Re: USAGE: maneuver was THEORY: lexical shift [was Re: Time machine]

isn't it just that american english simplifies the oe ligature derived
from latin ( and from greek words derived thro latin ) to 'e', and has
extended this to a french word with a similar ligature. british english
on the other hand tends to keep the ligature as a digraph, and even
introduces it erroneously in 'foetus'.

in which case pronunciation has little to do with it, and the spelling
is just accepted as non-standard.

-----Original Message-----

Yes, I know, that was the point of my post.  I was wondering if the loss
of the <o> from <manoeuvre> suggested that the /j/ had already been lost
from /nju/; I say /m@n}:v@/ too, but /nj}:tri:n8u/, /nj}:tr@l/, /dZ}:s/.
The triagraph <oeu> doesn't suggest any sound at all, it's used in oh so
many words (can anyone think of another?) that it's okay.  If we got rid
of the <o>, we get <eu> which, as you've suggested, is /ju/, although it
does change depending on the sound before it.

Tristan