Wanna glass a wudder?

Since I moved to Philadelphia a number of years ago I've felt my old reliable Chicago accent (North Side, thank you) falling away. And hearing someone ask for a glass of wudder doesn't seem that odd anymore. Or that my boys play in baseball and soccer TOOR-nah-ments rather than TURN-ah-ments. Ah, the fun of regionality. So, it was interesting to read Charles Harrington's List of 100 Beastly Mispronunciations. (He doesn't explain, btw, why George Bush butchers "nuclear.")

As a side note, when I was a grammar schooler at Immaculate Conception, we were required to raise our hand when we had to use the bathroom and say, "Sister, may I use the lavatory?" But for the first three years of school, I thought that I was supposed to say, "Sister, may I use the laboratory?" (Ah, Catholics and holding their water. It could be a whole psychological study. I'm scarred for life.)

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