Comments on: Monthly Gleanings (August 2007)

By: Theme

Theme — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 04:37:38 +0000

[...] guess I’m going to have to buckle down and start learning how to code my own [...]

By: Walter Turner

Walter Turner — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:42:25 +0000

Decades ago, in Mississippi, USA, we were taught in school to pronounce dour to rhyme with poor, and I see in an American dictionary from the 1950’s that that pronunciation was listed first. The word wasn’t, however, in anyone’s speaking vocabulary, unless it was the English teacher’s. I also notice that the OED online doesn’t mention a pronunciation to rhyme with sour.

By: Stephen Goranson

Stephen Goranson — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 11:42:19 +0000

I’d be interested to read your proposal for “element.” I think Michael David Coogan made interesting observations in “Alphabets and Elements,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research no. 216 (Dec. 1974) 61-3 and “)LP, ‘To Be an Abecedarian,” J. of the American Oriental Society v. 110 no. 2 (1990) 322.

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:21:08 +0000

The only person I can recall who pronounced it to rhyme with “poor” was Scottish …

By: Leslie

Leslie — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 21:05:59 +0000

I have been told that speakers of British English rhyme dour with sour rather than with poor, which is the way it is done in American English.

I was born and raised in the U.S., and everyone I’ve ever run into, including me, pronounces it like “sour”. I’ve never heard it pronounced “door”.

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:38:06 +0000

““…dancers in a dancehall were encouraged to move off the dime, that is, not to stay glued to each other in one place. ”

“Hmmm …. makes one wonder about the 30’s song, “Ten Cents A Dance.”

“Just coincidence?”

If I may comment on my on comment – thinking about this a bit more, I wonder how solid the evidence is for the dancehall interpretation given of “move off the dime”.

If the use of dime in the dancehall expression dates back to the “taxi dance” of the 20’s and 30’s, then “move off the dime” could have a very different interpretation – “His dime only paid for a short dance. Get it over with and move on to another customer!”

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:20:27 +0000

“…dancers in a dancehall were encouraged to move off the dime, that is, not to stay glued to each other in one place. ”

Hmmm …. makes one wonder about the 30’s song, “Ten Cents A Dance.”

Just coincidence?