buoy [boy] ~ [BOO-ee]

[Dan Goodman]

On 03/21/2014 11:49 PM, Wilson Gray 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: buoy [boy] ~ [BOO-ee]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 4:22 PM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> RE: search for MH 370.  WB heard CNN Brit & Aussie reporters separately say
>> something like << [BOO-ee] or [BOY]>> as a single expression. Later, Brit
>> Richard Quest settled on [BOO-ee].
>> DelMarVA WB uses [BOO-ee], but has always felt it as lower register than
>> auslaendisch [BOY].  Q: Is [BOO-ee] gaining favor over [BOY] in official
>> usage? (WB's first reaction was that non-US Anglophones were making fun of
>> my [BOO-ee] pronunciation.)
>>
>
> Singin' in the bath tub
> Singin' for joy
> Livin' the life of Lifebuoy
> Can't help singing'
> 'Cause I know
> Lifebuoy really stops
> B.O.
>
> A singing commercial from the '40's, before it had ever occurred to any
> US-Anglophones that there was a reason to distinguish "buoy" from "boy" any
> more than there is a reason to distinguish arbitrarily among, e.g. "mete,"
> "meet," and "meat," simply because they aren't spelled the same.

My father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light.
He slept with a mermaid one fine night.
Out of this union there came three;
A porgy, a porpoise, and the other was me.

One day as I was trimming the glim,
Singing a snatch of the evening's hymn;
I heard a voice shouting "Ahoy!"
And there was my mother, sitting on a boy.

Spoken:  That is, a buoy what's for ships that sail;
And not a boy what's a juvenile male.

--
Dan Goodman
Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.
http://dsgoodman.blogspot.com

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