|
|
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 4
stranger
|
stranger
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 4 |
OOPS! Didn't read the complete thread before posting this. So southerners aren't as anomalous as I thought... [Can anybody edit a post or can we only edit our own?]
from wwh: And while we're at it, I have never except in jest heard "aunt" pronounced like the appellation of a member of the family Formicidae.
So you haven't spent much time in central Oklahoma, eh? I grew up pronouncing aunt as ant. Upon arriving in the blessed north, a new friend politely pointed out the correct pronunciation (then there was root, which I was rhyming with put - egads), but now it grates a bit to hear the southern version.
Anybody else have southern exposure? I'm curious about whether this is truly a case of southern weirdness [no offense to anybody who loves it] or just a regional anomaly.
Happy Holidays!
diborg
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear diborg: I spent a couple days visiting my son in Airbase near Enid, OK when he was in AF there. I didn't have any contact with local people. I'm not good at recognizing regional accents anyway. I have no idea how Southerners and Westerners detect my origin so quickly. Most of them however, make gross hilarious efforts to mimic it.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I grew up in Chicago. My mother was a Wisconsin farm girl, my father a northern urban born in Scotland who spent most of his youth in New York or Chicago. I never heard it spoken with that horrid aw or ah sound except in jest or pretension.
Just goes to show, I guess
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Dear Faldage,
And you were the one writing recently about how children learn English! It's all environment, not pretension, unless, of course, the environment is ridden with pretension, always a possibility.
Off a bit, I still can't understand why my father's sisters were always ants to me and my mother's, aunts. Both families came from southern Virginia, and there ain't much that's pretentious here.
And off a bit more, my daughter insists upon pronouncing either "EYE-thur." She picked that up years ago in middle school and it plumb (plum? still don't know) goes against my grain.
Best regards,
Ant Wordwind
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Dear Dub' Dub I reserve the right to make fun of others (and myself) without using  s. Eyethur is about all I hear anymore. In my yoot it always sounded pretentious.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Faldage says, I grew up in Chicago. My mother was a Wisconsin farm girl ... I never heard it ["aunt"] spoken with that horrid aw or ah sound ..." and, "Eyethur is about all I hear anymore. In my yoot it always sounded pretentious."
Faldage, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and still live there and my wife is a Wisconsin farm girl. The pronunciations we hear here are ant and eether.
To local ears, awnt, ahnt and eyether still sound pretentious or foreign.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
how do y'all hear the phrase "agony aunts"?
(jest wonderin')
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688 |
I have always said eyether, but say ant. However, I find I have unusual pronunciations for a Buffalonian (one born and raised in the Buffalo, NY area).
How does everyone say roof?
And I have a hard time pronouncing, (of all things), apple! I have this way of saying ahpple, and can't get myself to say it with the harder A sound.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Just wonderin' what in Sam's Hill "agony aunts" are? Is this something esoteric or just still another huge gap in my education?
Pronunciation: AGGG-uh-knee ants, unless you're using it in a poem and you want it to rhyme with taunts, haunts, daunts, etc. (Although wouldn't it be fun to write a poem in which you're thinking that agony aunts is agony ants, and you want the reader to read tants, hants, and dants. Now there's a creative nudge!)
Angel, good to see you again. I say "rooooooof," but lots of people here in Virginia say "ruff"; I think they's all pups, however.
Best regards,
DubDub
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
archetypically, they are the likes of advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,915
Posts229,845
Members9,197
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
403
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
