English in USA

[Douglas Dee]

Come to think of it, I was misremembering: the discusion was about the
pronunciation of the "-ing" verbal suffix, not the word "English."  But the issue of
"short i" vs. "ee" was the same.


I wrote:

Here in New Jersey, I definitely hear the "short i" in the first syllable of
"English."

I seem to recall a similar issue came up on Lingust List a while back.

Paraphrasing liberally from my imperfect memory:

A teacher wrote in to say, "Here's an odd thing, my students have 'short i'
instead of 'ee' in 'English.'  Is this some regional dialect feature or what?"

A whole bunch of people replied, saying, "No, YOU'RE the one with the
regional dialect feature.  Your students' 'short i' is the normal/general/typical
pronunciation in the US."

Doug

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