Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 09:42:17 EST

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: local locality pronunciations



I'm not sure whether the eponymous gentleman was being forgotten or

memorialized. I recall a former quarterback--he may have played for the

Jets and/or the Patriots--whose name was spelled Taliaferro (like the county

except for the double t) and pronounced in just that manner, as in Oliver.

So we may not be dealing with perverse toponymy here but perverse onomastics,

if that's the right technonym.

--Larry

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

In this vein, I've always regarded these idiosyncratic local pronunciations as

our modern (modren?) shibboleths. One of my favorites is the suburb of

Rochester spelled Chili and pronounced to rhyme with jai-alai.



LH



From Wayne Glowka

Status: R



A colleague has just reminded me that Taliafero County (in Georgia

somewhere along I-20) is pronounced [taliv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]r] as a means of forgetting the

jerk after whoM the county was named.