Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Roger Mills wrote:
>
>> Tommie Powell wrote:
>>
>> >On Mon, 9 Apr 2001 Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>> >> Tommie L Powell wrote:
>> >> > My people (Washington State immigrants from
>> >> > eastern Oklahoma) said [ajdi:] for "idea" but it
>> >> > meant a proposal or intention (not a notion).
>> >>
(Snips)
>> This pronunciation has been around for quite a while; probably from well
>> before I encountered it in "Western" stories of the WW II era and Grade
B
>> western movies -- definitely rustic dialect, usually used for comic
effect
>> (Gabby Hayes might say it, never Roy or Gene).
>>
>
>I picked it up while living in Quebec.
>
That's strange. So few cowboys there. Could it somehow be an anglicization
of Fr. idée (perhaps deliberately mispronounced out of spite?) :-) Or most
likely a relic of some immigrant group's dialect.