Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Real men pronounce it "budweiser"   :-)

    If you're particularly fascinated by these gory details, you can go
    back to school and get a PhD and lots (:)) of grant money to study the
    way people say wawa and why people from the western part of the country
    pronounce the "h" in "which" while people from the east say "witch" (so
    they can't tell which witch you're talking about....)
    
    I've always thought one of the nicer things about notes is that
    my VT131 doesn't type with a Western accent!
    
    --bonnie 

>    					...Pygmalion did, too,
>    and was able to discern an accent to a resolution of a few city
>    blocks within London. 
    
I believe that when Pygmalion was around, there WASN'T a London.  You 
must mean Prof. Henry Higgins. (Since both characters are fictional, I 
suppose you could argue it either way...)

Pygmalion (as best I can recall it) was a sculptor in classical Rome who
made a statue of a woman so beautiful he fell in love with it.  Venus
felt the love was so strong, she granted the statue life.  (We can count 
ourselves fortunate that this doesn't really happen...imagine what 
Picasso would have had strolling around on his arm.)

Anyway, now comes our dispeptic playwright G.B.Shaw and writes a play
based on a linguistics professor "creating" someone beautiful, and uses 
the title to link it bacck to the classical story.  But Shaw stoutly 
maintains for the rest of his life that Henry NEVER loved Eliza, and the 
public was a bunch of sodden-eyed happy-ending seekers for wanting them 
to get together in the end.  Well, he chose the title...   I think it 
was just more of the devilment that he loved, and he chose it because he 
knew people would draw the conclusions they did and he could pretend it 
was never in his mind that they would.

Theatre history lesson over.
					Ta,
					>>>==>PStJTT

    CAW-fee is a dead giveaway for someone from the New York City/Northern
    New Jersey area.
    
    _Out_ and _about_ give away most Canadians.  My best phonetic spelling
    would put them as:   OWoot and a-BOWoot, with the OWoot sounded
    as a single quick syllable.

Re: .4

A friend of mine gets infinite enjoyment out of having me say "There's a 
mouse in the house, get out, get out." because I picked up a Maritime accent
from my mother, and the "ou" dipthong comes out "aoot." (Sort of.  
There's no really good way to spell out the sound.)  The interesting 
thing to me is that people from the coastal area of Virginia have the 
same sound.
					>>>==>PStJTT

    If only there were ASCII values for the characters of the IPA.
    
    Phillip
    

    re: the account of the Pygmalion story -- 
    
    Not all classical versions of this story end happily; in many tellings,
    the unfortunate sculptor is punished for his lust. 
    
    --bonnie

    
    You're right. It should be Prof. Higgins.
    
    jim
    

    ....then there was the guy who brought the Venus de Milo to life
    - but they just had an 'armless relationship!
     

    Re last few:
    
    I can see the mistake with Pygmalion.  That was the story used as
    a model for _My Fair Lady_, which contained Professor Harry Higgins.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The way one pronounces the three words "Mary," "marry," and "merry"
    is also significant.  If you (Americans only) pronounce them the
    same, you are from west of the Alleghenies.  If you pronounce each
    word differently, you're from east of the Alleghenies.  I've put
    this to the test many times over the years and it never fails. 
    It's interesting to see that sometimes westerners have a difficult
    time distinguishing the eastern pronounciations when they hear them.
    Once they do detect the differences, they often find them more amusing
    than interesting.
    
    Bernie

    Please define "from." 
    
    For example, my parents are from Kentucky, for some suitable value of
    "from" (my mother's people came to Kentucky with Boone, and her lineage
    contains both the Hatfields and the McCoys). I was born in San Luis
    Obispo, CA; moved to Syracuse, NY when I was 2; to the Gulf Coast of
    Mississippi at 5; to Daytona Beach FL at 8; to Huntsville AL at 11; to
    Greenville, SC at 14; to Columbia MD at 15; made several moves in
    Maryland; and moved to New Hampshire at 24. Where am I "from,"
    linguistically? 
    
    	Jon

    You are the linguistic equivalent of a medical curiosity.
    
    Bernie

    re .12Washington D.C. of course

    Sounds like you are from the genus "Militarus brattus".  :^)
    

    "Wash" is another good test: which areas of the country
    (I know at least the Midwest [west of the original 13
    states :-)]) say "warsh"?
       
    Also in Ohio (pronounced ahia), the word for H2O was
    "warder".

    Bruce (I've lived in 4 states, all different)

    re .13:
    
    Thanks! You made me laugh.
    
    re .14:
    
    Actually, I *do* consider Washington to be "home."
    
    re .15:
    
    I'm really of the subgenus "Nasae brattus." This is in reality a
    misnomer, as we interbreed with both M. brattus and H. sapiens sapiens. 
    
    	Jon

    In the part of enjay that I come from, it's "WUHdrrr".  There's
    an arc tracing about 10 miles west of the GW Bridge that separates
    out the New Yawk speakers from the Jrrzeyans.  The R's flow west.
    
    This can be noted in MAWRistown, but not in Joyzee City, since the
    latter is in the R-less circle.  Oh yes, we drank a lot of CAWfee
    too.
        fred_from_Passaic

    Down in Southern Ro-Di-Land (Rhode Island) we always pronounced
    water as "war-ter".
    
    (Actually doesn't that violate the theory of conservation of R's.
     By the theory we should say "war-ta".)

    My friend, Sandra, is from Toronto, and we've had a heap of
    fun getting her to recite "I'm a Little Teapot" with that
    strange pronunciation of the "out" sound.  (It IS hard to
    describe in writing what a Canadian "ou" sounds like!  Try
    saying "out" a few times, each time with your mouth open a
    bit less than the last.  Sometime before you're just mumbling
    you'll have made the sound.)
    
    But ALL of our friends knew about that little linguistic fluke,
    so the fun we could get out of it was limited.  Came the day,
    however, just before Sandra and I were about to leave for a long
    weekend in Canada when she said the word "shone" (as in "the
    sun shone yesterday.")  I rhymed the word with "bone" and "cone"
    and "stone."  She rhymed it with "dawn" and "lawn" and "Sean Connery."
    
    "'Shone'," I said.
    
    "No, 'shawn'," sez she.
    
    "Say it again."
    
    "'Shawn.'"
    
    "No, it's 'shone.'"
    
    "It's 'shawn.'"
    
    Well, I just assumed she was in a bit of mental verb-lock,
    and that if we dropped it and came back to it an hour later, 
    her brain would have sounded it out again and we would both 
    be saying "shone."  This was at college in upstate NY, and 
    our friends had all left for the long weekend, so we had
    no one around the dorm to verify either pronunciation.  So
    we left for Canada.  We figured we'd ask some of her brother's
    friends when we got to his place.
    
    Her brother, Dave, was also in college, and that night he
    and his four crazed roommates were having a truly olympic
    beer bash in their house.  People everywhere.  Bottles 
    everywhere.  Cigarettes smoldering in pools of liquor.
    Loud music and lots of general ruckus.  Sandra and I step in,
    meet Dave and I'm quickly introduced to those of his friends
    still vertical.
    
    I'm thinking, "No, no, now is _not_ the time..." but before I
    can say anything, Sandra turns to one of the wilder roommates
    and says "How do YOU pronounce shawn, as in 'The sun shawn
    yesterday'?"  He looks bewildered, but says, "...yeah, shawn..."
    
    Sandra looks at me, a lovely kind of vindication in her eyes.
    
    Well, if it's not obvious, a beer bash is _not_ the best place
    to begin an eclectic discussion of linguistics.  Mainly because
    most of the participants will be having such fun laughing 
    at you for grouping "shone" with words like "bone" and "cone"
    and "stone."  And they did.  I had to keep deflecting the conversation 
    to other topics the rest of the evening as strangers stumbled 
    up and said things like, "HOW do you pronounce shawn???"  When
    it came time to leave Dave's place and head on to Toronto 
    I shook Dave's hand.  "Had a great time," I said.
    
    It was a long weekend.  We quizzed Sandra's mother and a few of
    her friends, and everyone was certain I had misplaced a brain
    lobe or two.  But eventually we got back to the States.  Then 
    I had my revenge...
    
    
    			Tom Kelleher

    Surely "shone" should rhyme with "on" and "gone", as in "The sun's
    gone and shone on me." 
    
    This doesn't happen often in Britain, but it does produce a multiple
    (oh, Jeez, no) rhyme.
    
    Phillip

	Re .20:


	"But eventually we got back to the States.  Then 
	 I had my revenge..."
    
    
	No you didn't.  It's "shawn".


	Regards, Robert  (Stateside, or at least Mass/NH)


	PS  It's "war-tur", "war-tuh" if you're in a hurry.  I don't know
	    where these people come from who say "wadda".  Foreigners, no
	    doubt.

    Re: .20, .21, .22
    
    I'll stick up for the pronunciation of "shone" as ryming with
    "stone" [that's me :^)].  All of my dictionaries show it as
    having a long "o" vowel sound.  I find no reference to it having
    a short "o" as in _Don Juan_.
    
    However....there are some arguments that are not really worth
    winning.  Sometimes it's better to consider, "When in Rome do as
    the Romans do."  Unless, of course, you know damn well your right
    and don't care what impression you give to others. 
    
    One good way to catch a Canadian (or particularly a Britisher) is
    to ask if they have a 4th of July in their country.  The answer
    will usually be negative.  So then you ask if their calendars jump
    from the 3rd to the 5th with nothing in between.

    Last year I was is Calgary, Alberta and made a joke about their
    cold winters...as they say about Maine, they have only two seasons;
    winter and the 4th of July.  The Canadian replied with a very
    huffy, "_We_ don't have a 4th of July in Canada!"  My reply to
    that really caught him off guard.  I'm sure he didn't appreciate
    it, but I thought he had it coming! 

    
    My _Webster's Ninth_ shaws "shawn" as a legit pronunciation in Canada
    and Britain.
    

    Re .23:
    
>   One good way to catch a Canadian (or particularly a Britisher) is
>   to ask if they have a 4th of July in their country.  The answer
>   will usually be negative.  
    
    ... not if the Canadian/Britisher is on the ball -- and has in all
    probability heard the question many times before. His/her response
    will be: "Oh yes -- but we call it by a different name than you do".

    At which point the innocent American falls into the trap and says: 
    "Oh really? What do you call it?"
    
    And the reply comes back:

    "Thanksgiving!" ....

	My Random House, 1966, shows only the long "o" pronunciation
	for "shone".  I don't recall finding any other mistakes in
	the dictionary.

	Regards, R.

    Short "o", definitely, throughout Britain, so Yankee dictionaries
    be damned.
    
    Phillip, Miguela, Bryan etc.

    Re: .25, .27
    
    OK. I'll have to file that one in the same category as _zed_ for
    the letter 'Z', and the silent 'u' in _colour_, _labour_, etc.

    To each his own!  There's no point in making an issue over it.
    

    Re: .28
    
>   OK. I'll have to file that one in the same category as _zed_ for
>   the letter 'Z', and the silent 'u' in _colour_, _labour_, etc.

>   To each his own!  There's no point in making an issue over it.

    I disagree, Roy.  There are many points in making issues over this
    kind of thing.  This is a distinguishing feature of this notes file.
    Some American-type person thought it enough of an issue to drop that
    first 'u'.  This person did it, I'm sure, to promote lexical discourse
    through the ages, not to make for more logical spelling or to save on
    keystrokes ... er ... penstrokes.
    Ain't it fun!

    Re: .19,.22  Interesting!  And I always thought 't' in the US was
    an orthographical anachronism, as I've only ever heard it pronounced
    'd' :-)
    
    Incidentally the London (Cockney) pronunciation would be waw'ah
    (the ' representing a glottal stop).
    
    Jeff.

    re .28 - .29
    
    It definitely is one of those areas where we all chose to differ.
    As both Canadian and English, I too pronounce Shone with a short
    'o', like 'shawn'.  Whenever I see color, labor etc., I always want
    to pronounce the o as in "or" or "bore" rather than the softer "ur"
    sound as in "burr".
    
    Another interesting variation also on 'o's I've noticed is the actual
    pronunciation of a long 'o'.  In Canada and Britain, the long o
    is almost aspirated, whereas in some areas of the NE U.S. I've visited
    it has a much more forced and round sound.
    
    stuart

    Sometimes a 'R' gets inserted into "wa" words.
    
    How do you pronounce:  watch, wash, and Washington?