Date:  Wed, 6 Dec 1995 08:48:35 CST

From:  Lisa Pogoff <POGOFFL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MDH-ENVH.HEALTH.STATE.MN.US>

Subject: Re: name's the same



>> 'bIuhg.'

>I've never heard this pronunciation for 'bag' here in MN. The usual

>pronunciation here is [be:g] (It's a scream to hear a bunch of Minnesota

>kids say the the "Pledge of Allegiance" to the [fle:g]!). When my oldest

>son was in first grade, one of his spelling words was 'bag'. When the

>teacher, a MN-sotan, pronounced the word, he naturally wrote <b-e-g>, which

>is what he heard her say. So, his perfect score was dashed because of

>dialect interference.

>What's really interesting, tho, is that when my wife and I asked the

>teacher about this at parent/teacher conference, the teacher could hear

>no difference between her pronunciation [beg] and ours [baeg]!

>Fritz Juengling



Upon moving to MN, I was surprised to hear my co-workers pronounce

the male name "Don" and the female name "Dawn" exactly the same way.

Are they also pronounced the same in other parts of the country?