r --> z

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Mon Jul 10 15:54:46 UTC 2006


AFAIK such nicknames don't occur in U.S.

  JL

Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Lynne Murphy
Subject: r --> z
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it common for /r/ to change to [z]?

I'm wondering about a set of UK/Australian nicknames:

Barry --> Bazza
Sharon/Sharapova --> Shazza (also Shazzer)
Maurice --> Mozza (and more famously, Morrissey-->Mozza)
Boris --> Bozza
Charles/Charlotte --> Chazza
Antony Worrall Thompson --> Wozza
Gary --> Gazza
Cheryl/Cherie/Sheryl --> Chezza/Shezza

(stole several of these from the Wikipedia article on 'Zza
nicknames':http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zza_nicknames.)

Other famous ones involve some kind of sibilant at the start of the reduced
syllable:
Heseltine --> Hezza
Prescott --> Prezza
Gascoigne --> Gazza

The only one in the Wikipedia article that doesn't follow one of these
patterns was Gavin-->Gazza, but we can assume that he's only Gazza because
he was dating a Chazza.

Any explanation for why -zza would be what the r-starting syllable would be
'weakened' to? (I'm obviously no phonetician, though I have played one in
first-year lectures.) I suppose the tongue is in the same neighbourhood
and both r and z are voiced, but do similar things happen in other
contexts?

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Next-gen email? Have it all with the  all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list