Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 00:04:26 -0500

From: ALICE FABER faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]HASKINS.YALE.EDU

Subject: tour, tore



Mike Picone asks about the pronunciation of _tour_ to rhyme with _lore_ rather

than _lure_. I generally think of this as the _poor_, _pore_, _pour_ question.

When I first took intro to linguistics, I was quite shocked that there seemed

to be people for whom these aren't homonyms, and hard pressed to figure out

just *how* they might be different. Not to mention how _horse_ and _hoarse_

could be pronounced differently. On the other hand, it's perfectly obvious to

me how _merry_, _marry_, and _mary_ *must* be different. Go figure.



Like Vicki Rosenzweig, I'm more-or-less a New Yorker. But I can't believe this

is *just* a NY kinda thing.



Alice Faber

Faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]haskins.yale.edu