Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:43:34 -0600

From: Ellen Johnson EJOHNSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU

Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy



Waft rhymes with raft for me. Yes, I'm Southern, and I hope I'm mistaken about

the assumption that some here seem to have made that this is the incorrect

pronunciation bc it's Southern and it's an educated word and Southerners are

uneducated. Or something like that. Although someone did note that it might

be more common among Scots-Irish descendants and it doesn't seem like such a

terribly unusual word to me. Anyway, the "broad-a" pronunciation of other

words (path, dance, aunt, etc) has some local prestige but can hardly be

considered standard AmEng. I guess I am just questioning the source of the

original determination of "wahft" as correct.



Linguistic entropy leading to change by analogy is part of what's interesting

about studying "literary words". Good idea for a project. Of course, Chambers

questions Labov's uniformitarian principle that lg changes today as it always

has by bringing up the issue of literacy. The influence of dictionaries upon

the pronunciation of infrequently spoken words is certainly a possibility.



Ellen Johnson

ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cc.memphis.edu