My family are from near the town of Pryor. People who are not from around here think the locals pronounce the name differently than the word prior, but this is not the case. Both words are said the same by locals, and rhyme with fire, liar, choir, and almost with tar. It does come across as one syllable in all these words. The town of Miami, Oklahoma is rather infamous, on the other hand, for purposely insisting on pronouncing the name as Miamah, rather than Miamee, which was really just a matter of dialect, much as Missouri is pronounced Missourah, but they came to see the pronunciation as distinguishng it from Miami, Florida.Darwin wrote:One bit of Southern speech that I've maintained is that I normally pronounce "I" and "eye" as a pure vowel, rather than as a glide. Imagine Gomer Pyle saying "Suh-pri-i-i-ze, suh-pri-i-i-ze, suh-pri-i-i-ze", where the vowel can be drawn out forever without ever changing quality, but never sounds exactly like "ah" or the vowel in "at".
Anyone else have a pure vowel for "I"?
When I was in the first grade, in Florida, there was a kid who had a pure vowel that was a bit higher than mine, and I recall the teacher trying to get him to change it by writing "like" and "lack" on the board. She'd point at one, and then the other, saying "It's ... like ... not ... lack." --as though the difference in spelling would make it sink in for a first grader. She did this over and over for what seemed like a very long time, and just about brought the poor kid to tears. (Our class was held in a Sunday School room in the local Episcopal church, and the big thing was to sneak into the room below the steeple, swing on the bell rope, and then try to get away without the teacher catching us.)
In fact, as a small child I thought that tar and tire were the same word, and that tires were made of tar, just as glasses were made of glass. Retired and retard also sound much the same as each other.
I find that, personally, I tend to use a more "ah" like vowel in words that have I in the first syllable, such as violent, priority, or liability, and use more of the "y-ending" I in words that have it in the final syllable, but never the "oy" sounding I.
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
