Heard on The Judges: "compromise"

[Mark Mandel]

But is it JUST a spelling pronunciation, or is it a reinterpretation of the
word as meaning "promising to each other" -- which would be closer to the
meaning of "marriage", if less likely?

Mark Mandel


On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> Anymore, when we notice a spelling pronunciation of this type (I
> guess it's in the "MAYZ-l'd" for _misled_ category) we should be
> reassured that folks are still reading...
>
> LH
>
> At 10:03 AM -0500 12/16/08, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >Judge Penny [pInI], forty-four-year-old, black female speaker from
> Georgia:
> >
> >"Do you know what a marriage [m&:G] is [iIz]?
> >
> >Forty-four-year-old, Latino female college graduate married to a white
> >aerospace engineer:
> >
> >"Yes. It's two people compromising "com PROMising" ["kam 'pram at sIN]."
> >
> >
> >I've never heard this pronunciation before. Which is not to say that,
> >at one time, I wouldn't have used it, myself. It's only that, as fate
> >would have it, I never had occasion to speak this word during the time
> >when I would have said, "com PROMising."
> >
> >-Wilson
>
>

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