Özil 's magic left foot - - or was it Oezil's?

[David Wake]

English English speakers usually use their non-rhotic NURSE vowel to
represent rounded mid front vowels from foreign languages:  this
applies both to German names like Goethe and also to French loan words
like entrepreneur or meuniere.

I'm a little surprised that the British commentators used the GOAT
vowel for the initial vowel of Özil:  perhaps this was due to a sense
that the name wasn't German but Turkish.

David



On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_[ADS-L]_=D6zil_'s_magic_left_foot_-_-__or?=
>              was it Oezil's?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks.  And apparently closer to the German
> o-umlaut than the English "oh", despite the ESPN announcers.
>
> Joel
>
> At 6/24/2010 02:51 PM, Lisa Galvin wrote:
>>
>>I guess you could sort of approximate it with
>>the pronunciation of "ou" in "could", "should"
>>(or the "oo" in "foot", the "u" in "put"),
>>though those are rough examples, since of course
>>the pronunciation of these words differs depending on your English.
>>
>>
>>
>>Lisa Galvin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:26:13 -0400
>> > From: Berson at ATT.NET
>> > Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Re: Özil's magic left foot -- or was it Oezil's ?
>> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> >
>> > ---------------------- Information from the
>> mail header -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> > Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_[ADS-L]_Re:_=D6zil's_magic_left_foot_--_?= or
>> > was it Oezil's ?
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > My tongue doesn't go around French either. Can you illustrate with
>> > some American word I know how to pronounce? :-)
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
>> > At 6/24/2010 01:43 PM, Jim Parish wrote:
>> > >Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> > > > yes, it's a mid front rounded vowel.
>> > >
>> > >Right, right, I forgot to include [+front]. Damn three-dimensional
>> > >diagrams....
>> > >
>> > >Jim Parish
>> > >
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