low back merger--austentacious

[Tom Zurinskas]

Depends.  Hard to know what he's thinking.  For instance how does he say the word "audio".  I hear many folks (incorrectly I believe) say AH-de-oh ~aadeeyoe.  So perhaps he is used to seeing letters "au" for the "ah" sound and thus when he hears ah-sten-TAY-shis ~aastenttaeshis spoken he would liken it to "audio" and would spell it with "au" for the "ah" sound.

 

Truespel uses ~au for the "awe" sound, although the letter "o" is used 5 times more often to spell that sound.  But the letter "o" spells a lot of sounds.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+ 
see truespel.com phonetic spelling


 
  
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: low back merger--austentacious
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> CNN had a story this morning, which I haven't been able to find on
> their site, on the question of whether spellcheck is making kids into
> worse spellers. One of the misspellings they showed was
> "austentatious." I was in a noise room when I saw the story, so I
> didn't see the location. The teenage boy behind the misspelling at
> least had a perceptual contrast, if not also a productive one.
> 
> Herb
> 
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