[Ads-l] "I say...Lusitani-ay"

Tue Aug 30 08:51:43 UTC 2022

Those who spend much time on North American highways have
probably seen trucks from the 'Ottaway Motor Express',
a Canadian transit company based in Woodstock, Ontario:

https://bit.ly/3cqalop

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
WSU Information Privacy Officer (Retired)
Emeritus Professor, Linguistics Program
https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/an6993
geoffnathan at wayne.edu

From: Wilson Gray<mailto:hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2022 12:45 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: "I say...Lusitani-ay"

[EXTERNAL]

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: "I say...Lusitani-ay"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

books.google.com =E2=80=BA books
<https://books.google.com/books?id=3DZWpAAQAAMAAJ&pg=3DRA1-PA15&dq=3Dwere+m=
en+of+iow-ay&hl=3Den&newbks=3D1&newbks_redir=3D0&sa=3DX&ved=3D2ahUKEwjK5pj6=
2u35AhXFLFkFHX9ADdEQ6AF6BAgjEAI>
Adventures of the _Ojibbeway_ and _Ioway_ Indians in England, ... - Page 15
<https://books.google.com/books?id=3DZWpAAQAAMAAJ&pg=3DRA1-PA15&dq=3Dwere+m=
en+of+iow-ay&hl=3Den&newbks=3D1&newbks_redir=3D0&sa=3DX&ved=3D2ahUKEwjK5pj6=
2u35AhXFLFkFHX9ADdEQ6AF6BAgjEAI>
George Catlin
<https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=3D1&sa=3DX&biw=3D2560&bih=3D1222&t=
bs=3Dcdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1899&tbm=3Dbks&tbm=3Dbks&q=3Dinauthor:%22Geor=
ge+Catlin%22&ved=3D2ahUKEwjK5pj62u35AhXFLFkFHX9ADdEQ9Ah6BAgjEAU>
 =C2=B7 1852

The Ojiaby are also known as the _Chippewa_ and the the IIoway_ are now
better known as the _Iowa_.

Amongst elderly colored people, such as the writer, the state of Iowa and
its university is known as "Ioway."
During Jim Crow, Southern states would pay to send black students to
Northern state universities, rather than admit them to the local state
universities. My other's sister nd several of my St. Louis friends. went to
"Ioway."

On Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 6:00 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The Evening Herald (Ottawa, Kans.) (May 25, 1912), p. 1:
>
> Around her neck she wore a yellow ribbon,
> She wore it in December and in the month of May;
> And when they asked her why, oh why, she wore it,
> She said 'twas for the U.C.T. that came from Ottawa.
> Far away, etc.
>
>
> JL
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 10:31 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com=
>
> wrote:
>
> > _The Jolly Tar's Garland _(n.p., n.d), p.2, dated by ECCO to "1780?"
> Lots
> > of long esses, capitalized nouns, and italics in this 8pp chapbook.
> >
> > Oh! the French hath broke our Peace Boys,
> >       In the Lands of America,
> > But Royal George of England
> >       Is Governor by Sea.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 2, 2006 at 10:18 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.co=
m
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> That could be the explanation, but in Arnold's case it comes in the ve=
ry
> >> final word of the poem. This creates, to my ear and sensibility, an
> >> extremely bathetic fall that I'd have thought Arnold would have
> eschewed.
> >>
> >> What I'm getting at, with the help of Gabby Hayes, is the possibility
> >> that "Californiay," "Lusitaniay," and "Asiay" (or something closer to
> >> monophtongal / e /) may once have been standard pronunciations.( / E /
> in
> >> both "say" and "Lusitania" seems like a plausible alternative.)
> >>
> >> My own phonology calls for / s Ei / and Lusitani / ^ /.  Pretty bathet=
ic
> >> in combination.
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >> *Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>>* wrote:
> >>
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >> Poster: Charles Doyle
> >> Subject: Re: "I say...Lusitani-ay"
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
------
> >>
> >> Or is it poetic license? There may have existed certain sorts of "rhym=
e"
> >> that were (by tradition) deemed poetically acceptable whether or not
> they
> >> correlated much with anybody's pronunciation.
> >>
> >> John Donne (c1600), in his "Valediction: Of Weeping," used a similar
> >> rhyme: "On a round ball / A workeman that hath copies by, can lay / An
> >> Europe, Afrique, and an Asia, / And quickly make that, which was
> nothing,
> >> all."
> >>
> >> --Charlie
> >> ____________________________________________
> >>
> >> ---- Original message ----
> >> >Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 06:41:59 -0700
> >> >From: Jonathan Lighter
> >> >Subject: "I say...Lusitani-ay"
> >> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> >
> >> >In 1879 Matthew Arnold wrote a sonnet titled "S. S. Lusitania"
> >> concerning an offspring's voyage on the ship of that name (not the one
> >> torpedoed in 1915).
> >> >
> >> > At the conclusion of this very serious sonnet, Arnold rhymes
> >> "Lusitania" with "I say."
> >>
> >> > This is obviously not "eye-rhyme" and seems unlikely to me to be
> "slant
> >> rhyme." It reminds me instead of how character actors like Gabby Hayes
> used
> >> to pronounce "California" in old westerns.
> >> >
> >> > Does anyone know enough about standard mid-Victorian pronunciation
> >> and/or poetic practice to elucidate this "rhyme" ? Did Arnold have som=
e
> >> in-between diphthong in both words ?
> >> >
> >> > JL
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >> Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
> >> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=3D42973/*http://www.yahoo.com/preview<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=3D42973/*http:/www.yahoo.com/preview>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
>
>
> --
> "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
>

--=20
- 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