Long vowel before "ll"

Question

When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers took the trouble to remind their readers that "Halley" rhymes with "valley", not "daily". Why, knowing "valley", "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong? Likewise, over the past 50 years I have sporadically encountered educated people who pronounce "phallic" to rhyme with "Gaelic" rather than "Gallic".

Conceivably related is the odd popular U.S. pronunciation of "collate", ('koU,leIt). From the usual pattern for such Latin-derived verbs one would expect (k@'leIt) (cf. collect, relate). Given the stress shift, one would expect ('kA,leIt) on the analogy of collar. Likewise, some technically educated people pronounce "collinear" (,koU'lIni@r), and some even spell it "co-linear".

Are people led astray by the anomalous occurrence of "long o" before "ll" in such words as "poll" & "controlled"? That seems a little far-fetched.

Joe Fineman (Email Removed)

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers took the trouble to remind their readers that "Halley" rhymes with "valley", not "daily". Why, knowing "valley", "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong?[/nq]
What if the newspapers were wrong? ISTR reading somewhere that the pronunciation of "Halley" was a relatively irregular one that rhymed with "daily". IOW, this wasn't some sort of post-Bill-Haley sort of thang.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers took the trouble to remind their readers that "Halley" rhymes with "valley", not "daily". Why, knowing "valley", "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong?[/nq]
Why, knowing "hall", would they not guess something soundng like "hauley"? Which pronunciation, I seem to recall, was one* of the ones offered as the *correct one at the time.

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[nq:2]When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers ... "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong?[/nq]
[nq:1]What if the newspapers were wrong? ISTR reading somewhere that the pronunciation of "Halley" was a relatively irregular one that rhymed with "daily". IOW, this wasn't some sort of post-Bill-Haley sort of thang.[/nq]
Didn't we go over this not too long ago?
New York Times, May 14, 1985
Science Desk; Q&A
Q. So which is it? How does one pronounce correctly the name of the comet now hurtling sunward? Is it Halley's (hail-eez), as I have always been led to believe, or Halley's (hal-eez)?
A. In Edmond Halley's time (1656-1742), comets were more predictable than spellings of his name. Contemporary accounts refer to him as Hailey, Haley, Halley, Haly, Hawley, Hawly and Hayley, and presumably pronunciations varied as widely. Nigel Calder, in his 1980 book "The Comet Is Coming," discussed the three most common
pronunciations: "Ha-li, rhyming with alley, the obvious one for anyone accustomed to the peculiarities of English spelling. Ha-li, rhyming with bailey, often preferred by those who grew up with the pop group known as Bill Haley and the Comets. Ho-li rhyming with bawley, favoured by Colin Ronan, one of Halley's biographers. . . . We telephoned 16 Halleys living in London to ask them what they called themselves. Three declined to say but every one of the remainder admitted to ha-li (rhyming with alley). With such an overwhelming verdict about the present pronunciation of the name there was no point in continuing the survey."
Removed)

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[nq:2]What if the newspapers were wrong? ISTR reading somewhere that ... IOW, this wasn't some sort of post-Bill-Haley sort of thang.[/nq]
Hmm. But you know, the way I say "Haley" is pretty much the way most Americans say "Halley", (he@li), so.

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Ben Zimmer filted:
[nq:1]Didn't we go over this not too long ago? New York Times, May 14, 1985 Science Desk; Q&A Q. So ... With such an overwhelming verdict about the present pronunciation of the name there was no point in continuing the survey."[/nq]
Nice precis..
Do we have any kind of pronouncement (ahem) on the name of James Prescott Joule, for whom was named a unit of energy?...majority opinion among my college professors would be /dZu:l/, with a minority (under the impression that he was French) opting for /Zu:l/...but I've heard that the man himself probably called himself /dZaUl/..r

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers took the trouble to remind their readers that "Halley" rhymes with "valley", not "daily". Why, knowing "valley", "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong?[/nq]
I pronounced it "haily" before I ever knew the spelling of it. I think everyone says it that way around here in Orange County.

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[nq:2]Conceivably related is the odd popular U.S. pronunciation of[/nq]
[nq:1]"collate", ('koU,leIt). From the usual pattern for such Latin-derived verbs one would expect (k@'leIt) (cf. collect, relate). Given the stress shift, one would expect ('kA,leIt) on the analogy of collar. Likewise, some technically educated people pronounce "collinear" (,koU'lIni@r), and some even spell it "co-linear".[/nq]
This is news to me. I've heard a strong "ko" in "collinear" and "collate" all my life, including from math professors and business professionals. But Merriam-Webster agrees with you; it has only one pronunciation for each, and they have "k@". Kuh-LIN-ee-er, kuh-LATE. Almost klinear and klate.

Live and learn Donna Richoux

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Donna Richoux filted:
[nq:2]"collate", ('koU,leIt). From the usual pattern for such Latin-derived verbs ... people pronounce "collinear" (,koU'lIni@r), and some even spell it "co-linear".[/nq]
[nq:1]This is news to me. I've heard a strong "ko" in "collinear" and "collate" all my life, including from math ... agrees with you; it has only one pronunciation for each, and they have "k@". Kuh-LIN-ee-er, kuh-LATE. Almost klinear and klate.[/nq]
"Collinear" is analogous to "coplanar", for which I can't think of but one pronunciation..r

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"collate", ('koU,leIt). From the usual pattern for such Latin-derived verbs ... people pronounce "collinear" (,koU'lIni@r), and some even spell it "co-linear".[/nq]
[nq:1]This is news to me. I've heard a strong "ko" in "collinear" and "collate" all my life, including from math ... agrees with you; it has only one pronunciation for each, and they have "k@". Kuh-LIN-ee-er, kuh-LATE. Almost klinear and klate.[/nq]
I'm puzzled. When you say "Merriam-Webster", what dictionary are you referring to? Both the tenth and eleventh editions of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate have five pronunciations for "collate". One of them has the vowel that our grade-school teachers taught us to call "long o", the vowel in "coat". The Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary on CD-ROM has at least four. In all three dictionaries, no preference is shown for any of the pronunciations.
I have never heard "collate" pronounced any other way than ('koU ,leIt) ("KOH late", where "OH" stands for the "o" sound in "coat"). (I think that's the pronunciation you mean by "strong ko", but I'm not sure. Which of "cot" and "coat" has a "strong ko" sound?) I would find it quite strange to hear it pronounced any other way.
I'm further puzzled by what you say about "colinear". MWCD10 and MWCD11 both have the same two pronunciations, both with the first syllable pronounced as in "coat". In both pronunciations, the stress is on the second syllable, but one has secondary stress on the first syllable while the other does not.

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[nq:1]When Halley's Comet came around a while back, the newspapers took the trouble to remind their readers that "Halley" rhymes with "valley", not "daily". Why, knowing "valley", "alley", "O'Malley", "galley", etc., did so many people guess wrong?[/nq]
Interesting! In Scandinavian Europe, a vowel followed by a single consonant is emphasised. When a vowel is followed by a double consanant, then it is the consonant that dominates and the vowel is clipped.

In Swedish the word written "all" would be pronounced "al" as in "aladin", but "al" would be pronounced as "all". Perhaps there has been a lot of Norwegian/Swedish influence in the language over the past 1100 years? In the North of England, there has been introduced many Nordic words, such as "lek" (to play), "barn" (child), "by" (village)(Maltby, etc.).

Perhaps the Nordic influence extends beyond just vocabulary? Perhaps the Vikings left more than just their seed?
BR MOTU

Long vowel before "ll"

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