[Ads-l] "Niger" or "Niger"?
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 19 14:06:42 UTC 2017
In my day, people said "NYE-jer." Nowadays, except for a courageous
journalist in the Rose Garden recently, they're all saying "Nee-ZHAIR."
Sounds so much more sophisticated, _non_?
When was the big switch? The Random House College Dictionary of 1982 gives
only "NYE-jer." I first heard Nee-ZHAIR" in the early '80s.
JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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