Now there's a coincidence !
"You see, Mama, she's crazy like a coyote !"
I'm hearing that said rather a lot at the moment, it's a line in Tennessee William's "Suddenly Last Summer", and although I don't have to say it, the pronunciation of that and many other words is of great interest to me and my 6 companions at the moment as we Valiant Brits rehearse and get our tongues, teeth etc. around the extraordinary (to us) New Orleans accent. Our George (or, should I say, Jaw-edge), and the George on the sample recording we have, is pronouncing it "kai-odi".

We've been given lots of sound archives to listen to - and it's fascinating to hear different pronunciations in the samples, even within the New Orleans ones. My brain goes into automatic pilot, thinking that because it is American I must pronounce the "r" in words like "her" and "garden" - but I'm finding the New Orleans to be surprisingly more like English (posh English): her is "huh", garden is "gawdn" and summer is "summuh".

Sorry for the (slight) thread creep, but I couldn't resist. I'm finding the New Orleans accent fascinating. Are any of you from that area ?

Yours, very truly,
Mrs. Violet Venable a.k.a. Jeanie