Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!newsflash.concordia.ca!news.nstn.ca!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp04.primenet.com!news.shkoo.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!news.PBI.net!ns2.foothill.net!oronet!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-11.sprintlink.net!news.voicenet.com!news2.noc.netcom.net!noc.netcom.net!netcom.com!netcom8!alderson
From: alderson@netcom8.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "cat"
In-Reply-To: exw6sxq@ix.netcom.com's message of Sun, 04 Aug 1996 10:45:02 GMT
Message-ID: <ALDERSON.96Aug5111736@netcom8.netcom.com>
Sender: alderson@netcom8.netcom.com
Reply-To: alderson@netcom.com
Organization: NETCOM On-line services
References: <32047e96.29046042@nntp.ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 1996 18:17:36 GMT
Lines: 11

It occurs to me that I don't know what part of the US Bob Cunningham is from.
Based on his reported pronunciation of "cat", I would guess that he is from
north of the Mason-Dixon line, probably from the Midwest.

Let me refer readers of this thread back to John Lawler's description of the
chain shift taking place in the vowel system in parts of the US.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
