Date:    Sat, 21 Mar 1998 10:42:04 EST
<br>From:    RonButters  RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 
<br>Subject: Re: standardization of non-standard forms
<br>
<br>In a message dated 3/21/98 12:50:19 AM, t20mxs1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU wrote:
<br>
<br>  Example:  Despite the occurence of lots of items that I once thought of
<br>as "southern", DeKalb joins northern speech in rhyming the  first
<br>syllable of "any", "many", "penny" with "hen" and "men".  Lafayette,
<br>Indiana is south of that dividing line, in dialect, and rhymes those
<br>words with "skinny".  (Their first syllable rhymes with "pin" or
<br>"thin".)  
<br>
<br>It seems to me that the [En]/[In] pronunciation is not so sharply
<br>differentiated geographically--that for many speakers&locations in the Midwest
<br>the rule is VARIABLE. For example, if I were asked to read a list of
<br>individual words from flashcards, I'm sure that I'd pronounce ANY, MANY, &
<br>PENNY with an [E], but in normal speech I sometimes say [I].
<br>