USAGE: WOMYN (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum numberofsymbols,though mostly talking about french now
| From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, May 26, 2002, 23:23 |
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Kendra wrote:
> To interject, where I live a lot of people say /wUmIn/ - /wImIn/ (please
> excuse me if I made a mistake :)), which may or may not explain /wI/...
Actually, it comes from the original OE form _wifman_, in some MidEng
dialects, the initial syllable went from /wi/ to /wu/. For whatever
reason, the singular used the /wu/ (now /wU/) pronunciation but the
plural used the /wi/ (now /wI/) pronunciation. Maybe even then the
second syllable was already less distinctive.
Do people where you live also not distinguish between the suffixes -man
and -men?
--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
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