CHAT: iron worlds (CHAT: Being both theologically correct etc

At 5:32 pm -0400 12/5/01, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
>> I remember one old timer in the village Church choir pronounced that last
>> word disyllabically thus: /'wVr@ldz/
>
>That's not normal?  I say it /worl=dz/ or /wor@ldz/ (not sure which is
>correct, but disyllabic at any rate), I never realized that that was not
>normal ...
Not down here in S.E. England it ain't. Here it's strictly monosyllabic
/w3ldz/.

Even the western dialects that use retroflex vowels, as Americans normally
do, don't seem to have noticeably dissyllabic pronunciation, being just
/w3_rldz/ or /wV_rldz/; and those dialects (AngloWelsh and some Scots
dialects) that use a trilled /r/ have /wVrldz/.
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At 4:03 pm -0700 12/5/01, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
[snip]
>
>It doesn't surprise me. That word in Icelandic is verold (o-uml.)
I know, and if I'd lived in the Scottish Lowlands or certain parts of north
of England I could wonder if this were not a survival of Norse language
brought there by Viking settlers (the dialects of those areas contain some
Norse forms, e.g. bairns = children), but I didn't.

I lived in Sussex which is as far south as one can go without actually
being in the sea.  No Norse influence down in those parts.
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At 8:09 pm -0400 12/5/01, Roger Mills wrote:
[snip]
>>
>>It doesn't surprise me. That word in Icelandic is verold (o-uml.)>
>
>Nor me.  Dutch wereld, Frisian (IIRC from third-hand) wrald.
That's more relevant.  Yep - in Old English (and that's the only source
relevant for Sussex dialect) we find: _woruld_, _weorold_ and _world_.  It
was, I guess, a rustic survival of the disyllabic pronunciation

>But did he pronounce it that way consistently,
Yes.

>or just in Anglican Plainchant Mode?
Not sure what you mean by this.  In the 1940s & 50s, the village Church
where I grew up was strictly 'Middle Church'; the parishoners would
unhesitatingly class themselves 'protestant'.  Such Anglican churches that
did use plainchant were regarded (correctly, in fact) as "High" and looked
upon with much suspicion.

What, however, was used in chanting the psalms etc, was something known as
'Anglican chant', which was (and probably still is) rather different.  I
guess it probably the same as (or similar to) your "Anglican Plainchant
Mode".  This was used in our village Church, but the chant required only
one syllable, which is why his disyllabic pronunciation was noticeable.

[snip]
>
>During the various Christmas carol services that are broadcast here, I
>always listen to see how they handle the word "iron" in the line  "...Earth
>stood hard as iron..." in "In the bleak mid-winter"-- mostly it's ['aj.rVn]
>with drawn-out [aj] to fit the music--  a distortion to be sure, but
>['aj....j@rn], as if it were "I yearn", really grates.
Rather as "I earn" said quickly.

Here it's /aI@n/ or /aI@_r/ in England, /aI@rn/ in Wales (except the
coastal region of the S.E. where its /ajj@n/, the /j/ being a true
consonant), and /aIr@n/ in Scotland. Note: /r/ in Wales & Scotland is
trilled.

In slow, careful speech /aI@n/ is two syllables, but in allegro speech
/aI@/ tends to be monosyllabic, forming a triphthong.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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