Interpretations:Oregon

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Oregon is some sort of rampaging monster. Stop it if you can!

A supplementary interpretation is that perhaps Linnell is making fun of the way most people, who aren't from Oregon, pronounce Oregon differently. Linnell pronounces it "Ore-gone" in the song, whereas most residents claim that the pronunciation is "Ore-gun."

Thus, "Oregon is bad, stop it if you can" could be read as both a rampaging monster warning and also a plea from an Oregonian for correct pronunciation.

For instance:

Vermonter: "You're from Ore-gone?"

Oregonian: "No, Ore-gun."

Vermonter: "That's what I said, Ore-gone."

Oregonian: "Ore-gun. Ore-gone is bad, stop it if you can."

An additional implication of this theory is that the incessant need to correct pronunciation is equivalent to a rampaging monster, which sounds like something Linnell would do.

This would also account for Linnell pronouncing it incorrectly in "Oregon" though he pronounces it correctly in "James K. Polk."

My two cents: "Oregon", if it weren't a state, would sound a lot like a Japanese movie monster. See also Barugon.

HEY!! I'm From Vermont and I pronounce it Ore-ghin! psh... Stereotypical... --[User:Nerdy4ever95]]

Well, you're right about the song being a plea for correct pronounciation.

But i'm a native Oregonian(i've lived here my entire life), and i pronounce it like Ore-ghin. It's not Ore-gun, and definetly not Ore-gone. Linnell pronounces it incorrectly in "James K. Polk," because he does say "Ore-gun."

If it is a plea for correct pronounciation, which i think it is, then it is a rather ironic plea, considering that the word "Oregon" is not pronounced correctly in any TMBG song.

Yes, I'm a Washingtonian, and we tend to pronounce it correctly, too. The way we Pacific Northwesterners pronounce it is the same way you pronounce organ. You know, like your liver. Oregon.--tehbagel ( o ) 00:47, 7 July 2006 (MDT)

Wait--you pronounce it with only two syllables (like organ)?!? Having just completed an English linguistics degree, I find this very interesting. I also find it interesting that the controversy over the correct pronunciation of Oregon has made Westerners (I'm from the East, but I currently live in the West) so sensitive to vowel distinctions that they notice the relatively minor sound difference between "Or-i-gun" ("Or-gun"?) and "Or-i-ghin" ("Or-ghin"?). I'd venture to bet that, in most situations, the majority of American speakers wouldn't even notice the difference between those two vowel sounds (the u sound in bun, but unstressed, and the i sound in bin, but unstressed) in a word that wasn't socially marked/stigmatized. ~Drew

Indeed we do. I guess you could say the Pacific Northwest has its own accent, as I have noticed some of the points you made, too. But yes, we pronounce it or-ghin, same as the way we pronounce organ. And I notice a huge difference between gun and ghin. Huge.--tehbagel ( o ) 18:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

But my point is that you probably wouldn't notice a huge difference between those two vowel sounds if they were in unstressed syllables in words of three or more syllables that weren't socially marked. I'll try to think of an example for you later when I have more time.

The real problem, though, with this type of discussion is that most people have a picture/idea of how they talk, but their idea is often more like their formal/careful speech (like the language they use when giving a public address) than their more common, casual speech (like the language they use when speaking in a fast-paced, casual conversation with a friend). Similarly, when people are thinking of specific words and pronouncing them in isolation, they often pronounce them differently from the way they would pronounce them in conversation. But most people do not realize either of these facts if they have not studied linguistics (or maybe a foreign language, etc.). By saying this, I am in no way suggesting that people are unintelligent, just that for most people, speech is such a natural, common thing that they don't have to think about it, and so when they do think about it, they are often incorrect in their analyses and assumptions.

But okay, I thought of a word: how would you describe the way you pronounce each of the four vowel sounds in the word intelligence? (And please give me reference points, like "the first vowel sounds like the i in the word ____," etc.) ~Drew

The i is like how linnell says the "i" in "id" in the song A Self Called Nowhere. The e sound is like the first "e" in enemy or lend. The second "i" sounds like uh. The second "e" sounds like the e in tense. The last "e" is silent. In-tell-uh-gence.--tehbagel ( o ) 23:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, cool, thanks for responding. :) That's pretty much how I pronounce it as well. Now, if you were having a casual conversation with someone else who didn't seem to have an unusual accent of any sort, do you think you would notice if they pronounced the third vowel in intelligence as the i sound in id? Because the point that I was trying to make was that, unless someone's really scrutinizing another person's language, or unless the other person is using a word that is marked as "often pronounced wrong, etc," I don't think most people would notice that kind of difference. Let me know if you agree. ~Drew

Actually, I'm very sensitive to accents and pronounciation. So yes, I would notice something small like that. I often notice when people pronounce things differently, but Washingtonians tend to talk very similarly to each other, so I don't hear much of it.--tehbagel ( o ) 02:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Oregon

Interpretations:Oregon

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