Date:    Thu, 7 May 1998 18:05:20 -0400
<br>From:    Beverly Flanigan <flanigan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU>
<br>Subject: Re: been: Ben vs. bin
<br>
<br>'Ben' [bEn] is the norm in (again) Minnesota, and probably as far east as
<br>Chicago, according to my many polled students.  I've lived out of Minnesota
<br>for 30+ years now, so I noticed the change from my childhood [bIn] to [bEn]
<br>first in Garrison Keillor: remember his opening song, "I've ben gone so
<br>long ...?  Then I started hearing it in my Mpls. brother, and then my
<br>rural-area nieces, and on and on.  My sister (in Winona, MN) doesn't have
<br>[bEn], so I suspect it started in the Minneapolis area or northward and has
<br>been spreading outward.  Any other thoughts on this spread?  BTW, I discuss
<br>it in my Soclx class as another vowel shift, from British tense [i] to lax
<br>[I] to lowered lax [E]--something like the [e] to [E] (noted by Bergdahl)
<br>to [ae] in "available" that I asked about the other day.  I recall Reagan's
<br>similar lowering in [kael[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]fornya] ([E] for me); is this common on the West
<br>Coast?
<br>
<br>
<br>At 10:53 AM 5/7/98 +0000, you wrote:
<br>>A student of mine writes in the class newsgroup "On a completely
<br>>different note:  does anyone else pronounce the word "been" like they
<br>>pronounce the boy's name "Ben" rather than "bin?"  I have
<br>>been in a heated discussion about what is correct.  It seems that the
<br>>dictionary prefers "bin."  So why do I say it the other way?"  I don't
<br>>know if this is dialectal or not in the US.  Any answers?
<br>>
<br>> _____________________________________________________________________
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<br>>http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl         Ellis Hall 114c
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<br>>
<br>