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USAGE : Yet another proof people are weird ...

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Saturday, July 19, 2003, 15:51
We just had a little family argument over the pronunciation of the verb
_ignorera_ "ignore"; I say [INnUre:ra] (and am, of course, right!), but my
mother, brother and younger sister say [IgnUre:ra], in defiance of the rule
that says that "g" becomes [N] before "n". The weird part is that despite
their being able to hear that I say it differently, they also insist they have
[g] in words like _ugn_ "owen", despite pronouncing it [8Nn] with as clear a
velar nasal stop as anyone can ask for, while not being able to tell what's
wrong with [8gn]. And similarly with other words with written -gn-.

That they hear a [g] in _ugn_ etc is presumably only a case of hearing the
spelling, but how can they possibly be unaware of the distinction in these
words, but not in _ignorera_ ?!?

                                                         Andreas

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