anise

[Charles Doyle]

A couple of days ago on the Food Network, Rachael Ray, more than once, pronounced "anise" as [@ 'nis], a pronunciation registered in none of the several English dictionaries at hand.

At first I supposed it was just a pretentious faux-French affection, as I used to assume "endive" as ['an div] is--though that one is in the dictionaries, and it does mimic the actual French pronunciation.  But maybe [@ 'nis] exemplifies the "Uranus" ['jUr @ n at s] syndrome--an attempt to keep low-minded liteners from thinking about anuses?

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

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