I would say, if one did not have access to a recording, that intent of
the spelling of the lyrics is obvious, and in most cases, it is nearly
obvious what is intended by the two juxtaposed pronunciations.
It is still quite interesting, though. For example, unlike the earlier
comment, "tomato, tomahto" reads right to my ear, but, "pajamas,
pajahmas" both sound the same to me. (I could figure it out if I had
to sing the song, though.)
Ray Horton
Michael Cook wrote:
As published by Warner Bros, Lyrics by Ira Gershwin (copyright 1936,
1937, renewed 1963, 1964 George Gershwin Music and Ira Gershwin Music)
You say ee-ther and I say eye-ther
nee-ther; ny-ther
po-ta-to; po-tah-to
to-ma-to; to-mah-to
pa-ja-mas; pa-jah-mas
laugh-ter; lawf-ter
af-ter; awf-ter
va-nil-la; va-nel-la
sa's'-pa-ril-la; sa's'-pa-rel-la
choc'-late; straw-b'ry
oyst-ers; erst-ers
Depending on your accent in English, when you say the above words they
will or they will not sound as they do when Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers sing them in the film "Shall We Dance" (in a great dance number
on roller skates, by the way). The only really clear way to indicate
the pronunciation in a score would be to use the IPA, but (sadly) not
enough people learn that anyway. It's better to accept that for this
sort of music, recorded original performances are at least as
important as the printed score.
Best wishes,
Michael Cook
On 10 Apr 2006, at 20:25, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 10 Apr 2006, at 11:58 AM, Robert Patterson wrote:
Does anyone have the sheet music? If the printed lyrics show no
difference in spelling,
I believe the printed music spells the words phonetically --
"tomato," "tomahto," etc.
- Darcy
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