quest for info/suggestions. re: dialects

[Dennis R. Preston]

Yeah, like a whole buinch of your-anus speakers got shamed into saying
youranus from Cosmos.

>On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, James Smith wrote:
>
>>
>> I usually pronounce the "c", but at times I drop it,
>> especially in "Arctic Circle", which is not just a
>> geographic designation but the name of a local
>> fast-food chain.  It seems I hear others routinely
>> pronounce the word with the "c" silent or weak, and
>> when the "c" is pronounced, it is often stressed,
>> almost a separate syllable.  Out of curiosity I
>> referred to my 22-yr-old Webster's, which shows both
>> pronunciations but with the pronounced "c" apparently
>> preferred.
>>
>I just recorded a story for the Reading program of the big publishing
>company I work for. It was about goose migration. I had to do *six* takes
>of a sentence that included the words "Arctic and Antarctic", 'cause I'm a
>habitual (not an habitual) c-dropper in these words.
>
>I could *say* it fine, but the rest of the sentence sounded stilted and
>unnatural around that phrase.
>
>I don't think I have a future in voice-over, although I've been the
>unofficial pronunciation answer person for this series. Mainly because I
>know how to look things up in a dictionary! (Often more than
>one dictionary, go figure.)
>
>The result is that a bunch of five-year-olds will hear c-full "arctic" and
>"antarctic," at least in this context. Us c-droppers might get shamed in a
>few decades.
>
>Erin McKean

Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736