Popsicle

[Mark Mandel]

That "-icle" could be a back-form from "icicle" analyzed as "ice" + "-icle".

m a m

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> At 4:23 PM +0100 4/5/10, Damien Hall wrote:
> >Larry and Paul commented on the non-pronunciation of the /s/ in
> >'Fudgesicle'. Possibly it is dialectal, but isn't the simplest explanation
> >phonetic / phonological? It seems to me very likely that in a sequence of
> >
> >affricate /J/ + fricative /s/
> >
> >- which could be simplified to
> >
> >(/d/ +) voiced fricative /Z/ + fricative /s/
> >
> >one of the two will get elided, at least in fast speech. If you believe in
> >the Obligatory Contour Principle (not saying I don't, but not everyone
> >does!), that would be one way of describing it.
>
> Phonology/phonetics is relevant to be sure, but I'd never pronounce
> John Hodgson's name [haJ at n] rather than [haJs at n], and I'm sure it's
> not just frequency (in that this would be the case even I were
> Hodgson's cousin, or Jon Stewart, or the other guy in those Mac vs.
> PC commercials).  As you point out, the case for the phonological
> explanation can be rendered more compelling than just [Js] > [J], but
> I really do believe that my underlying form was "Fudgicle" and not
> "Fudgesicle".  I suspect that the first time I heard the /s/
> pronounced therein I assumed the speaker was blending "Fudgicle" with
> "creamsicle".
>
> LH
>

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