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[Laurence Horn]

At 6:31 PM -0400 7/19/07, Barnhart wrote:
>American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> writes:
>>
>>If someone else mentioned this and I missed seeing it, then sorry. But...
>>I
>>have long wondered why we have a Secretary of de-FENSE and a Department of
>>de-FENSE, but all sports have DEE-fense. I mean, this is universal, right?
>>At a football game the crowd universally does not yell "de-FENSE,
>>de-FENSE,
>>de-FENSE", and Rumsfeld universally was not the secretary of DEE-fense.
>>Yes?
>>No?
>>DAD
>>
>
>Well, I'm not sure I can express this succinctly. Here goes.
>
>The emPHAsis on the first sylLAble in DEEfense is to EMphasize the
>contrast with OFFense in the vicinity of the grid iron.
>
That was my theory too; it's much like "covert", which was always
pronounced like its doublet "covered" except for the final voiceless
consonant, but is now almost always /ko 'vUrt/ to be distinguished
minimally from "overt", with which it is typically linked although
the two are etymologically unrelated.  At least "defense" and
"offense" are just different sides of the same fense.

LH

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