Q; pronouncing "Fukushima"

Mon Mar 28 22:34:28 UTC 2011

http://joeclark.org/dossiers/Fukushima.mp3

Says ~Fuekkueshimu         not ~Fuekuessheemu
       foo-KOO-shim-uh        not foo-koo-SHEE-muh (where "oo" is long oo)

The problem with eye-dialect "oo" is whether it is long or short.  Most "oo"s in text are short (as in "wood").  But how do you show that in a simple phonetic spelling.  That's one reason why truespel is needed as a standard eye-dialect type spelling.  The area of short oo is a mental mess.

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, then Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 9.
The FREE English-based phonetic converters, URL and text , are at truespel.com

> Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 15:19:40 -0400
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: Q; pronouncing "Fukushima"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Q; pronouncing "Fukushima"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> At 3:08 PM -0400 3/28/11, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >Is it FOO-koo-SHEE-mah (large accent on SHEE) or foo-Koo-shih-MAH
> >(small or no accent on Koo, larger but still slight on MAH)? I had
> >heard only the former until once hearing a Brit (perhaps from BBC,
> >perhaps only CNN international) use the latter.
> >
> >(My presumption is that the latter is correct, given what I think I
> >was told once about hi-Roh-shih-MAH.)
> >
> >Joel
> 
> The latter may be "correct", but the former is inevitable. I suppose
> we Americans could manage
> fu-KU-shi-ma if we were asked to, maybe even with secondary stress at
> the end, but fu-ku-shi-MA? Doubtful.
> 
> LH
> 
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