/zh/ replacing /dzh/?

[Dale Coye]

On siege and liege-- my survey of  Eng. profs showed that a bit more than
half used /zh/ in liege in the US and Canada, while in the UK only about a
third did;  But for siege,  no one in the UK or Canada used /zh/ while 1/3 of
US respondents did.
Liege looks more French, and it's less common--we're more likely to think of
it as recent borrowing and go for the French sound.  Both words entered the
language about the same time.


Dale Coye
in NJ