'noose' = news

[Herb Stahlke]

What you might be hearing is a lack of lengthening in the vowel as we would
expect before a syllable-final lenis consonant.  Unless followed by a
voiced segment, the /z/ of news would devoice anyway.  Without the vowel
length, we would hear devoiced /z/ as [s].  I have a colleague who shortens
the vowel regularly in the suffix -ese, so that "Japanese" and "Chinese"
sound like they end in /-is/.

Herb


On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 10:11 PM, Bergdahl, David <bergdahl at ohio.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Bergdahl, David" <bergdahl at OHIO.EDU>
> Subject:      'noose' = news
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A few times in the past week I've heard "news" pronounced as "noose" on
> cab=
> le news (probably CNN or MSNBC).  Is the devoicing of the final /z/ in
> [nuz=
> ] fashionable? =20
>
> David Bergdahl=
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org