[Ads-l] fewofa

Randy Alexander strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jan 6 05:22:12 UTC 2015


On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 1:58 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: fewofa
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seems like Brinkley could have opted for "in so few words" here, but I =
> do like "fewofa".  Except maybe it should be "fewva"--I read "fewofa" on =
> first pass as if it were Elmer Fudd trying to ask for a felafel.
>

That's a really odd reading given that "ew" always sounds [ju] after /f/,
and that three-syllable words are more commonly accented on the first
syllable in English.

Randy

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