gen/d/re

[Mark Mandel]

A friend of mine reported  hearing "genre" pronounced with a /d/ by a
friend of hers and also by Joni Mitchell
(http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/04/18# ;
http://audio.wnyc.org/studio/studio041808h.mp3, about 1:03 and again
about 1:23), and asked whether it's a regional variation.

I wrote back that I hadn't heard this one, but it's not surprising,
and gave the articulatory reasoning and parallels with French "tendre"
> "tender" and "gendre" > "gender" (doublet of genre). I was going to
give "cinder" as well, but OED says that's a false etymology, which
interested me.

Any other reports of "gen/d/re" in English? Google gives k's of hits,
but most of them are as a surname. I did find one page that
consistently uses "gendre" for "genre",
http://www.trickstutorials.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-23247.html,
though the author there may be non-native. I'm sure there are more
examples, but I ain't a-gonna seek 'em out now.

--
Mark Mandel

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