DEE-fense

[hstahlke at ATT.NET]

Related to this is the question of whether the /t/ gets
laxed to [D].  I've heard College of Education types say
[EdjukejtOr] with secondary stresses on both of the last
two syllables and tertiary on the antepenult.  I've
heard that from local TV news readers.  Same
with "administrator" and "executor".  They all occur
also with primary-weak-secondary-weak pattern with a
laxed dental.  Is this anything more than a hyper-
correct spelling pronunciation?

I've also heard "informant" with an ash.  It seems to me
that "informant", as a pejorative term for
informer/rat/stoolie/squealer/etc. goes back to
Watergate.  At least I remember that up till 1973 we, in
African linguistics, routinely used the term informant
for our language consultants.  At the Annual Conference
on African Linguistics at UFlorida in '73, the
conference carried on an hour-long discussion on what to
call our language consultants.  "Informant" had just
recently become pejorative so that many of us didn't
want to use the term.  One unfortunate non-Francophone
participant suggested "collaborator".  A former dean
raised budgetary reservations about "consultant", but I
think that's the one we ended up with.

Herb Stahlke
Ball State University
> I more often hear realtors pronounced REEL  a tors.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sagehen" <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, December 03, 2001 12:22 PM
> Subject: Re: DEE-fense
>
>
> > >A semi-related question: does anybody know anything about the
> > >pronunciation of "defendant" with fully-realized ash (rather than schwa)
> > >in the last syllable? I get the impression it's a Northeast (NYC?)
> > >lawyer/police-speak feature, presumably a spelling-pronunciation in
> > >origin. I only heard it for the first time a couple of years ago in
> "Night
> > >Falls on Manhattan" (1997), but I'm guessing it's probably been around a
> > >while. Is it limited to law-enforcement authorities and legal
> > >professionals in certain regions, or...?
> > >
> > >Ben Fortson
> >  ~~~~~~
> > This reminds me of a somewhat similar  instance of spelling-pronunciation:
> > a bit of radio spam that refers to the National Association of RealtORs.
> I
> > assume most people give the last syllable a schwa.....?
> > A.Murie
> > billionbridges says: "I live 50 kilometres south of Toronto".........on a
> > houseboat?
> >