Hypercorrection?

[Peter A. McGraw]

What was the context and who was the speaker?  I can imagine
hyperenunciated pronunciations like this getting ossified in certain
contexts--in this case, in a personnel office, for instance, or in the
office of a law firm that specializes in employment law.  People who work
there might take such pronunciations home with them.

I once served on a jury in Newark, NJ, and the judge (and as I recall,
everyone in the court) always referred to the defendant as "the
dee-fen-DANT."  (Maybe this isn't quite comparable to "employ-ER," since I
don't know what contrast it would be trying to make clear.)

Peter Mc.

--On Friday, May 20, 2005 1:43 PM -0400 Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
wrote:

> "She called my emploYER [Employ^r]." I.e. Stress is on the final
> syllable. This looks like an overcorrection based on the stress
> pattern of "employee," which didn't occur in the course of the
> exchange.
> --
> -Wilson Gray



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************