Heard on The Judges: "_an_ harassment"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Dec 30 19:27:28 UTC 2008


At 1:18 PM -0500 12/30/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Forty-ish, Northern, working-class, white female speaker:
>
>"She's just haRASSing me, your honor! This *small-claims* case is _an_
>haRASSment!"

Not so weird with that stress on the ass, which allows the /h/ to
drop, as in "an historical accident", "an hysterical reaction", as
opposed to *"a history".  What would be really strange is "an
HARassment".  (Wilson is alluding here, I take it, to our recent
thread on "an hero" & friends.)

LH

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