M Keith Abel wrote: > A few years ago I had a neighbor recently arrived from Scotland, Glasgow > area I believe, with a very broad accent which the "Canadian" English all > around her failed to dilute. > > She pronounced my name which is spelled "Keith" as "Kayth" I wondered if > that was the effect of the reversal of the "ei" from the normal "ie" in > English. > > She pronounced "Jean" as "Jane" and when I hear the discussion repeated > every year of the equivalence of Jean and Jane it seems hardly surprising if > that is the way they are pronounced in Scotland. It's not! It may be that, as Ray has explained, she simply considered the two names equivalent - but I would have to say that her pronunciation of "Keith" was seriously odd. I have lived in various parts of Scotland, and have invariably heard that name pronounced to rhyme with "teeth". From your description, I wonder if the neighbour was not from Glasgow at all, but had arrived via Glasgow from Ulster (Northern Ireland), where one can meet with some very unusual vowel sounds. A friend of mine once recounted how he had been taught to swim by an Ulsterman, whose advice on doing the breast-stroke was: "Now, ramamber, and band yur knays!" His pronunciations of "knees" is rather reminiscent of your neighbour's rendering of "Keith". Gavin Bell