anise

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:06 AM -0400 8/17/08, Charles Doyle wrote:
>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
>_____________________________________________________________
>
I'm not persuaded.  The only pronunciation I've ever heard, ['ae
n at s], sounds nothing like the Great-Vowel-Shifted ['ey n at s].  I think
it's just faux-French, not necessarily an affectation but reflecting
the belief that ceteris paribus food words that can be French must
be.  (And maybe R.R. is an imbiber of anisette.)  I doubt she'd refer
to "uh-LEES" in Wonderland.

So [@ 'nis] isn't necessary for taboo avoidance--and, as I'm sure
we've discussed, ['jUr @ n at s] isn't sufficient.

LH

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