hard words on TV! Part deux

[James C Stalker]

I grew up with and still pronounce final voiceless /s/ in Jesus.  However,
to take this thread in a slightly different direction, in Michigan I (think)
I hear intervocalic voiceless /s/, as in "President's Day" in
advertisements.  So, are there any Je/s/u/s/ speakers out there?

JCS

Laurence Horn writes:

> At 6:50 PM -0400 5/11/07, James Harbeck wrote:
>>> ?? i don't think i've heard it with final [z].  and both AHD4 and
>>> NOAD2 have it with final [s].  do you mean the *medial* fricative?
>>> that i've heard pronounced [s] rather than [z].
>>
>> Very interesting again! In Canada, in my experience, the final s is
>> normally [z] except in a few circles (those with stronger American
>> influences, come to think of it), and that was my experience in
>> Boston when I lived there too. Not that people sit around talking
>> about Jesus that much around there, but the voiceless variant is
>> salient for me, so if it had been standard I probably would have
>> noticed.
>>
>> But clearly I am just going to have to stop generalizing from
>> Canadian here. Or perhaps it's from northern dialects -- my parents
>> and relatives are all from western New York, and it's certainly not
>> universally [s] among them.
>>
>> You can hear "Jesus Christ!" shouted in many movies. I have the sense
>> -- unreliable though it may be -- that the final s is normally voiced
>> in this. It's something that I'm now going to listen for and make
>> note of. I know Steve Martin says it that way on his record "A Wild
>> and Crazy Guy". I'll see if I can dig up some other sound clips...
>>
>> James Harbeck.
>>
> This born and bred northern is not aware of having heard stand-alone
> "Jesus" pronounced with a final voiced fricative anywhere, including
> NYC, Long Island, Rochester, Boston, or New Haven, in all of which
> I've lived at different times.  I have heard "Jesu's", as in "in ____
> name", pronounced that way, but I assume that's not what's at issue
> here.
>
> But I think you're right about the "Jesus Christ" context making
> voicing of that -s more likely, which is pretty odd when you think
> about it.  Voicing dissimilation?  Naaah. More likely the following
> "Christ" leads to partial suppression of the schwa in Jesus' (or
> Jesu's) second syllable, which makes it easier to carry over the
> voicing from the first [s] to the second one.  Of course I'm neither
> a Christian nor a phonetician, so YMMV--to use the modern
> tetragrammaton.)
>
>
> LH
>
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James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University

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