Re: CHAT: "T's okay" and initial /ts/ affricates

Laurie Gerholz wrote:

> I'm not really sure. I suspect that I use both in speech. I never really
> thought about it. The /tsoukei/ shouldn't really be a violoation of
> Standard English phonology because it's *actually* a contraction of
> "it's okay".
Well, I meant by that that for most English speakers, /ts/cannot be used in initial position
(the ones already mentioned excepted
of course). I remember one time I was eating at a Chinese restaurant
with my parents, and I thought I'd order Capt. Tsou's something-
or-other (can't remember what now).  I asked the waiter about it,
and I distinctly remember him saying /souz/, not /tsouz/ (the waiter
was a native English speaker, not as is often the case natively
a speaker of one of the Chinese languages).  Also, for most speakers,
"tse-tse fly" is pronounced as /sisi/, not /tsitsi/. The same goes for initial
/N/ (as in kiNG).


> I actually began *consciously* using the phrase only in writing, after
> seeing other people write it. Until you brought it up, I wasn't ever
> conscious of actually using it in speech.
Of course, that's where language is the most fun! :)

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
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  Its name is the Invisible.
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