the pronunciation of "patio"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/21/2009 11:31 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>On Jul 20, 2009, at 7:39 PM, Doug G. Wilson wrote:
>>
>>
>>I don't see a pronunciation of "patio" with /S/ or /s/ in English
>>dictionaries at a glance.
>>
>>However, handy on-line French dictionaries (ATILF, Acad. Fran.) show
>>"patio" pronounced both /patjo/ and /pasjo/, the latter close enough
>>to
>>Baum's presumed /paSiow/ I think.
>>
>>So maybe this is a Frenchified pronunciation.
>
>this is an excellent idea -- and it wouldn't depend on the
>pronunciation being based on an actual French pronunciation, since
>English adopts many words from Spanish with "frenchified"
>pronunciations based on spelling, rather than directly on French
>pronunciations.

Confusingly, the Spanish pronunciation (or so I hear on the Internet)
is T, not S.  (I had wondered whether Baum got his from the southwest
corner of Kansas.)

Joel

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