End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Mar 1994 to 3 Mar 1994

**********************************************







There are 5 messages totalling 93 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Something old, something new (2)

 2. local locality pronunciations

 3. local locality pronunciation

 4. bad hair day



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 4 Mar 1994 01:05:18 CST

From:  "Donald M. Lance" <ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Something old, something new



Since posting the [ku p[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ng] info I've off and on wondered how that nasal

got there. I wonder what old British dictionaries have. I don't have

time (or inclination) at the moment to dig further. Maybe someone else will

have a response to Gwyn's question.

In Tom Murray's study of St. Louis speech he reports the following interesting

data:             informal midformal formal

                %  n   %   n  %   n

[u] in due,   upper class 77 236  55  161 42  138

news, etc.    middle "  97 294  90  269 81  242

         lower  "  100 314 100  351 100  301



[u] in coupon  upper class 65 198  49  152 34  101

         middle "  74 228  62  169 56  160

         lower  "  81 238  74  227 71  212



These data suggest that these items are not in the same set. I recall as

a teenager having conversations about whether 'coupon' should be said with

[u] or [yu]. The question also came up within the family regarding the

term 'coupe' for a type of car body, the latter having two questions, the [u]

/ [yu] and the final -e.

But I don't recall any debate in our family over the vowel in 'due' etc.



I had some high school teachers from North Midland areas (Dayton, Wash DC)

and thought their [u] pronunciation might be better, so I consciously worked

on changing several of the words in that set*and managed to get the whole

set changed. For some reason in the past few years (after age 55) I've

played with recovering the earlier pronunciations. These are things in

my awareness; I can't swear to which pronunciations I used 100% of the

time between age 16 and 55. *("That set" was 'due' 'new' etc, but not

necessarily 'coupon' and 'coupe'; I don't recall what whether I included

the latter in "that set")

             DMLance