Perogative

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Sep 11, 2008, at 11:03 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>
> > I assume Shania Twain's pronunciation of prerogative (pero) in "Man,
> > I  Feel Like a Woman" follows popular culture. That's my
> > pronunciation, too...
>
> and lots of other people's (and it gets spelled that way too) --
> enough that it gets an entry in Brians's Common Errors.  and it's in
> Nancy Hall's list of examples in her paper "R-dissimilation in
> English" (available at: http://www.csulb.edu/~nhall2/ ), where Hall
> credits Ben Zimmer and the "R's are us" list at: barelybad.com/
> words1.htm#rsareus

Also in the American Heritage Book of English Usage, under "dissimilation":

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C007/066.html

(That may have been my source for whatever Nancy Hall is citing --
don't recall.)


--Ben Zimmer

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