Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Long Island, New Haven

Growing up in Madison, I have noticed a certain tendency to put stress on the "New" in New Haven. I personally say "New Haven," according to the original stress in the word "haven," but lots of people here stress the "new." I considered it a curious quirk of locality here, but the utterance of a person at work last week made me reconsider. She said "Long Island," not "Long Island." I thought, is this then a systematic local way of stressing names on the first syllable, changing their original stress?

Yes, my interests can tend to the microscopic.

No comments: