Re: þe getisbyrg adres

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 04:20:51PM -0400, Steg
> Belsky wrote:
> > Please don't!
> >
> > It doesn't look like an American dialect, and it's
> confusing me! :P
> > |mezýr|, seemingly /mEzjur\/, for 'measure'
> /mEZ@r\/?
> > And |ný| /nju/ for 'new'?  I can barely
> *pronounce* that, let alone use
> > it in everyday speech! ;)
>
> Really?  Hunh.  Not too many years ago maintaining
> the [j] in such words
> was considered a mark of erudition.  I especially
> recall that saying
> [tuzd*] instead of [tjuzd*] for the weekday (the *
> could be either [ej]
> or [i] and isn't the part in question) marked one as
> an uneducated
> philistine.  I know that is no longer the case, but
> has it become so
> rare that some folks can't even pronounce the glide?
>  Fascinating.
>
> -Marcos
>
Hence "nooB" for "newbie".  I remember my parents and
grandparents including the glide, but not my
generation (b.1945 US midwest).

As a kid in the 1950's (US midwest) I had a friend who
pronounced the 'h' in words like "when", "which" and
"what".  Even that far back it seemed stilted and
artificial to me.  Virtually everyone I personally
know under the age of 60 pronounces those words "wen",
"wich" and "wut". (US Pacific Northwest)  Not a trace
of the 'h' is left.

--gary

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