[Ads-l] Pronunciation

Tue Feb 28 01:08:04 UTC 2017

> On Feb 27, 2017, at 5:14 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> 
> Larry, isn't something missing in the second line of your transcription -- what did the little girl have right in the middle of her fahrid?  A hole?  Which is my faint memory, but but doesn't rhyme well enough for my taste.  Or a curl?  Which rhymes a bit better.  Or ...?
> 
> Joel

Yup, just my idiosyncratic curl-clipping rule.  I guess it could have also been a pearl.  Or a burl.  I think a hole in the middle of her forrid would get us back into that horror movie territory again, so let’s not go there.  The burl seems more like an Indie movie, so maybe we can go with that.  
> 
> 
>      From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2017 3:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Pronunciation
> 
> I grew up saying “far-head”, which I later realized was a spelling pronunciation (sort of like “victuals” as VIK-chewals or “waistcoat” as…waist-coat).  Probably a key factor in this realization was the rhyme (from the Child’s Garden of Verses?):
> 
> There was a little girl
> Who had a little
> Right in the middle of her forehead
> When she was good 
> She was very very good
> But when she bad she was horrid
> 
> (Not “...she was hoar-head”, or worse)
> 
> So then I relearned it as /'far at d/ (i.e. “fahrid" like Jon) and then again (when I switched the vowels in the relevant class of <or> words--“corridor”, “forest”, “orange”, “moral”, “horrid", etc.--from /a/ to /O/) relearned it as /‘fOr at d/ with open o. Now I’m not sure what I say—fahrid, fourid, or fore-head, or any and all of them randomly.    
> 
> LH 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 27, 2017, at 3:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> LIke my NYC grandparents, I say "fahrid."
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 1:29 PM, Salikoko S. Mufwene <s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Merriam Webster, 11th Collegiate edition, gives both pronunciations,
>>> although, like you, I have always heard that with "four." May this be
>>> related to the fact that in colonial English words such as /gone,
>>> going/,/oil, daughter/, and /lord/ were apparently (also) pronounced with
>>> the "far" vowel. Atlantic English creoles have been conservative in this
>>> regard.
>>> 
>>> Sali.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 2/27/2017 11:41 AM, Shawnee Moon wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I love both the nuances and the profound differences in pronunciation of
>>>> words, and I try to guess where people are from. I can tell bad faked
>>>> southern accents by actors, etc.
>>>> 
>>>> There's a couple dialect pinpointing pages on the web that ask how you
>>>> pronounce words, and they have gotten my region and dialect influences
>>>> quite accurately, which was impressive to me.
>>>> 
>>>> However, there's one word that I pronounce differently than anyone I know
>>>> other than immediate family:
>>>> Forehead.
>>>> 
>>>> My family always pronounced it "far head" instead of "four head."
>>>> Recently I read that the pronunciation is Irish but very old.
>>>> 
>>>> From Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue:"
>>>> "Often, however, the process has worked the other way around, with
>>>> pronunciation following spelling. We will see how the changes of spelling
>>>> in words like descrive/describe and parfet/perfect resulted in changes in
>>>> pronunciation, but many other words have been similarly influenced. Atone
>>>> was once pronounced “at one” (the term from which it sprang), while
>>>> atonement was “at one-ment.” Many people today pronounce the t in often
>>>> because it’s there (even though they would never think to do it with
>>>> soften, fasten, or hasten) and I suspect that a majority of people would be
>>>> surprised to learn that the correct (or at least historic) pronunciation of
>>>> waistcoat is “wess-kit,” of victuals is “vittles,” of forehead is “forrid,”
>>>> and of comptroller is “controller” (the one is simply a fancified spelling
>>>> of the other). In all of these the sway of spelling is gradually proving
>>>> irresistible."
>>>> 
>>>> Has anyone ever heard anyone else pronounce forehead another way? I'm 55
>>>> and never have, and I've lived or been to nearly every state in the country.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks.
>>>> 
>>>> Mailed from the Moon 🌜
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> **********************************************************
>>> Salikoko S. Mufwene                    s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>>> The Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and
>>> the College
>>> Professor, Committee on Evolutionary Biology
>>> Professor, Committee on the Conceptual & Historical Studies of Science
>>> University of Chicago                  773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
>>> Department of Linguistics
>>> 1115 East 58th Street
>>> Chicago, IL 60637, USA
>>> http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/
>>> **********************************************************
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 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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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
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