precipee

[Charles Doyle]

Presumably backformed from a misperceived plural (with a weird vowel change)?

Back in 1979 I reported having heard a professorial lecturer refer to an "indice" [IndIs], from the "learned" plural "indices."

Anybody for "processee" [pro:s at si]?

--Charlie



---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:56:31 -0500
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>)
>Subject: precipee
>
>Ken Rogoff is professor of economics and public policy at Harvard. Unless I'm going deef, I heard just him say on CNN that, before the stimulus package, the U.S. economy had been "on a / 'prEsIpi /."
>
>Then he said it again even more clearly. Obviously impossible.
>
>Isn't it?
>
>
>JL

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