The coyote[e] thing.
Apr. 9th, 2007 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnationOkay, so I had this vague theory that people from places where you actually might run into coyotes on a regular basis say "coy-ote", while people who never actually see them say "coy-ote-ee".
Thus, using the ever-so-accurate self-selecting "people I know who use livejournal and answer polls" method, I set out to prove or disprove this. In retrospect, I should have been more clear about only really caring about the final syllables and not so much about the "coy" part, which seems to vary a bit. Discussion of that with my brother ended up with a link to this article about The Oregon Accent:
NPR: Do you speak American? (on the Pacific Northwest).
He also brought up a friend who, when he's not piloting airliners, often shoots things and who my brother considers a pretty much pure example of the Oregon accent discussed in that article. He very definitely says "coy-ote."
The people who also say they say "coy-ote" are![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mcv (New England, not Maine), arcticelf (the Northwest, specifically I believe Alaska), mathilde (NE, !M). In the write-in portion, purly (NE, !M) said she switchs back and forth and throws in "coydog" for fun. invader_haywire and booniesjen are also switchers.
Another person from places where coyotes roam,desertlover (who grew up in the Southwest) said something interesting: "Both! Ki-ote is less formal." Talking to ninoshka just now, she says that her mother (from Wyoming) says "coy-ote" and also pointed out that "coy-ote-ee" is more formal. I wasn't aware of that. I'm not really sure what sort of coyote-related situations would qualify as formal. Perhaps if a coyote were to preside over your wedding or you encountered a family of coyotes in line at the movie theater you would politely refer to them as "coy-ote-ees." (Or if you were to encounter Coyote wandering down the road-- it's important to be formal when dealing with trickster gods.)
So, the non-Californian Westerners (in retrospect, separating California and the deserty Southwest would also have been a good idea as well, plus sorry Pennsylvania) and non-city-ish Westerners appear to mostly say "coy-ote."
Overall, from my limited and pretty weird selection, it seems like my hypothesis is at least marginally supported. People who mostly hear of coyotes on TV or only discuss them rarely (i.e. city folks) use "coy-ote-ee," while people for whom coyotes have been a part of life for more than a generation say "coy-ote." People with coyotes terrorizing neighborhood pets fall into the first category-- for the most part you didn't grow up with dens of coyotes right over the hill or out in the back 40. Coyotes are relatively new members of your communities, forced to forage in cities and towns as the open spaces they once roamed become more built-up.
I expect people will now pipe up to disagree with me. If you do, please give me some idea of why, and of your family background... If you live in Boston now and say "coy-ote-ee," say, did you grow up on in a farming town in the Midwest? If you remember, what did your parents say?
Thus, using the ever-so-accurate self-selecting "people I know who use livejournal and answer polls" method, I set out to prove or disprove this. In retrospect, I should have been more clear about only really caring about the final syllables and not so much about the "coy" part, which seems to vary a bit. Discussion of that with my brother ended up with a link to this article about The Oregon Accent:
NPR: Do you speak American? (on the Pacific Northwest).
He also brought up a friend who, when he's not piloting airliners, often shoots things and who my brother considers a pretty much pure example of the Oregon accent discussed in that article. He very definitely says "coy-ote."
The people who also say they say "coy-ote" are
mcv (New England, not Maine), arcticelf (the Northwest, specifically I believe Alaska), mathilde (NE, !M). In the write-in portion, purly (NE, !M) said she switchs back and forth and throws in "coydog" for fun. invader_haywire and booniesjen are also switchers. Another person from places where coyotes roam,
desertlover (who grew up in the Southwest) said something interesting: "Both! Ki-ote is less formal." Talking to ninoshka just now, she says that her mother (from Wyoming) says "coy-ote" and also pointed out that "coy-ote-ee" is more formal. I wasn't aware of that. I'm not really sure what sort of coyote-related situations would qualify as formal. Perhaps if a coyote were to preside over your wedding or you encountered a family of coyotes in line at the movie theater you would politely refer to them as "coy-ote-ees." (Or if you were to encounter Coyote wandering down the road-- it's important to be formal when dealing with trickster gods.)So, the non-Californian Westerners (in retrospect, separating California and the deserty Southwest would also have been a good idea as well, plus sorry Pennsylvania) and non-city-ish Westerners appear to mostly say "coy-ote."
Overall, from my limited and pretty weird selection, it seems like my hypothesis is at least marginally supported. People who mostly hear of coyotes on TV or only discuss them rarely (i.e. city folks) use "coy-ote-ee," while people for whom coyotes have been a part of life for more than a generation say "coy-ote." People with coyotes terrorizing neighborhood pets fall into the first category-- for the most part you didn't grow up with dens of coyotes right over the hill or out in the back 40. Coyotes are relatively new members of your communities, forced to forage in cities and towns as the open spaces they once roamed become more built-up.
I expect people will now pipe up to disagree with me. If you do, please give me some idea of why, and of your family background... If you live in Boston now and say "coy-ote-ee," say, did you grow up on in a farming town in the Midwest? If you remember, what did your parents say?