Date:  Tue, 10 Oct 1995 23:48:27 -0400

From:  Elaine Green <elaineg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU>

Subject: Re: ornery



On Tue, 10 Oct 1995, Kathleen M. O'Neill wrote:



> I cite my mother's idiolect an awful lot, because hers is one of

> the most eccentric I know of.

> At any rate, I grew up hearing her call us "AHN ree" with a very

> nasal initial vowel -- and for no good reason, I might add. :-)



>

> Of course, my mother comes from Baltimore and, well, there are some

> fun pronunciations in Baltimore.

>

> Any Baltimoreans out there?





I was born in Baltimore, and raised in the Suburbs between Baltimore and

D.C.. I say ornery with three syllables like Kathleen, not like her

Mother from Baltimore. I didn't recognize any of the other

pronunciations she listed, but that could be because I didn't grow up in

Baltimore proper. There definitely are some "fun" pronunciations from

Baltimore- it has been interesting working on a Linguistic Atlas project

in Georgia after growing up in Maryland. I might add that working at

the Atlas has also made me realize that I use positive anymore (as we recently

discussed on the list not to long ago). Now everyone enjoys

"catching" me because I swore that I didn't use that construction. But

that's probably not Baltimorean- that's probably from all the time I spent

in the mountains of central Pennsylvania.



Elaine Green

University of Georgia