diabetes

[Benjamin Fortson]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Donald M Lance wrote:

> The discussion is proceeding as if the variant under discussion is just a
> vowel, but as DInIs points out, stress also appears to be a variable here.

I haven't read everyone's replies yet, but the variation is not just in
the vowel, but also in the voicing on the final sibilant: voiceless -tis
vs. voiced -teez. I agree that -itis words may be playing a role and, as
you say further below, that it's probably lexical.

> It appears that in American English we tend not to have the lax vowel if
> that syllable has secondary/tertiary stress. Or maybe it's strong syllable
> versus weak syllable.  Anyway, this is probably a lexical rather than
> phonological thing.  Are there any other disease names that manifest this
> variation?  I can't think of any.
> DMLance
>
> > From: "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU>
> > Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 13:14:12 -0500
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: diabetes
> >
> > Ya'll should remember that some schwa-like sounds are more [I] like
> > in southern speech. If one does not give some stress to the last
> > syllable (permitting [i]), it's going to end up as a schwa; if that
> > schwa is more /I/ like, some of y'all northerners might have been
> > fooled. That is, it may simply be vowel reduction with regional
> > quality variation.
> >
> > On the other hand, that variation may have led to "real" /I/
> > pronunciations (although that would seem to require some degree of
> > stress). (I just noticed I called the phoneme rather than the phone
> > "real." Heaven help me!)
> >
> > Of course, "medical -itis" (the spelling only) may also play a role here.
> >
> > dInIs (who always notes the more [I]-like pronunciation of his last
> > syllable, even when unstressed, the farther south he goes)
> >
> > PS: I'm just jerkin y'all around by putting the apostrophe in
> > different places in ya'll. Y'all don't need to write in about it no
> > more.
> >
> >
> >
> >> Alice:
> >>
> >>> For what it's worth, I've seen the spelling "diabetis" fairly
> >>> regularly from certain posters on the usenet diabetes support groups.
> >>> I've never understood where this came from, as it's certainly not
> >>> something I've noticed here in the northeast. One particular poster,
> >>> who used to use this spelling *a lot* is a good enough writer that
> >>> the "mis-spelling" really stood out. She's lived in Alaska most of
> >>> her adult life, but, if I remember the autobiographical details she's
> >>> posted correctly, she grew up in Michigan (I'm not sure where).
> >>
> >> This gets weirder.  I've never seen the *spelling* "diabetis", just the
> >> pronunciation.  But then, I may not be reading the right kind of literature.
> >> Anne G
> >
> > --
> > Dennis R. Preston
> > 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
> >
>