[Ads-l] Pronunciation of "(anti)semitic"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sun Dec 4 03:37:27 UTC 2022


> does the PIN/PEN merger operate before /t/?
> after (as opposed to before) nasals?

As in "p[I]nt-up anger" or in "p[I]nthouse? Yes.
As in "mitt" v. "met"? No.

On Sat, Dec 3, 2022 at 5:21 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> But does the PIN/PEN merger operate before /t/?  Or after (as opposed to
> before) nasals?
>
> On Sat, Dec 3, 2022 at 12:39 PM James Eric Lawson <jel at nventure.com>
> wrote:
>
> > 'Pathetic', I say hopefully. Yet in my experience, the PIN/PEN merger
> > seems the stronger and more likely influence.
> >
> > On 12/3/22 08:03, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > > On sympathetic analogical reformations:
> > >
> > > Arnold’s blogpost mentions that Ben suggested that the prior existence
> > of -etic adjectives might be influencing the shift to “anti-semetic",
> > presumably in the way that (as we’ve discussed ages ago on the list) the
> > much-maligned “nucular” pronunciation of “nuclear” (as in the title of
> > Geoff Nunberg’s book _Going Nucular_) was/is partly a product of a set of
> > -Vcular adjectives like “jocular”, “(bin)ocular”, “spectacular”,
> > “particular”, “vehicular”, “secular”, etc. etc.,  and the virtual
> > non-existence of -Vclear ones other than “cochlear” and “nuclear” itself.
> > So what would the -etic influencers be? I’m thinking “diabetic” might be
> a
> > role. Or perhaps (although it doesn’t allude to a disorder) “athletic” or
> > “sympathetic". Or, dare I suggest, “phonetic". Others (“ascetic”,
> > “copacetic”) are probably too rare or abstruse to play a role.  Here’s a
> > list of rhymes:
> > >
> > > https://tinyurl.com/bdft32w2 <https://tinyurl.com/bdft32w2>
> > >
> > > Of course “(anti-)semitic” does rhyme with “clitic”.  And (at least in
> > the US) with “Hasidic”,
> > >
> > > LH
> > >
> > >> On Dec 2, 2022, at 7:28 PM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> More often than not, it seems (most recently tonight by Johathan Karl
> > on ABC World News), the pronunciation of the word "antisemitic" has been
> > manifesting the penultimate vowel as [E] rather than the historical and
> > orthographic [I].
> > >>
> > >> --Charlie
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > --
> > James Eric Lawson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
- 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

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