Date:  Sat, 5 Mar 1994 11:18:42 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor <maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU>

Subject: Epiphany on the Tennis Court



Being far from serious about the game of tennis, I often entertain myself

on the tennis court with thinking about all kinds of other things. This

morning I was thinking about our discussion of the vowels in "linguistics"

and started mumbling the word over and over. (My tennis friends didn't

think anything about my mumbling since they know that I often use tennis

games for practicing French or German -- fortunately, they're not serious

tennis players either.) Suddenly I realized that what I'm confident used

to be [i] in my pronunciation has moved closer to [I]. This is kind of

scary. Next thing you know I'll be saying [tEn] instead of [tIn] for

"ten." Must be yankee infiltration.

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)