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Would some kind soul with access to the dialect chart clue me in on how the pronunciations of the word lever are distributed in US English? I was under the impression that "leaver" was a strictly British pronunciation, and that the only context in which Americans don't say "levver" is in the name of the company that makes Lifebuoy soap.
LEEvrij was an occasional affectation heard growing up in Oklahoma, most often from older relatives in the context of physical application of a LEEver.
LEHvrij / LEHver was far more common among my own age-peers, and LEHvrij was nearly always the pronunciation for political clout, or social LEHvrij.
KiheBard said
LEEvrij was an occasional affectation heard growing up in Oklahoma, most often from older relatives in the context of physical application of a LEEver.LEHvrij / LEHver was far more common among my own age-peers, and LEHvrij was nearly always the pronunciation for political clout, or social LEHvrij.
Growing up in Ohio farm country, I initially heard LEEver only in context of Lever Brothers advertising (and now hearing Unilever, I always think that must have been a rancorious breakup, that on kicking his brother out of the firm, he didn't rename it Lever, Inc., but made a big point of telling everyone his brother had been disowned by making it UNIlever.) However, when I was about nine or so, I learned of "steeples", which were u-shaped staples of rough;y 1/8" steel rod, used for fastening wire fence to wooden fence posts, and of the "leever", a wood and wrought iron prybar about 7 feet long.
We used a lever to lift up a wagon so we could change a flat tire (which was fairly often because tubes were $3, and you could patch a half dozen tubes with an 45c kit. I can still smell the rubber cement and the vulcanization!). We also used the lever to jockey weight onto and off of "harries" (harrows). Not only was this a two-handed tool, but often a two-man tool. A wagon load of grain is HEAVY!
If you were using a staple gun, or an office staler, though, it was STAYple, and if you were using a smaller lever, such as a crowbar, or a lever that was attached to an axle (such as the hand clutch on a tractor), it was a LEVver.
I imagine if you went into a tractor store or a rural hardware store and asked about "steeples" or a "leever", they wouldn't blink an eye at the pronunciation, but would know exactly what was meant. Which is saying something, I suppose. I called the animal shelter once, reporting that I'd found a stray dog, very friendly, an older, overweight collie bitch. The lady on the phone chided me for my language and asked me what gender the dog was.
deaconB said: I called the animal shelter once, reporting that I'd found a stray dog, very friendly, an older, overweight collie bitch. The lady on the phone chided me for my language and asked me what gender the dog was.
Kinda hard to believe that someone who works in a shelter didn't know that term. Cheap help no doubt. Good thing you didn't inflect a comma after "collie."
Ron Draney mentions a "dialect chart"- would that be this? http://spark.rstudio.com/jkatz/SurveyMaps/
Pretty cool stuff, but no mention of leverage. My folks were Brits and I find both LEEvrij and LEHvrij feel comfortable in my mouth. My 1930 Websters (Springfield Mass.) actually prefers LEE ver ij, but that was a while ago, and from a source that may have favored a mid Atlantic accent, I dunno. But wouldn't it be cool to see a dialect map that showed changes over time. Or does this exist?
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