Heard on Springer: _strewn_ [stroUn]

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 30, 2011, at 5:48 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:

> OED has this as from OE streawian (or streowian).  The [stroU] pronunciations come from forms with the diphthong stressed on the second element; any /j/ ghost of the first would disappear after the /r/; Stress-shift, helped by the palatal before, like this also happened for show (cf. earlier shew); sew; and dialectally, ewe and shrew, which give forms from ME /Ou/ in the North of England, Scotland, and the Southwest of England.  But there is no general rule telling you what words have /ju/ and what words /oU/ or the like, even on the other side of the pool---Scots can have /Su/ for sew but /j^U/ for ewe (/stru/ sounds good to me, but I suspect many guid aul-fashiont Scots dialects have /str^U/.  As for chew, forget it!  Chew, chow, and chaw all exist, even over here.   Knowing Early Middle English vowel classes doesn't help either:  sew had /iu/ (like stew, yew); chew and ewe, /eu/ (like new, brew, and past tenses like blew, knew); show, shrew and strew, /Eu/ (like dew).  !
 It!
>  does seem that a preceding palatal, or sometimes /r/, helps the stress shift.
>
> But screw, from French, doesn't alternate like this, so you can't scrow something (or someone).,.;;;;;
>
> Paul Johnston

Nice to know there's no relation between "escrow" and "screw", despite the occasional shady real estate deal…

LH

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