nuclear/nucular

[Dennis R. Preston]

Nope, your respelling makes this look like "transposition" (which
implies "metathesis" to us speakers of the arcane tongue), but that
is not the motivation here at all. What you want to note is simply
insertion (of a schwa) to break up the clumsy consonant-to-consonant
transition (or "cluster") of l+t. IN fact, although it is slightly
more complex, that is, after all, whjat is going on in the "nuclear"
example as well (where k+l is the villain).

dInIs



>Another common transposition I frequently hear is "relator" for "realtor".
>
>Bob
>----- Original Message -----
>From: James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 11:51 AM
>Subject: Re: nuclear/nucular
>
>>  P.S.  On a possibly-related phonetic subject:  has anyone else noticed
>>  "judiciary" being pronounced as /joo 'dish oo eir ee/?  From my days
>living
>>  in DC I remember hearing on the Metro PA speakers "the next station stop
>is
>>  Judishooairy Square".
>>

--
Dennis R. Preston
Professor of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
      Asian & African Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
e-mail: preston at msu.edu
phone: (517) 353-9290