[Ads-l] pronunciation of "onion"

[Margaret Lee]

My mother (black, born 1910 in western VA) would pronounce onion as 'ingan' when she wanted to play around with the pronunciation.  Now I'm wondering if she picked it up from whites she associated with in her youth.
--Margaret Lee
 
     would pronounce  From: "Paul A Johnston, Jr." <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2014 8:07 PM
 Subject: Re: pronunciation of "onion"
   
Scots dialects have "ingan", with the [I] vowel; "inion" could be a blend if the Scots form came over here at all.

Paul
----- Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:      Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: pronunciation of "onion"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Close enough for, you know, government work.
> 
> JL
> 
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 1:14 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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