pundints

[Herb Stahlke]

McCain is getting ribbed by MSNBC personalities, so far Olbermann and
Maddow, for his phonological phenomenon of nasal spreading.  Both of
them commented this evening on his nasalization of the second syllable
of "pundit".  This nasal spreading is not all that uncommon in
American English.  I've frequently heard native speakers say "ompen"
for "open," and even a nonce "candy ampple" for "candy apple."  Has
anyone found any social or geographical distribution to this
phenomenon?  I've heard it from both well educated speakers and high
school dropouts, so I doubt that social class, or, at least,
education, is significant.

Herb

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