Talk:S. S. Pierce

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Pronunciation of S.S. Pierce

Paul Monette stated in "Becoming A Man" (Harcourt Brace, 1992) that Pierce was "pronounced 'purse' unless you were lower class." Any corroboration? Cbmccarthy (talk) 15:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Boston-based historian Anthony Sammarco does presentations about S.S. Pierce. In a 2015 recording of one of these, he says the family name was pronounced "pierce" but that when Samuel Stillman Pierce married in 1836 his wife decided to pronounce the name like "purse," which Sammarco describes as "a Boston affectation of the old English pronunciation." He notes that many of the families descended from S.S. Pierce continued to use this pronunciation. (Listen around the 6:30 mark of the recording.) Brooklinehistory (talk) 17:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]