minimal pairs

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>> I have never heard a pronunciation of 'asthma' that was not /azm6/; and, of
>> course, /z/ is a dental fricative.

>To clarify, my pronunciation is /asTmi/.   Unvoiced /s/, unvoiced /T/,
>voiced nasal /m/.  /i/ at the end 'cos I'm a kiwi.  Real English has /@/.

>The only colleague of mine I can find at the moment, this close to
>Christmas, says /asm@/  (unvoiced /s/, no dental fricative).  He comments
>"It would be very pretentious to pronounce it /asTma/."

Some say /&s(T)m@/, some say /&z(D)m@/ (I say the latter but probably the
former is preferable logically). Both are common. Some speakers omit the
/T/ or /D/ always, most others probably do in rapid speech. None of these
is 'pretentious' IMHO.

Maybe the /T/ or /D/ comes from a spelling pronunciation; nothing wrong
with that.

"Isthmus" is /Is(T)m at s/, with similarly optional /T/, IMHO.

What about /krIs(t)m at s/?

-- Doug Wilson