[Ads-l] Albany

[Laurence Horn]

Hmmm.  According to https://www.rogerogreen.com/2018/05/06/how-do-you-pronounce-albany-depends/, the Georgia city is pronounced “AIL-binee”. Other sites confirm this. I don’t see any that provide penultimate stress, whatever the initial vowel.  My mother was from Troy and always used the ALL-binny pronunciation for Albany, but she was born in 1914, well after your grandmother.  I’ve heard “AL-binny” on occasion for the New York capital (at least by some outlanders) but never the penult version; wonder how widespread it ever was. (I did learn to pronounce the name of its fellow upstate metropolis RAAA-ch at st@r, not RAH-ches-ter, during the four years I went to college there…) 

LH

> On Nov 6, 2020, at 3:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Some years ago I may or may not have mentioned the time my grandmother told
> me that, in her youth, Albany, N.Y., was pronounced Awl-BAY-nee.  I found
> it hard to believe.
> 
> So you could have knocked me over with a feather when I just heard a
> Georgia election official pronounce Albany, Ga., in exactly that way.
> (Obviously old news to some here.)
> 
> I doubt that my grandmother (b. 1888 in Manhattan) ever heard of Albany, Ga.
> 
> So what happened in upstate NY?
> 
> JL
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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