nutity

[Charles Doyle]

This is kind of funny: Evidently (so I was told; I didn't remember), in addressing a folklore class recently, I had described the concept of a "tale type" as an abstraction for which we imagine a plot "denuded of stylistic details." Well, on an essay test, fully a fourth of my students echoed some version of that phrasing--and every one of them spelled the word as "denuted"!  Were they thinking (misspelled) "neutered"? Was I mumbling my allophones?

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

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