state and run

[jazzfish]

Fascinating:

The people of southern Louisiana. . . consider their culture unique, inherently interesting, and more fun than that of fellow Southerners who live in the Bible Belt north of Alexandria, Louisiana, and across northern Mississippi and Alabama. Their cultural and linguistic affinities run east and west along the Gulf of Mexico, and Northern Louisiana might as well be a separate state. This divide shows up in the pronounciation of the state name, with northern Louisiana favoring four syllables beginning [luz-] and southern Louisiana favoring five syllables beginning [luiz-].

--Connie Eble, "The Englishes of southern Louisiana." Available in "English in the Southern United States," eds. Nagle and Sanders.

(Pop, who insisted that "it wasn't named for Louise," was from Jones, which is about three miles from the Arkansas border.)

[Poll #1458385]

Ran two miles on Monday morning despite not having been out running in two weeks, which I figured meant I was in decent shape. Today, struggled to get through one, and after a bit of cooldown made it most of a second. I am saddened to report that They're right when They say it's not the heat, it's the humidity. 90% is nobody's friend even if it's 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe Friday will go better.

Comments

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Soon to be renamed to Lulziana? :)

five syls

[fishy1.livejournal.com]

*despite* several years' training in Montgomery, or possibly because, i'm not sure.
Though now i'll have to start in with Atlantis. :)

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I only use the four-syllable version when singing "Oh, Susannah."

[jazzfish]

I don't have photoshop at work so you'll have to pretend that this comment contains a map of Louisiana with the caption LOLZIANA WUT.

Re: five syls

[jazzfish]

Congratulations? :)

[jazzfish]

Fair enough. :)

[playing-tragic.livejournal.com]

Funny, I'm a "northern" southerner (NC) yet I pronounce it with 5 syllables. (Or was he speaking strictly in a northern Louisiana vs southern Louisiana context?)

[jazzfish]

I'd always thought that /everyone/ pronounced it with four, and that people who used five were just being overly literal to be funny, like pronouncing "February" like it's spelt. Then a couple of months ago a friend of mine mentioned how she'd spent some time in "lew-eez-ee-an-uh" and I did a double-take. Since then I've been sort of obsessive about asking new people where they're from and how they pronounce it.

There's a weak correlation between 'raised southern' and 'four syllables,' in that not all southerners use four, but everyone who uses four was raised southern. (I learned to talk from two Arkansans, so I count myself as 'raised southern' here.)

As to your actual question :) I think it's a distinction between 'south Louisiana' (Creole country) and 'the rest of the South.' NC and VA and KY, and even TN, are weird in that regard, they've had some linguistic drift towards Yankee speech patterns. (Just don't tell them that.)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I think of the "Oh, Susannah" version as being more of a contraction: "La'we-ze-an-uh"

But I was also raised by a not-at-all southern family who believes in diction, so that could be part of it.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

*cough*... I also pronounce February with all its letters, too.

[jazzfish]

Hm. And I do know a few other people who do that nonironically as well (mostly people with exceptionally proper diction, as you note), so it's a poor example. Wed-nes-day would have been a better one.