"centre metres"

[Wilson Gray]

I'm with Joel.

-Wilson

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "centre metres"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12/18/2009 10:51 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>Thanks; this confirms my speculation on the issue.  Ever since I was
>>introduced to linguistics (sometime in the early 1960s) by Henry
>>Gleason's _Intro_, in which he discusses (inconclusively) the
>>possible contrast between "Rosa's" (with a schwa) and "roses" (with,
>>in his system, a barred-I) and acknowledged the difficulty of finding
>>minimal contrasts between unstressed vowels, I've been unable to
>>decide if I make the contrast and if so whether others hear it.
>>(This came up a few years later when I spent time in person and on
>>paper with two linguists, George Lakoff and Georgia Green, and the
>>distinction between "Georgia's" and "George's" would have carried a
>>functional load if it in fact existed.)
>
> This fussy fuddy-duddy (i.e., "pretentious snob") likely will be
> slapped again, but I believe I distinguish "Rosa's" (with a schwa)
> and "roses" (with, in his system, a barred-I) as well as "Georgia's"
> and "George's" (same pair of vowels).
>
> For the former, one could try "Rosas/roses are not often blue" --
> they're generally happy/do not grow in that color.
>
> Joel
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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