various thoughts

[Tom Zurinskas]

Free truespel books.  For those interested in adding truespel books to their
school library, I would like to donate them.  Truespel book 4 looks at 15.4
million words of media text.  It breaks these words down into the letters
and sounds of USA English.  Each letter is discussed individually showing
the top 10 words and frequency of use of each letter spelling various
phonemes.  Each phoneme is analyzed similarly.  This book answers most
questions about letter-sound correspondence in USA English.  Contact me
directly with library address.

Neologism.  In m-w.com it’s foespeld    nE-'ä-l&-"ji-z&m     Seems to me to
need a y-glide.  In truespel ~neeyyaalugizoom  (~oo as in wood)  (two sounds
for schwa here)

The word “gringo.”  In m-w.com, 'gri[ng]-(")gO    The first syllable is not
spoken the same as “grin”, which has a short i,.   In truespel it’s ~greengo
(the “n” however is velarized before the g, which is an allophone of usual
“n”).

Syllable break of “gringo.”   Basic phonetic syllable breaks are after
vowels.  So ~greengo would be broken ~gree ngo in truespel maintaining
ususal consonant-vowel form.
Hardest words to pronounce.  My vote is “penitentiary.”   My wife (CT3, Md
3,NJ5,FL5,NJ36,FL4) absolutely cannot say that word right.  My brother could
not say spaghetti, it was always ~busggetee.

Finding anti-Prescriptivism Text.  Looks like someone wants a prescription
for anti-prescription of pronunciation.  Shall we encourage “natural”
evolution of speech in the same way that “Shakespeare could not have
understood Chaucer without study, nor Chaucer the Beowulf poet.”  Bev says
it is “unnatural to hold to standard of pronunciation”.  Logical bottom line
– maintaining standards of communication is “unnatural.”  Is this not in
itself a “prescription”?  Is not the quest to seek standardization natural?
For us humans, I’d say it’s more natural than not to.
Minimal pair.  Yu don’t know shit from shite.  I assume “shite” is said
~shiet (~ie as in “pie”).  In that case it would be a phonetic minimal pair
with one phoneme changed.  That’s the usual form for pedantic instruction
using minimal pairs.  See kids if I change “pat”to “pan” I have changed one
sound and made new words, because letters stand for sounds.  Now here we’ve
changed sounds but retain the same word.  Thus a phonetic difference should
not be defined as a difference in meaning.

Garbled email.  Sorry can’t interpret the following.  Well, maybe =93can=94
would have been better, but consider the undoubted =phoneme /t/.  It makes a
difference in meaning between =93rap=94 and =93rapt=94, =but whether one
pronounces =93often=94 as <offn> or <off-ten> makes no difference in
meaning. =20
Se=E1n Fitzpatrick

Media dialect.  Today’s Palm Beach Post has an article by Bob Dart reporting
how much time Americans spend exposed to media of all kinds.  Data is from
the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract prediction for year 2007.  It says
that 5 months of the 12 will be spend exposed to media.  If you take away 4
months (8 hours a day) for sleeping that means that 5/8’s of the time
Americans are exposed to media.

New words or phrases.  New words like “strongheld”.  Shall we call them pre-
or proto-dialectical until they pass a common use test of some sort.

isolect.  I suppose we each have our own dialect – a “isolect”.  Influenced
by.
1.      birthplace – early strong unconscious early imprinting.
2.      media –TV, radio, video games.
3.      Residence changes.  Exposure to multiple dialects or languages
4.      vocabulary.  Education, pet words.
5.      area of expertise.  Occupation hobbies.
6.      mechanics –own speech or hearing limitations
7.      caprice -  deliberate speech affectations for affect.
8.      emotion – resistance to change.

Actually dialect means “between two lects (two ways of speaking),  You can’t
have a dialect unless you have two ways of speaking that are different in
some way.   If there weren’t at least two, the term, dialect, would be
unnecessary.  And if there were only one way of speaking, there would be no
need for the term monolect, because there’s no other lect to differentiate
one monolect from another.  So perhaps that’s why the term monolect never
was created.

No recent USA phonemes.  Seems to me that dialects within native USA
speakers merely switch phonemes around, but don't use new ones.

Annals vs. anal – Why is “annals” mispronounced like “anal”?  In m-w.com,
the initial a of “annals” is short as in “dangle” 'da[ng]-g&l, but in
“anal”, it’s long as in “danger” 'dAn-j&r .  But if you listen to the
m-w.com pronunciation, they both are pronounced “long a”.   Thus the problem
is with the dictionaries.  If one says short a as in dangle, “annals” would
have the same initial long a as “anals.”

horses' doovers.  I tradnounce it that way myself.  (to tradnounce is to say
a word as the letters would be usually said in tradspel).  In truespel it
could be phonetically spelled “or derv” or “ordderv”.  One word makes more
sense.  The “dd” shows stress on second syllable.

Ottomobile.   I cot sight of an ah inspiring ottomobile with rah power,.
Awe-droppers creed: I tock the way I was tot ottomaticly as a tot, and
knotty or hotty or goddy I’m not.

Cloudy/cloddy.  I hear cloddy for cloudy lately.  I assume it’s easier to
say the vowel in cloudy than the diphthong in cloudy.  The path of least
resistance?  Just like ~chooldrin (~ool as in “wool”) for “children.”

Other misnomers.  From the psalms: “Shirley, goodness and mercy shall follow
me all my days,” From the National anthem, “Jose, can you see?”  Or that old
chestnut, “Eat, drink and make Mary.”


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.

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