English words beginning with <j> pronounced [Z]?

[Tom Zurinskas]

Borrowed French words like genre ~zhaanru, (where ~aa sounds like "ah" and ~u like "uh".)  Also Jacques, ~zhaaks.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.




> Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:42:43 -0500
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: English words beginning with  pronounced [Z]?
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: English words beginning with  pronounced [Z]?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 1:56 PM -0500 1/21/08, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>A while back, didn't we discuss a word pronounced [ZUZ], a noun
>>referring to a quick shake given to something? I have no idea how
>>the word might be spelled!
>>
>>--Charlie
>
> Most posters who seemed to know (or at least seemed to be confident)
> had it as "zhuzh", and cited Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as the
> vector. (Steve Kleinedler may have nominated it for one of the WOTY
> categories a couple of years ago.)
>
> LH
>
>>_____________________________________________________________
>>
>>---- Original message ----
>>>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:19:07 -0500
>>>From: Dennis Preston >
>>>In LIN 101 we teach students that /Z/ (the second sound in 'azure'
>>>the last sound in 'garage') is a silly sound (like ng) which can
>>>occur internally and finally but never initially. In final position
>>>it is giving way to /dZ/, and here in good-talking and linguistically
>>>secure Michigan, people surveyed were not sensitive to the final /dZ/
>>>pronunciation as nonstandard.
>>>
>>>dInIs
>>>
>>>
>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>-----------------------
>>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>Poster: Nadia Gabriel
>>>>Subject: English words beginning with  pronounced [Z]?
>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>>Dear all,
>>>>
>>>>A question out of a friend's curious brain - he is French, currently taking
>>>>lessons to improve his English:
>>>>
>>>>Do you know of words, common word or proper names, in the English language
>>>>that begin with the letter  but that are pronounced without the [d]
>>>>sound, just the [Z] sound?
>>>>Or, to put it another way, words where the initial  is pronounced as in
>>>>French?
>>>>
>>>>I can't think of any!
>>>>An advanced search in the OED Online ("Entries containing Z
>>>>in Pronunciations") retrieves only one word: jinricksha, jinrikisha,
>>>>*n.*,
>>>>from Japanese.
>>>>
>>>>I'd be grateful for any comments!
>>>> (I must add I didn't read all the article under the entry for
>>>>the letter J,
>>>>which also appeared in the results of my search - Wonderful OED)
>>>>
>>>>Thank you,
>>>>
>>>> Nadia Gabriel
>>>> Librarian & Translator
>>>>
>>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Dennis R. Preston
>>>University Distinguished Professor
>>>Department of English
>>>Morrill Hall 15-C
>>>Michigan State University
>>>East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>>
>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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