So I take it, then, that I am the only person on the planet who says "bwoy" (one syllable)?

This at the insistence of my mother, whose other enunciatory insistences (not for one moment to be confused with preferences) included "hwayle" for whale -- which caused me to refer to them only as cetaceans as long as Mother was alive, since I couldn't possibly enunciate hwayle to her satisfaction; and Feb-roo-ary -- *never* Feb-you-ary! This always seemed a bit over the top to me, as we grew up in California where *everything* is casual, including diction.

Oh, I almost forgot her pronunciation of The Big Easy: Nyew (not Noo!) Oar-lyuns (one syllable, pronounced like the last syllable of onions), Louie - zya (one syllable again, with a short "a") - nuh. Any mention of "Louise" in this context will cause my mother to hurl down a lightning bolt from on high. I know; it's happened to me several times, usually when I slip up and forget to say "cetacean" (easy to do when you're singing cetaceaning chanteys).

Claire