Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 23:05:55 EST
From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU
Subject: Re: On Wisconsin!
FWIW, My wife's name is Holly and she complains that Minnesotans call her
[haeli]. A bit of an exageration, but not too far off. This fronted,
nasalised pronunciation seems to be age graded (with younger people
seeming to have the more fronted/nasalised version) and, I believe,
urban, altho I have not made enough tapes (I did a small study of this
feature in the summer of '94) of ruralites to make any conclusive
statement.
Ah yes, the Great Northern Vowel Shift. I've heard Bill Labov talk about it
for years, but my most memorable encounter was still my first, back in the
early 1960's in my undergraduate days at the University of
RIAAAENNN-ch'ster (that's supposed to be a highish front very nasalized
vowel)--the university/city east of Buffalo, where I spent one puzzling but
ultimately enlightening hour on a blind date with a young woman from the area
who seemed to be talking about salads and couldn't figure out what \I/ was
saying, since she meant SALads, you know, as opposed to liquids...
--Larry