Date:    Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:01:42 -0500
<br>From:    Beverly Flanigan  FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal"
<br>
<br>    I never thought I'd hear the pronunciation of 'goal' as 'gool' (=ghoul)
<br>    again--we said it in Minnesota, but I haven't heard it for 30 years or
<br>    more.  I associate it with my parents' generation, dying out in my own,
<br>    and dead now.  I've asked my students from up North (Minnesota and
<br>    Cleveland) as well as from Pittsburgh and central PA, and no one has
<br>    heard 'gool."  I wonder if the Pittsburgh speaker was a Northerner by
<br>    birth, and perhaps older?
<br>
<br>    A possible variant is [gUl], with a lax vowel (maybe even a schwa),
<br>    which I understand is Scots-Irish (so says a colleague from London);
<br>    but where did [gul] come from?
<br>