new pronun. of "errant"

Beverly Flanigan flanigan at OHIO.EDU
Mon Oct 16 14:50:49 UTC 2006


I suspect he's not familiar with the word and therefore tried to follow the
alphabetic principle.  Seriously, this is what happens when we don't allow
the natural English tendency toward schwa reduction in unstressed syllables
to occur.  I've heard lots of similar examples recently, most from news
reporters; wish I'd written them down.

At 10:12 AM 10/16/2006, you wrote:
>One of Fox News Channel's regular correspondents (didn't catch his name)
>just referred to North Korea's "errant nuclear program."
>
>   He said / E 'raent /.
>
>   JL
>
>
>---------------------------------
>How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low  PC-to-Phone call rates.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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



More information about the Ads-l mailing list