Many schwas

[Herb Stahlke]

"hoppy-horse":  Do we have a new eggcorn?

Herb

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Many schwas
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks Grant.  Of course from my perspective (starting with present letter-sound relationships) it matters not if there were others before that agreed or disagreed with me.  Pronunciation changes.  It's just a matter of calling them as you hear them.
>
> I'm more than hoppy-horse interested after dedicating myself to rewriting the English language and writing four books analyzing it, and I can witness that schwa represents many sounds as I heard words pronounced in talking dictionaries and hear them now.
>
> In order to stay away from special symbols, I converted schwas into the phonemes they best represent.  Often a close call.  See the converter at truespel.com for the result.
>
> The databases in the truespel books are available for researchers.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:34:01 -0500
>> From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG
>> Subject: Many schwas
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Grant Barrett
>> Subject: Many schwas
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Feb 16, 2009, at 13:29, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>> What amazes me is that folks call these two n's different phonemes
>>> and yet they think schwa is one phoneme when it is in reality many.
>>
>> I hesitate to encourage you, Tom, given your oft-ridden pronunciation,
>> hobby horses, but I feel compelled to say that, having spent some time
>> recently with the Century Dictionary, I find that the pronunciation
>> editors there also believed that there were many schwa sounds.
>>
>> The Century Dictionary (first published in 1889, last revised in 1911,
>> and last published in 1914) pronunciations are given using a system of
>> the editor's own devising. The key contains the following types of
>> schwa sounds:
>>
>> a with a macron above and a dot below: prelate, captain, courage, adage
>>
>> e with a macron above and a dot below: episcopal, abnegate, aggregate
>>
>> o with a macron above and a dot below: abrogate, eulogy, democrat
>>
>> u with a macron above and a dot below: singular, education.
>> accumulate, accentuate
>>
>> a with two dots below: aback, abandon, errant, republican
>>
>> e with two dots below: absent, abstinent, absorbent, prudent, difference
>>
>> i with two dots below: charity, density
>>
>> o with two dots below: abandon, ablution, valor, actor, idiot
>>
>> a with dieresis and two dots below: Persia, peninsula
>>
>> e with macron and two dots below: ("as in _the_ [/thuh/] book") jack-
>> in-the-box, nevertheless, stick-in-the-mud
>>
>> u with macron and two dots below: acupressure, adventure, nature,
>> feature
>>
>> Grant Barrett
>> gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
>>
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