Date:    Sat, 21 Feb 1998 21:45:19 -0600
<br>From:    "Donald M. Lance"  engdl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: "poor" for "pore" etc.
<br>
<br>     On Feb. 17 Peter McGraw presented the following interesting information:
<br> 
<br> My aunt once told me about a woman of her acquaintance who would "poor"
<br> water out of a pitcher.  My aunt said she asked her once what she
<br> called people who didn't have any money, and she said, "Oh, you mean
<br> pore people?"  I have no information as to where this was.
<br>
<br>-Gerald Cohen wrote on Feb 21:
<br>.............
<br>.............
<br> 
<br>   At one point I had been under the impression that sound changes go in
<br> only one direction at a time..  A double switch of the type "poor" to
<br> "pore" and "pore" to "poor" (in different words) seems to present some sort
<br> of an anomaly in this picture.
<br>
<br>pore 'to study carefully'   == Middle English pouren
<br>pore 'opening in tissue'   == ME pore   == OF   == L porus   == G poros
<br>pour 'to make x flow'   == ME pouren   ==? Old North French purer   == L purare
<br>poor 'with little money'   == ME poure   == OF povre   == L pauper
<br>
<br>With etymologies such as these, it shouldn't be surprising that
<br>considerable variation can be found in pronunciations from early Modern
<br>English through contemporary British and American English.  The vowels in
<br>all of these words were potential candidates for "Great Vowel Shifting"
<br>upward or alternatively for "shortening" in lects in which the -r led to
<br>checked (closed) syllables.  Rather than 'poor' shifting downward, as Jerry
<br>suggests, in some lects it never raised from the French [o], whereas the
<br>vowel in  'pour' was a high vowel that shiftend down in some lects, whether
<br>by some analogical or phonological means.  I'm offering hypothetical
<br>historical scenarios here, not something based on empirical research.
<br>
<br>DMLance
<br>