Re: Why my conlangs SUCK!!!

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 11:12:18PM -0500, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> > Apropos of this, there is a female American name pronounced [mejg@n] or
> > thereabouts. Is that simply the American (for particular values of
> > American, of course) pronunciation of 'Meagan', which I say as /mIig@n/?
>
> Yes.
Okay (I'm not sure which of 'Meagan' and 'Megan' is more common here. I
just spelt it the first way it came to me. It could well be that 'Megan'
is more common here).


Nick Taylor wrote:

> > (One American spelling that grates is 'Jared' for 'Jarrod', like the
> > Subway guy. Looks like /dZe:d/ t'me.)
>
>Ugh, another error on my side.  :-)  Anyhoo, similar question, aremedial
>-r- usually silent for you?
Well, the the -ed makes it look like a past tense (or similar), so it
looks like Jare+(e)d. Because the e looks silent, the r is no longer
medial. Perhaps if there weren't the alternate (and proper :P) spelling
'Jarrod', 'Jared' would look okay, I couldn't say (e.g. if someone's name
was 'Lared' ... nah, that too looks (to me at least) like /le:d/, but
'Larod' is probably /la(:)r(@|O)d/ ... at any rate, it has the r
pronounced, though it's being read in foreign).

With less rambling, r exists if there's a vowel pronounced after it. If
there's no vowel pronounced after it, it could be spelt
'scaraeiouaieeeaieoooaouyd' and it'd still be pronounced /ske:d/.

--
Tristan

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