Re: CHAT: F.L.O.E.S.

E fésto <jcowan@...>:
>> >Furthermore, it turns out that Boston scrod
>> >("I never heard the pluperfect tense before")
>>
>> What's the joke?
>
> 	As he prepared to catch his flight to Boston, the traveller's
> 	colleague advised him to try the fish there; "In particular, the
> 	scrod is excellent."  On arrival in Boston, the traveller hailed a
> 	cab and asked the driver, "Where can I get scrod?"  The driver was
> 	silent for a moment then replied, "Buddy, I've heard that question
> 	a million times, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive."
>
> Scrod is rightly any young cod, haddock, or similar whitefish, split and
> boned <? MDu. _schrood_ 'shred'.
The version I heard simply said "I wasn't aware that verb had an
irregular."

(The verb in question, for the foreigners who can't find it, is 'screw'.)

>> I would rather have expected /k&r@ouki/.  Where does /i/ as
>> pronunciation of _a_ come from?
>
> Joticization plus a kind of reverse i-umlaut, I guess: [-@jou-] >
> [-Ijou-] > [-ijou-].
I still think the explanation I posted awhile back works best: /a/ turns
to its long form /ej/ before another vowel (cf. 'chaos'), /ej/ (among
other j-phthongs) reduces to /j/ in unstressed [noninitial] position, and
/rj/ being illegal in English[*] develops into /rij/ by anaptyxis.



	*Muke!

[*] /rj/ from Japanese gets treated variously; I have a friend who took a
Japanesque ekename in ryo-, which gets mangled variously as /rajo/ or
/rijo/.  I twist my tongue for /rjo/ sometimes, but he doesnt always hear
it as his name.
--
http://frath.net/                  E jer savne zarjé mas ne
http://kohath.livejournal.com/     Se imné koone'f metha
http://kohath.deviantart.com/      Brissve mé kolé adâ.