glottalized intervocalic /y/?

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Thu Sep 11 13:23:10 UTC 2008


I've been told that the glottal stop is the most common nonvowel in English. I grew up saying "a?apple"--why not just ban the a/an variation?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>

Date:         Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:27:38
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] glottalized intervocalic /y/?


Oh, no, you di?n't!

Well, back in that particular day, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the
sitting President <har! har!>, but I was in the sixth grade and she in
the seventh. Hence, we both knew the word and how to spell it.
Besides, there are all those zillions of other random occurrences from
everywhere else around the country to account for.

If I had command of American English, I'd ban the glo?al stop in all
but a very few environments. However, I agree that the glo?al stop has
a place in others Englishes.

-Wilson

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 1:46 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: glottalized intervocalic /y/?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Could that "be ?ond the blue horizon" be (as your spacing suggests) based on
> a misanalysis as "be" + a supposed word "ond"?
>
> m a m
>
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I've heard it in Texas used by a then-young black woman who today
>> would be, like me, in her seventies. I've also heard it said elsewhere
>> - Missouri, California, on radio and TV, etc.
>>
>> It seems to me to be a rather old and random phenomenon. But I haven't
>> really paid much attention to it. I couldn't even say for certain what
>> kinds of people - male, female, white, black, or whatever - I've heard
>> use it. I clearly recall that, down in Texas, the girl who stood next
>> to me in choir sang, "be ?ond the blue horizon." Aside from that, I
>> can say only that, unfortunately, I've heard it around everywhere that
>> I've ever lived and that I find it annoying.
>>
>> FWIW, I've never heard the glottal-stopped pronunciation of "mayonnaise."
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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