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From: "J.F. Gannon" <jfgannon@cloud9.net>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
References: <007e01c2674b$824d3020$84bf578a@cas.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: ay, ah ae oo
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2002 11:29:03 -0400
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>
> 1. I recall vividly a classroom exercise my linguistics professor at Wash
U
> asked us to participate in way back in 1978 or 9. I wish I could remember
> his name. He wrote these three words on the board and asked each of us,
> individually, to recite them: merry, marry, Mary. He then told us whence
we
> each hailed and he was right every time. As in 1978, my students from the
> midwest pronounce all three words exactly the same way.

I have noticed a general tendency from Westerners to pronounce pen and pin
without a difference.  Is this found in Illinois?  Do they say mins, mintis
for mens mentis?

 Being a Yankee who
> pronounces each of the three with a distinct sound, I was stunned.

A Yankee?  In New England a Yankee is a person of old stock, at least
ostensibly old stock.  At least that is how it was when I lived there and in
New England I was not a Yankee.  I had thought that outside New England a
Yankee was anyone from New England, and in the U.K. a Yank was anyone from
the U.S.  Do you think of a Yankee as anyone from the North East?  What are
the boundaries?  Could someone from New Jersey qualify?

Curiously,
J.F. Gannon


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