aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP (03/09/86)
A while back someone was interested in Canadian vs. American pronunciation. I'm living through the differences: an English Montrealer, of English parents, working in Illinois. Here are some of the things I've noticed, and that others have noticed of me: been Q: I usually say "been" IL: My coworkers frequently say "bin" against Q: "ai" - almost a dipthong IL: "inst" gnu, new, knew: Q: gnu like French "nous" new like "nieuw" knew like "nieuw" with aspiration IL: all sound the same, like French "nous" This became quite confusing in a discussion of GNU Emacs and the new version of Unipress Emacs. out, roof, tooth: I've not noticed any difference. I postulate that the earlier remarked upon difference comes from dealing with Canadians of Scottish ancestry from central Ontario.
ccrrick@ucdavis.UUCP (Rick Heli) (03/13/86)
> been > Q: I usually say "been" > IL: My coworkers frequently say "bin" > I recall that in my Illinois grade school we had an 8th grade teacher from Pennsylvania who made a career out of telling the students to pronounce "been" as "bin" rather than "ben"... Is that the same pronunciation you are referring to? It's interesting that she would have had nothing to do here in California... of course, there are a million other things that Californians say "incorrectly"... (-: --rick heli UUCP: ... {ucbvax,lll-lcc}!ucdavis!ccrrick ARPA: ucdavis!ccrrick@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP (03/18/86)
>/* Written 1:13 am Mar 13, 1986 by ccrrick@ucdavis.UUCP */ >> been >> Q: I usually say "been" >> IL: My coworkers frequently say "bin" >> >I recall that in my Illinois grade school we had an 8th grade >teacher from Pennsylvania who made a career out of telling the >students to pronounce "been" as "bin" rather than "ben"... > >Is that the same pronunciation you are referring to? Come to think of it, my coworkers' vowel is between 'i' and 'e', so you might transcribe their pronunciation as "ben". Mine has a long 'e' in it, rather like "bean", although when a Canadian says it you can tell the difference between "been" and "bean". Take a non-useful poetic word like "e'en" and put a 'b' in front of it... Note: I don't use "been" exclusively; "bin" sometimes creeps into my speech for emphasis. I went back home to Montreal this past weekend and listened carefully - the difference does seem to be there.