=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 7, no. 41 (18 February 2002) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2sc] So is it Mondy or Tuesday? [Offshoot of [2sa] Aitches and assle] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2]-- Q & A -------------------------------------------------- ** [2sc] So is it Mondy or Tuesday? [Offshoot of [2sa] Aitches and assle] Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 From: Marianne Youdale, MYoudale@aol.com In order to extend the discussion a bit further on pronounciation of what we write and edit: both of my parents were brought up in South London and yet one of them says 'Monday', as I would, and the other says 'Mondy' in skipping the 'a' and yet writing it in the same way as Monday. Is this a class issue too when it can't be a purely regional accent? (And I would still spell 'an hotel' even though I would say 'a hotel'!). ---------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au I often say "Fridy" meself (I'm usually fairly tired at that end of the week...) The "-dy" pronunciation is common enough, and is probably "social" in origin. I rather suspect that "-day" is an example of "over-correctness". That's the phenomenon that makes us (me, anyway) pronounce "again" as "uh-gayn" rather than "uh-gen", and articulate the "t" in "often". Then again, there are those who pronounce "barrow" as "barrer", and the streets of the East End were once infested by "cock-sparrers". (Short "a", as in "cat", in both.) I have a close friend who was born and bred in Notting Hill, but has lived in Australia for an awfully long time. As a young adult, she deliberately changed her accent, because she felt (and feels) that something like "Standard English" is "better" than the language she learned. Interestingly, at odd moments she relapses, and the Mondies and sparrers re-appear. I have also heard at least one (quite elderly and ill-educated) native of Sydney speak of being "follered". So to suggest that it's a "class issue" is probably close to the truth, but we have to remember that class can't be totally separated from regional issues, nor from self-image. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: From: Helen Moore, Helen.Moore@pearsoned.com.au And my great aunt who was an utter lady always confound me by pronouncing 'yellow' as 'yellah'. That was totally acceptable in those days and in her fairly refined social circle. Anyone else familiar with that, or was it an upper-class Tasmanian affectation? (She was born about 1880.) ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au IIRC, in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Mark Twain wrote of a dog named "Old Yaller"; I've always assumed it was a reference to colour (yellow) rather than to noise-making (yeller). ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@rogers.com I say "Mundy", I don't pronounce the "a" in day in any of the seven days. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Drusilla Calvert, d.calvert@macrex.com I'd say Friday in most contexts, but I'd say Fridy night. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Matthew Brown, matthew@brown1953.freeserve.co.uk I'm not sure whether I say Mondy or Monday - I think I say the latter. I definitely say 'aitch' but 'haitch' was endemic among secondary school children in Northamptonshire when I taught there at the end of the last century (yes, it was another era as far as I'm concerned). It didn't seem to have much to do with Irish Catholic teachers (kids came from umpteen feeder primary schools) - much more of a regional thing. But I do know there is a gap between what we think we say and what we can be heard to say. We think we say 'Good morning', for example, but if one does an accurate phonetic (as opposed to phonemic) transcription, many people can be heard to say 'Goob morning' in ordinary unselfconscious conversation. When I say 'heard' I mean heard by a recording device - our ears are usually interpreted by our brains which edit what they receive in phonemic terms, so (we think) we hear 'Good morning'. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Michael Fitch, michaelbfitch@supanet.com Matthew Brown wrote: > I'm not sure whether I say Mondy or Monday - I think I say the > latter. It's time someone pointed out that the choice is between Mundy and Munday - does anybody know of a dialect that says Monday? ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Lane Lester, llester@simpub.com Michael Fitch wrote: > It's time someone pointed out that the choice is between Mundy > and Munday - does anybody know of a dialect that says Monday? Jamaican? [grin] ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au Another tangent... Don't you love it? The inconsistent pronunciation of "o" is an endless source of confusion. Compare "gone", "hone", "done". In my childhood, I never worked out how to pronounce "constable" -- as in "gone" or as in "done"? (I'm still not sure...) At least our transatlantic cousins have eliminated the first variable, pronouncing "gone" to rhyme with "done". Still, so many outside the US think that Americans call their mothers "Mom" (as in non-US "gone"), simply because they don't spell it "Mum" as we do. Comparing US and non-US pronunciation is always interesting. In Japan, I once saw a US book on English pronunciation (alas -- or fortunately -- I don't remember title or author) that said "rider" and "writer" were pronounced identically... Then there was the American who asked an Englishman what he did; to the response "I'm a clerk", he said "What? [or maybe Whut?] You mean you stand there all day saying 'Tick, tock'?" ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Lane Lester, llester@simpub.com Michael Lewis wrote: > At least our transatlantic cousins have eliminated the first > variable, pronouncing "gone" to rhyme with "done". Although a U.S. Southerner, I think my pronunciation of these is pretty common: "gawn" and "duhn." If I pronounced the former as indicated above, "gone" and "gun" would be homonyms. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 12 Feb 2002 From: Judy Stein, jstein@panix.com Michael Lewis wrote: > At least our transatlantic cousins have eliminated the first > variable, pronouncing "gone" to rhyme with "done". Beg pardon? In the U.S., we say "gahn" and "dun." (We do rhyme "going to" with "done," as in "I'm gonna [gunna] check my e-mail...") ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: John Morris, johnjeff@meadowdance.org Michael Lewis wrote: > At least our transatlantic cousins have eliminated the first > variable, pronouncing "gone" to rhyme with "done". Still, so > many outside the US think that Americans call their mothers > "Mom" (as in non-US "gone"), simply because they don't spell it > "Mum" as we do. Here in the northeast part of the US there is a very clear distinction between "gone" and "done. " The "o" in "gone" is very close to the "o" in "constable," but it is not quite the same. I open my mouth wider for "constable" than for "gone." ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: Emma Davis, emma.davis@alia.org.au It may be the fact that I come from farming stock (country NSW), but I pronounce gone 'gawn'. It could be from hearing my grandfather, father and uncles yelling at the dogs -- go on, becomes 'gawn' in the sheep yards. For some reason bag is pronounced baig in my family as well, god knows where that one comes from, but it provides endless amusement for my friends... Apart from those anomalies, I don't think I've got a particularly strong Australian accent. ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: Jane Lyle, jlyle@indiana.edu John Morris wrote: > Here in the northeast part of the US there is a very clear > distinction between "gone" and "done. " Here in Indiana, smack dab in the Midwest, the same is true. I'm a "gawn" and "dun" person. I've never heard a speaker of U.S. English pronounce "gone" to rhyme with "done." "Gone" rhymes with "dawn"! ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: John Crane, jcrane8@bellsouth.net I certainly don't pronounce "gone" to rhyme with "done, and I don't remember ever hearing it pronounced that way. Maybe some regional dialect? ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: Michael Stone, mike@wholeearthmag.com In most of my US experience (California and Midwest), "gone" rhymes with "dawn," and "Mom" rhymes with "bomb." Of course, I'm not altogether sure how some of you pronounce "bomb." (I still remember an Englishman doubled up with laughter over his discovery that Yanks seem to think that all the words in "Hairy Harry married merry Mary" pretty much rhyme. But of course they do.) ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au Well, I sure got that one wrong! Perhaps there's an element here of the inability to hear sounds that aren't part of your own language. To my perception, most Americans I've known do pronounce "gone" as "gahn", and "done" as "dahn". In "He's gone and done something stupid", I _would_ expect "gone" and "done" to rhyme, although of course there'd be differences arising from prosodic stress. (Similarly with "She's some Mom".) My US acquaintances include people from Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, California, and Michigan -- no New Englanders. No, they don't all sound alike -- in fact, I've often been able to identify a speaker's point of origin based on accent. But this point has obviously passed me by. ---------------------- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 From: Judy Stein, jstein@panix.com Michael Lewis wrote: > "gone" as "gahn", and "done" as "dahn". In "He's gone and done > something stupid", I _would_ expect "gone" and "done" to rhyme, > although of course there'd be differences arising from prosodic > stress. (Similarly with "She's some Mom".) Can't account for this perception at all. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 7.41 Admin page: < http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/admin.htm > ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 2001, 2002, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996--2002 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2002, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=