/Erjudait/

[Laurence Horn]

On Feb 27, 2012, at 11:39 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

> On 2/27/2012 11:16 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Herb Stahlke<hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      /Erjudait/
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Here in the Midwest I've been noticing local TV newsreaders
>> pronouncing "erudite" as /Erjudait/, inserting a palatal glide between
>> /r/ and /u/.  I don't know if this pronunciation is found in Britain,
>> but the OED gives the pronunciation /ˈɛrədaɪt/.  I don't hear the
>> glide insertion in words like "rude" or "ruse," and I suspect that
>> /Erjudait/ is simply hypercorrection.  It just seems odd that these
>> speakers don't insert /j/ between other alveolars and /u/.
> --
>
> MW3 shows /Erj at dait/ or so first, "also" /Er at dait/. Pronunciations with
> and without glides are also shown for "garrulous" and "corrugate" inter
> alia.
>
> I confess that I (a sort-of-midwestern type) would say "erudite" and
> "garrulous" with glide (but not "corrugate"). I might even pronounce the
> middle syllable vowel as /ju/ (instead of /j@/) in careful speech.
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
Funny how we make such different choices, if choices they are, as we glide through life, or don't.  It's always been "er-ju-dite" for me (< NYC), but I'm glideless in "garrulous" (awful name for a movie), as well as in "corrugate". Contra Pedro V, though, I do have a glide in "avenue", whether numbered (5th), lettered (C), or named (of the Americas).  None even imaginable in "rude" or "ruse", though--and I'm sure I'd boggle if I heard anyone else put a glide in those, at least on this side of the pond.  I've heard plenty of glides in "Tuesday", "news", and such, but I don't go in for them there myself.

LH, native Noo Yorker (no, not Noo Yawka)

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