End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Mar 1998 to 18 Mar 1998
************************************************
======================================================================
From: Automatic digest processor (3/18/98)
To: Recipients of ADS-L digests
ADS-L Digest - 16 Mar 1998 to 17 Mar 1998 98-03-18 00:00:35
There are 6 messages totalling 194 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. midwestern pronunciation (2)
2. mebos PS
3. DES MOINES/NINE
4. mebos and zori
5. children's rhymes
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 01:02:46 -0600
From: "Donald M. Lance" engdl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU
Subject: Re: midwestern pronunciation
At 02:54 PM 3/16/98 -0600, Donald M. Lance wrote:
Should we consider Des Moines/fifty-nine an eye
rhyme, a slant rhyme, or an exact rhyme? Is there any evidence than an
Iowa-born Kansan in the late 19th and early 20th century would pronounce
"Des Moines" and "nine" alike, and if so, would it be close to "Des Mine" or
"noin"?
Alan Baragona
Perhaps related to join/jine, boil/bile, etc.
That's why I was wondering. If this were British English of a certain
period and region, that's what I'd assume. But is this a phonetic pattern
found in the midwest at the time in question?
I can't answer that. A couple of days ago I had Harold Allen's volume on
pronunciation in the Upper Midwest but turned it in because it was overdue,
so I can't check things there.
The way these pronunciations would have been related to join/jine, as I
assume you understand in your reference to earlier British English, is that
the "long i" was schwa-I rather than ah-I and "oi" had a centralish onset
as well. I wouldn't be surprised to find some Americans in many parts of
the country in the 19th century with vowels of that sort. So it could have
been a rhyme or near rhyme. Your original posting didn't give enough of
the context to allow for more than speculation. Could the poet have been
playing with language?
DMLance