Surprise

[Tom Zurinskas]

contretemps - interesting word.  French, not English.  

 

From m-w.com I hear ~kaantrutoen or ~kauntruttaan (stress after tt) both ways are given (spoken).  It means slight embarrassing occurance or disagreement.

 

The French n is often more nasal.  Needs its own phonetic symbology to show that.

 

Main Entry:
con·tre·temps 
Pronunciation:
\ˈkän-trə-ˌtäⁿ, kōⁿ-trə-täⁿ\ 

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+ 
see truespel.com


 
 





 > Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:25:06 -0500
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: Surprise
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Surprise
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> At 11:23 AM -0500 2/17/09, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >I rarely pronounce the first r in "surprise," but I can't imagine eliding it
> >in "surmise" (now that I try, it actually seems difficult!).
> >
> >You may not believe this, but...when I was four or five I began to notice
> >that most New Yorkers, including my family, were what I would now call
> >"non-rhotic" - quite different from most of the old-movie cowboys I was
> >watching every afternoon on Channel 13.
> >
> >I deliberately set out to get rhotic so that, when I grew up and went
> >West, I'd fit right in with Roy and the other punchers. And you know
> >what? My dream partly came true! I rarely miss an r !
> 
> If only to avoid the contretemps of addressing Dale and Trigger's
> longtime companion as Oy.
> 
> LH
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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