Obama and indefinite articles

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Nov 7, 2008, at 3:11 PM, Randy Alexander wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Obama and indefinite articles
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 4:04 AM, Bradley A. Esparza <baesparza at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
>> Watching President-elect Obama speak I just heard him say
>> "....*a*international....", not 'an'. <ay>
>> Bradley A. Esparza
>
>
> That's a pretty common disfluency, akin to saying /Ti/ in front of a
> word
> that starts with a consonant.  Both of these are found in the speech
> of
> respectable Standard English speakers.  I wouldn't be worried unless
> he is
> consistent about it.

it's also a well-documented dialectal variant.  not likely for someone
with obama's linguistic history, though.

arnold

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