Re: Ice tea and Robin Hood

On Aug 24, 2004, at 3:04 PM, John Cowan wrote:
>> See also the compund-like usage /'r\Abn=,hUd/
>> instead of UK /'r\QbIn 'hUd/ for the name of the folk-hero "Robin
>> Hood",
>> which has bugged me from a very early age (before I even knew what a
>> stress pattern was).
> I think that's because "Robin" is not felt to be a name here; it's only
> the 375th commonest male name in the U.S. (about 0.032% of the
> population
> in 1990), so "Robin Hood" is naively interpreted as a nominal compound
> "robin" + "hood".
> (Source: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names )

What about the possibility of _Robin_ being semi-reanalyzed as
_robbin'_, since that's what Robin Hood does - he "robs from the rich
and gives to the poor".

If you look at it that way, _Robin/Robbin' Hood_ has about the same
stress pattern as _[Mexican] jumping bean_, as far as i can tell.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "the main purpose of the pyramid is to say
   'my unique pyramid is sky high and made of white marble.
   i do not share it with anyone'."
      ~ andrew nowicki

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