[Magdalen] Hon" etc.

[Grace Cangialosi]

Baltimore has a restaurant called "Hon's" and a Hon Festivale in June. De Riguer costumes include beehive hairdos, either with natural hair or rubber beehives,  cat's eye glasses with rhinestones.
Great fun!
Blessingbhrsce




> On Oct 2, 2014, at 12:33 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> I had a long telephone conversation this morning with an  old
> friend from Baltimore.  I had forgotten the tendency of the  "Balmereese"
> to sprinkle their speech with the word, "hon" which to me is a  little
> unnerving.  This is especially true with this friend who is a  Harvard
> graduate, and one of the most educated persons I know.  He  does,
> however, pronounce his "r's".
> 
> I just reviewed again the oddity that the Philadelphia and Baltimore  areas
> ("Mid-Atlantic Accent") are the only East Coast USA locations never  to
> have developed non-rhotic speech (not pronouncing internal and 
> terminal "r's", as in "I paaked the caa in the Havaad Yaad",  for
> "I parked the car in the Harvard Yard").
> 
> All the rest of the major ports - Portland, Maine, Portsmouth,  NH,
> Boston, New York City, Portsmouth, VA, Charleston, SC, and  Savannah,
> GA, picked up the new, non-rhotic speech construct of the upper 
> classes of SE England in the late 18th century.  These ports  did
> a lot of business with the English, and dutifully went non-rhotic.
> 
> The reason for holding on to the original rhotic accent, present in 
> all English speakers before about 1790, in the Mid-Atlantic  region
> of Baltimore and Philadelphia was due to the overwhelming influx  of
> Irish, Scottish, West Country (England) immigrants who  pronounced
> "r's".
> 
> 
> David Strang.
> 
>