Teenglish from England

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Sep 17 17:13:43 UTC 2009 

At 1:55 PM -0300 9/17/09, David A. Daniel wrote:
>I neither pronounce English with ee nor am I misguided. I, and every
>standard native speaker I have ever heard, say English as if it were spelled
>inglish or ing-glish, one or the other. I just listened to the m-w
>pronunciations and those were inglish/ing-glish too. Folks who think they/we
>say ee in standard US English are misguided. Or is this what the posts below
>are saying and I have read it wrong? (Because I can't actually believe that
>anyone really thinks the pronunciation is ee.)
>DAD

It's clear that some believe this, and they may be right for their
own speech.  It is certainly not my impression that raised/tensed [i]
is the usual (or even that common a) pronunciation for U.S. speakers,
but unlike some of the "Eenglish" contingent, I am not saying that
they're necessarily misguided about their *own* pronunciation.  What
rubs me the wrong way is when I'm told *I* pronounce it "Eenglish" or
"seeng" and just don't admit it.  But we've been down that road many
times, and the odds that minds will be changed on this are roughly as
steep as the odds that the health care debate in Congress will.

LH



>
>
>
>____________________________________________
>We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Laurence Horn
>Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:52 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Teenglish from England
>
>
>At 10:30 AM -0500 9/17/09, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>>   >
>>>   When it comes to words like "English" which begin with letter "e" (so
>>>   there's no visual letter "i" influence) and it's pronounced in talking
>>>   dictionaries, surely we all can hear long e ~ee (as in teen) not short
>i,
>>>   (as in tin).  And yet dictionaries persist in showing the vowel as short
>i
>>>   while the speaker audibly says long e.
>>
>>
>>Am I getting this right? Is the argument that the first vowel of "English"
>>is pronounced the same as the vowel in "teen" in Standard English?
>>
>>Scot
>
>Yup, and more fully (in Tom's argument, not Wilson's) that those of
>us who are convinced that we don't pronounce it that way are
>misguided.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 10:22 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>>>
>>>   I recall being taught as a child that "English" started with a lax
>>>   /I/, as in "in".  This was to correct those who used a spelling
>>>   pronunciation with lax /E/ as in "en".  None of my teachers or fellow
>>>   SE Michiganders, at least that I knew at the time, used the tense
>>>   vowel /i/ as in "eve".  I am aware that some speakers do have the
>>>   tense vowel before /N/ and some don't.  I am one who does not.  Of
>>>   course, even for lax vowel speakers like me, the vowel is raised
>>>   slightly before a velar nasal.  This is allophonic and does not change
>>>   it to tense /i/ for those speakers.
>>>
>>>   Herb
>>>
>>>   On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:46 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com>
>>>   wrote:
>>>   >  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>   > Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>>   > Subject:      Re: Teenglish from England
>>>   >
>>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>>>   >
>>>   > Good one Wilson.  And you try to tell the teacher that it's the way
>the
>>>   teacher also says it too, yet he would not believe.
>>>   >
>>>   > When it comes to words like "English" which begin with letter "e" (so
>>>   there's no visual letter "i" influence) and it's pronounced in talking
>>>   dictionaries, surely we all can hear long e ~ee (as in teen) not short
>i,
>>>    (as in tin).  And yet dictionaries persist in showing the vowel as
>short i
>>>   while the speaker audibly says long e.  Boogles my mind and has done so
>>>   since learning reading in 2nd grade.
>>>   >
>>>   > Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>  >>  > see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>>   >
>>>   >
>>>   >
>>>   >
>>>   >>
>>>  Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>   >> Poster: Wilson Gray
>>>   >> Subject: Re: Teenglish from England
>>>   >>
>>>
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
>>>   >>
>>>   >> It's a tense [i] in some dialects. Or maybe only in some idiolects. I
>>>   fough=
>>>   >> t
>>>   >> TZ's fight in Articulatory Phonetics 101 at Davis. The prof
>responded,
>>>   >> "Well, if that's the way *you* say it ..."
>>>   >> -Wilson
>>>   >>
>>>   >> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:42 AM, Laurence Horn wrot=
>>>   >> e:
>>>   >>
>>>   >> Poster: Laurence Horn
>>>   >>> Subject: Re: Teenglish from England
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>>
>>>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>>>   >> ------
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>> At 11:03 AM +0000 9/16/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>   >>>>New teenage words from England (perhaps not only England)
>>>   >>>>
>>>   >>>>
>>>   >>>
>>>
>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213626/Teenglish-From-Frape-Neek=
>>>   >> -words-used-teenagers-baffle-adults.html
>>   > >>>>
>>>   >>>>When I say the word "teenglish" my tongue goes alveolar (top front),
>>>   >>>>but for English it's velar (top back). Yet the vowel befor the "n"
>>>   >>>>is still long e, ~ee. ~teenglish ~Eenglish.
>>>   >>>>
>>>   >>>>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL7+
>>>   >>>>see truespel.com phonetic spelling
>>>   >>>>_________________________________________________________________
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>> and for me "Teenglish" (the variety of English associated with
>teens)
>>>   >>> differs from "Tinglish" (the variety of English that makes you
>>>   >>> tingle) in and only in the quality of the vowel before the nasal,
>>>   >>> which is additional evidence that the vowel in the latter case (or
>in
>>>   >>> "English", or "Singlish" [Singaporean English]) is a lax [I], not a
>>>   >>> tense [i]. (Of course I might also render the former with an
>>>   >>> alveolar consonant if I wanted to stress the morphological structure
>>>   >>> of "teen" + "English".)
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>> LH
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>   >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>   >>>
>>>   >>
>>>   >>
>>>   >>
>>>   >> --=20
>>>   >> -Wilson
>>>   >> =96=96=96
>>>   >> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>to
>>>   com=
>>>   >> e
>>>   >> from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>>   >> =96Mark Twain
>>>   >>
>>>   >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>   >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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