Eating Iran

[Geoff Nathan]

>
> Date:    Wed, 8 Oct 2008 20:02:24 -0400
> From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: a little dialect confusion never hurt anyone...
>
> ...until it does.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7658728.stm
> (The link is courtesy of John Olsson at the forensic linguistics list.)
>
> LH
I think that the article  misses an additional factor, which is that
Israeli Hebrew has variable h-dropping, and lacks a contrast between
tense and lax /i/.  It's very possible that when Kouchner said [it]
while aiming at [hIt], an Israeli reporter heard 'eat' too and reported
it as such.

On a sociology of linguistics note, see also also the weird hedge:

> The paper did not explain how the mistake had occurred, but dropping
> the "h" is widely seen as a feature of English spoken with a French
> accent.
What the hell does 'widely seen' mean?  No newspaper would say 'The
ocean is widely seen as containing salt water'.

Geoff

--
Geoffrey S. Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>

Faculty Liaison, Computing and Information Technology,
and Associate Professor of English, Linguistics Program
Phone Numbers (313) 577-1259 or (313) 577-8621
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI, 48202

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