"fission" with -zh-?
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Mar 16 00:25:14 UTC 2011
At 4:05 PM -0400 3/15/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>"Fizhion" is what they've been saying on the news for years and years. I
>suppose some still say "fission," but they must be a real minority.
>
>JL
We're a proud minority, we happy few. Besides,
we can pun on "Gone Fission", which those fizhion
folks can't.
LH
>
>On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 3:58 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Re: "fission" with -zh-?
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
>> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster: Â Â Â Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> > Subject: Â Â Â Re: "fission" with -zh-?
>> >
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > At 12:11 PM -0700 3/15/11, geoffrey nunberg wrote:
>> >>Listening to some nuclear energy experts talking about Japan on the
>> >>radio this morning, I was led to wonder whether  "fission" is the
>> >>only English word in which orthographic [Vssion] can be pronounced
>> >>with a voiced fricative. When I checked with my graduate students, I
>> >>was surprised to find that that's the pronunciation used by all but
>> >>one of them (and the one is from S. Africa). If so, it must be by
>> >>analogy with "fusion," right?
>> >>
>> >>Geoff
>> >>
>> >>
>> > So I've always assumed, as with the shift from penult to ult stress
>> > in "covert" on the model of "overt". Â Something there is that likes a
>> > minimal pair. Â (Then there's the pronunciation of "transition" to
>> > rhyme with "incision"...)
>> >
>> > LH
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> Are speakers of BrE still under the impre[Z]ion that "equation" is
>> pronounced "equa[S]ion"?
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> -----
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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