spelling pronunciation--words in -or

[Mark Mandel]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Benjamin Zimmer <
bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > My students occasionally evince incredulity/amusement/anguish at my
> pronunciation of "metaphor"
> > with an unstressed final syllable /-f at r/.
>
> As did, famously, Zell Miller, before challenging Chris Matthews to a
> duel in 2004.
>
> "That was a metaphor, wasn‘t it?  Do you know what a metaphor is?"
>
>
Ah, but a word's reach must exceed its grasp,
Or what's a metaphor?

m a m

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