Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-sally.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!zehntel!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!riddle From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: 'enry 'iggins in America Message-ID: <476@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 23:14:17 EST Article-I.D.: ut-sally.476 Posted: Wed Dec 12 23:14:17 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 16-Dec-84 06:38:11 EST References: <2712@ucla-cs.ARPA> Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills Lines: 20 My sister and I spent our early childhood in Fort Worth, Texas, then moved a relatively short distance away to a town in Oklahoma. Our mother and father are from Dallas, Texas, and from northern Louisiana, respectively. Shortly after our arrival in Stillwater, my sister and I discovered that we were the only people in our acquaintance who pronounced certain words -- forest, orange, porridge, and even forehead -- with an "ar" sound as in "far" rather than an "or" sound as in "for". Neither our parents nor any of our classmates pronounced these words like we did. Years later, we both moved back to Texas -- Dallas and Austin, specifically -- and expected to find that everyone else pronounced these words like us. No dice. I've since been told that this pronunciation is peculiar to natives of Fort Worth. Given the fluidity of the population in this part of the country and how near Fort Worth is to Dallas, I find this surprising. Can anyone else corroborate it or offer an explanation? By the way, it appears that you can tell a Houstonite from a real Texan [:-)] because Houstonites call their home town "YOO-stun," while everyone else says "HYOO-stun." --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle