Email vs. E-mail at Wired

[Grant Barrett]

>>2. There is a precedent for some English speakers of using the
>>long e sound at the beginning of a word when followed immediately
>>by a consonant. The hyphen is not necessary to indicate the
>>sound. English, eradicate, Enus, evil, Eyore. (You can give me Eyore.
>>It's Eyore. You *have* to accept that one.)

and

>Mark already pointed out the Eeyore misprint here, and I'll assume
>that Enus is supposed to be Enos--but proper names are 'allowed'
>to break the rules of regular pronunciation anyway.  But is there
>really long e sounds in eradicate?  I must protest!  I think "English"
>is cheating a bit too, since (a) I think its pronunciation is
>variable, and (b) its second sound is not an acceptable beginning
>sound for an English word, so you couldn't have e-nglish.


There's like nine or ten things wrong with my message. As I told Dennis offline, I'd
hoped to cover my ignorance with the word "amateur" and the light tone, but I guess
I failed.

Sorry for the dumb mistakes. I should know better by now than to post when I don't
know what I'm writing about. I sometimes think I continue to subscribe to ADS-L though
other listservs have come and gone because I need the humility. Michael J. Fox said
something on Letterman the other night that I think applies here, something like,
"When you're in a room filled with actors you've got a pretty good shot at being the
smartest guy in the room. But walk into a room filled with linguists..." (my version).

My only excuse is that I'm in the middle of day six of the flu. Every hole in my
head, including the large hollow inner chamber, is hurting. Oh yeah, on top of midterms.

I did actually mean "Enus." I used to go to school with a guy by that name in
southeast Missouri.

Grant