At Large : That's not us talking
This is what makes columnists toss and turn at night.
An email like this one arrives: "You blew it again, Cabral. There is no such contraction as 'nor'easter.' The correct contraction for northeast is 'no'theast.' Nor' is used only when preceding west as in 'nor'west.'"
The author of this love note is Everett Poole, fish impresario, former Chilmark selectman, and current Chilmark town moderator, who in many immoderate moments over the years has jumped with both hip boots on something he's found in this newspaper, and especially on something I've written. Every time I put finger to keyboard, I'm aware that Everett, pipe fixed between his teeth, long-billed cap perched firmly on his gleaming head, will examine the result, ready to gaff me.
But, finally, he's overplayed his hand. Finally, he's played right into mine. Finally, he's taken the bait. Finally, I'm the one with the gaff.
Everett referred to a front page headline in the June 25 print edition of The Times, "Persistent nor'easter claims victim." The headline accompanied a news story and front page photograph of a sailboat thrown up on the beach east of R. M. Packer Company in Vineyard Haven. I often write headlines, but I didn't write that one. I had written "Persistent easterly claims victim", but in the late stages of production, someone substituted "nor'easter" for "easterly."
When I saw "nor'easter" in the morning in print, there wasn't anything to do about it. When I saw it on the website, I had it changed to "no'theaster." Everett is an ink on paper sort of fellow, so he didn't see the change on mvtimes.com. He figured he'd drag me gasping over the rail, club me, and shove me in the fish hold. Instead, he'll have to face it - and this will be hardest of all for him - we agree.
Indeed, wrong as he is to abuse me the way he has done, Everett is right, well almost right. There is no such contraction as "nor'easter", or to be precise, there is one that's often used, but it's not authentic, not in any sense of the word. It's pretentious, one of those silly affectations, like "board of governors" for the members of the Steamship Authority, as if they met every couple of months at the Federal Reserve in Washington to decide interest rates. It's a pronunciation whose users pretend to an unearned saltiness. It's falderal that's caught on.
Everett and I will have to fight stiff head winds and a roaring head tide to force a change in this settled "nor'easter" nonsense. Even as I type this, Microsoft Word says okay to "nor'easter" and underlines "no'theaster" in red. As historically, linguistically, and aurally baseless as "nor'easter" is, it's common among dilettantish New Englanders, writers, journalists, and poets, and it's accepted in dictionaries. You won't find "no'theaster" in the dictionary.
It's a non-word that no genuine New England salt like Everett ever uses. It's like Manhattan clam chowder, not chowder at all. It's like asking for scallops (sounds like gallops) when you want scallops (sounds like polyps). It's like sailing up-east. It's like me saying whuddup to my son. It's like saying hook up when you mean falling in love.
And, although for me, Everett is all the etymological authority necessary to pronounce "nor'easter" out and "no'theaster" in, I can refer you to people who study words and agree with Everett. For instance, Mark Liberman, trustee professor of phonetics in the department of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, writing in Language Log, on January 25, 2004. The headline on the item is "Nor'easter considered fake."
Professor Liberman cites Jan Freeman, in the December 21, 2003 The Word column in the Boston Globe.
Professor Liberman writes, "Jan Freeman cites an interesting alleged mispronunciation: 'nor'easter'... The Globe doesn't (wittingly) use nor'easter for a disturbance blowing from the northeast, but in other newspapers, and especially among TV weather people, it's common. How, asked reader Bill La Pointe, did this "bogus term" gain acceptance? It's not, after all, a regional pronunciation, as many journalists outside New England now believe. 'I grew up on Cape Cod when there still existed a pronounced local accent,' wrote George Hand. 'The word - spelled phonetically - was nawtheastah.' Sailors disclaim it, too: They may say sou'wester, but never nor'easter.
"The facts, however, have not slowed the advance of nor'easter: Even in print, where it's probably less common than in speech, it has practically routed northeaster in the past quarter-century or so. From 1975 to 1980, journalists used the nor'easter spelling only once in five mentions of such storms; in the past year, more than 80 percent of northeasters were spelled nor'easter. It's no more authentic than "nucular" for nuclear or "bicep" for biceps, but it would take a mighty wind, at this point, to blow nor'easter back into oblivion."
The professor continues, "In rural eastern Connecticut, where I grew up, locals also pronounced northeaster without any tendency to drop the final consonant of north. However, the OED cites a bunch of examples from 1837 onwards: 1837 B. D. WALSH tr. Aristophanes Knights I. iii in Comedies I. 175 Slack your sheet! A strong nor'-easter's groaning. 1891 A. AUSTIN Lyrical Poems 9 Nobody..could ever dream of holding up as the model of a delicious climate that alternation of swirling, dusty nor'-easters and boisterous, drenching sou'-westers which we in England recognise as spring. 1931 A. J. CRONIN Hatter's Castle II. ix. 368 Did you see that shot of mine, cocky?.. It was a regular nor'easter, a pickled ripsnorter. 1972 F. MOWAT Whale for Killing (1988) x. 99 By Monday morning a bitter nor'easter..had shrouded Burgeo under a low and scudding overcast. 1997 A. R. AMMONS Glare 193 Well, it's Easter morning right now, with a nor'easter, out-of-whack, whipper-jawed, eight-inch dump load of snow on the ground.
"I'm not very impressed," the professor, in summation, declares, "with the credentials of these writers for establishing the pronunciation (or spelling) of a characteristically New England meteorological phenomenon: A. J. Cronin is from Scotland; Farley Mowat comes from inland western Canada (though he lived in Nova Scotia for some time); A. R. Ammons is from North Carolina.
"Subject to correction, the picture that seems to be emerging is that nor'easter is a literary affectation. This would make it something like e'en for even and th'only for the only, which I have been told originated as an indication in spelling that two syllables count for only one position in metered verse, with no implications for actual pronunciation. The comparison with sou'wester is interesting. There are two obvious differences between the two words: the theta in southwester is preconsonantal, whereas in northeaster it's prevocalic; and southwester is also an old word for a common article of clothing, namely an oilskin rain hat, with equivalents in Dutch zuidwester and German südwester."
If all that doesn't settle the matter, then I refer you to Everett, but with this caution. You never know what will get him rearing up on his hind legs. When that happens, it's best to put your engines full astern.
