[Ads-l] New feminine name

[Robin Hamilton]

I think we're into, vis a vis the androgynous-homophonous [Joh/an] (and it just
crossed my head, there is earlier the trickily named Julian of Norwich), the
territory of:

                         Merry Mary Married Hairy Harry.

Characteristically, Scots (of whatever region) tend to distinguish more vowels
in the above sequence than the English, and the English (across the range of
accent variation) more than the average (if there is such a thing) American,
reaching an extreme in the (apocryphal?) American variant which would pronounce
each and every vowel in the above string in an identical fashion.

But I am, to say the least, and especially among members of this list, about the
world's worst phonologist, so I'm quite prepared to be shot down in flames here
by a host of furious vowel-fanciers.

Robin

> 
>     On 11 October 2016 at 23:21 W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> 
>     WB: In my early college days, I used to hang out with a classmate, John
>     Mark Hopkins, Jr., in Petaluma CA. In his home was his father, John Sr,
> and
>     mother Joan (an English war bride). Also in the household were Joan's
>     (British) sister & brother-in-law. For the latter <John> and <Joan> were
>     homophonous (to my ear at any rate), causing me much psychic distress on
>     several occasions. What saith RH on this matter?
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 

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