"nuptuals" for nuptials

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Fri Feb 3 17:54:21 UTC 2006


On Feb 3, 2006, at 8:35 AM, sagehen wrote:

> A short piece on NPR's Morning Edition today, regarding a trend toward
> substituting charitable contributions for wedding presents, was
> read with a
> consistent pronunciation  "nuptual/s" for_nuptial/s_.
>   It sounded familiar enough that I know I've heard it before. It
> made me
> wonder: is it regional or merely random, occasional confusion
> influenced by
> _factual, conceptual _, &c?

it's pretty common.  another one to add to my file of morphological
reanalyses (most of which i've posted about here: nucular, doctorial,
overature, perculate/perculation/perculator, fellatiate, gal(l)iant,
pectorials).

arnold

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