 19th century song, "The Regular Army O!,"
> > seems to puns on "inions" and "Indians":
> >
> > We wint to Arizona for to fight the Injians there,
> > We were nearly caught bald-headed, but they never got our hair.
> > We lay among the ditches in the dirty, yellow mud,
> > And we niver saw an inion - or a turnip or a spud.
> >
> > The sudden appearance of "inion" is hard to explain otherwise.
> >
>
>
> In E-TX BE, "indian" is pronounced "Innian" [InIj at n], Could "inion" hace
> been pronounced that way? I've been reading it as [Inj at n], but...
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> --
> -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
>
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