Teenglish from England

Thu Sep 17 17:37:51 UTC 2009

Scot LaFaive boggled:

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?
>

As did David Daniel:

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.)

Laurence Lord Horn (oh, that one's gonna stick a while!) explained:

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.
>

Welcome to Tom's world. I avoid it as much as possible.

m a m

>
>
> ____________________________________________
> 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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> >>  >
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>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>

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