Re: New Englishisms

On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Brian Betty wrote:

> Well! While we're on the topic of regionalisms, let me make some
> observations about New English speech (New Englanders ... )
I'm not a New Englander, not even an Old Englander (though I lived in
Salisbury for eighteen months). I speak English with a
cultured-Southern-English accent as well as a slight Canadian accent,
and I've also got my Dutch accent back that I lost when living in
England...

> 1. clip everything. I say ev'ry, ev'rything,
Doesn't everyone? I've never heard "every" said in three syllables.

> Christmas /krismis/
Mine is [krIsm@s]

> 4. I say /o:fn/ (o: is aw in law).
[of@n]. Even put the /t/ in for a while, but dropped that because it
tasted like an affectation. And for the record: orphan [o:@f@n] with
a kind of subdued shwa standing in for the /r/.

> 5. I claim to recognise the audible difference between Mary, marry, and
> merry, which to my Oregonian roommate is all /meri:/ (here r = American r)
> and to me is /maeri:/, /mae:ri:/ and /meri:/, respectively.
"Mary" is longer than "marry"? Exactly the other way around here.

> 7. Also, ts are frequently replaced by glottal stops, especially in
> syllable-final position: hi' for hit. si' for sit.
Mine is not so much a glottal stop as a soundless alveolar stop (i.e.
where the /t/ ought to be).

   Irina

               ira@rempt.xs4all.nl (mailing list address)
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
     http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/frontpage.html (English)
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