Thursday, June 24, 2010

say it: crayon

My Fair Lady is one of my favorite movies, partly because of the diction lessons Professor Higgins gives Eliza Doolittle as he endeavors to transform her, a commoner, into a lady of refinement such as those who work in "flow'r" shops.

Maybe it's owing to the countless hours I spent accompanying voice lessons in college, picking up lots of diction instruction over the years, or maybe it's having grown up in a region of the country known for its distinctive dialect. At any rate, I find it fascinating.

Case in point: the younger lad pronounces the word "crayon" almost like "crown."  Mister Rogers pronounces it (or did, I guess I should say) "CRAY-en", and I say it "CRAY-on."

How do you say it?

2 comments:

  1. I say "CRAY-on", but growing up we said "crown". I started pronouncing it differently when I moved south. I found that people had no clue what I was saying.

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  2. I also say Cray-on, but have a brother in law that says it "crown". I didn't even know that the word was up for interperative pronunciation until then! :)

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