Surprise

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Feb 17, 2009, at 8:22 AM, Larry Horn wrote:

>
> I've used "su(r)prise" vs. "surpass" in class as an illustration of
> frequency effects.  (The latter word, or other such, are less
> frequent and consequently less likely to promote the fast-speech
> deletion of the post-vocalic r.)

Nancy Hall's list (assembled from a variety of sources) includes some
(relatively) infrequent words -- adversary, aperture, berserk,
bombardier, offertory, paraphernalia, perturbed, reservoir, vernacular
-- and some proper names -- Bernard, Canterbury, Otterburn, Waterbury.

arnold

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