Surprise

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 16, 2009, at 8:07 AM, 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:      Surprise
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>
> 1. Does anyone with a rhotic dialect rhoticize the first "r" in
> "surprise" (I don't).

i don't either, but there are some who do -- and some who disparage
the "dropping" of the first r in "surprise" as gross mispronunciation.


> 2. Does anyone know of any other words that in your rhotic dialect
> that have an unrhoticized postvocalic "r"?

there's an inventory of these in a paper by Nancy Hall, available here:
   http://www.csulb.edu/~nhall2/

arnold

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