new pronun. of "errant"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Oct 16 15:02:06 UTC 2006


At 10:59 AM -0400 10/16/06, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>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.

and maybe he figured it must be related to "Iran", since as we know
the two nations share the same Axis of Evil.

LH

>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
>>

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