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Englishuser  #284295  Sun, 22 Oct 06 03:52 PM

Emeritus Professor John C. Wells in his daily phonetic blog on Firday 20 October 2006:

Unusual pronunciations observed recently in the mouths of native speakers of English:

  • from a CNN newsreader, to obey someone sl/æ/vishly. Since the point being made was the possible offensiveness of this expression towards an African-American, perhaps the speaker could not bring himself to say sl//vish. Or was it contamination from lavish? Compare the difference between the two meanings of slaver: ‘slave trader’ with //, but ‘dribble, foam at the mouth’ with /æ/.
  • from a phonologist discussing the formal interface between syntax and intonation, acoustics with //. That’s actually what the BBC Pronunciation Advisory Committee recommended back in the 1930s. Until now I had thought it an excellent example of the lack of influence of this committee, since despite its recommendation (I had assumed) we all say acoustics with /u:/.
  • from the same speaker, the name of David Brazil, the guru of discourse intonation, as /brəˈzɪl/. But our late colleague called himself /ˈbræzəl/.
  • from a scientist giving an academic paper at a conference, asterisk (the punctuation mark * ) with /-ɪks/ instead of /-ɪsk/. I’d always assumed that this contamination from Asterix (the Gaul) was either illiterate or ironic. But I don’t think the speaker was being ironic.

Source: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog.htm

  
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MrPedantic  #284299  Sun, 22 Oct 06 04:00 PM

Actually, I think I hear "(insert an) Asterix" more often than "(insert an) asterisk" these days.

Cf. "Scalextric", which is seemingly almost universally pronounced "Scalectrix", in the UK.

MrP

  
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CalifJim  #284431  Sun, 22 Oct 06 11:21 PM
Any comments?


With regard to slavish:  Not unexpected.  Except for a few nationality terms (Danish, Polish), I think only the lax forms of the vowels a, e, i, or o are ever used in a stressed syllable before final -ish (or -ic or -id). (radish, perish, finish, Spanish, polish, ...)  (u is always tense in such words:  music, mulish, humid)

ks for sk is a common substitute, if you ax me.  Smile [:)]

CJ




  
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