Dave Shepherd and Howard Shepherd try not to run their words together as they discuss slurring and elision in spoken language.
Responses to listener emails. Howard was recently a guest on EatFeed. (1:51)
Dysarthria: pathological elision (9:47)
Elision as an agent of language change: “everyday” elision and “expedient” elision (11:24)
Music bumper from by “Telepop” by The Jerrys (17:47)
Elision in the learning of other languages (18:25)
Song: “Whatcha Gotta Say for Yourself,” by Phil Golub (22:20)
Rude word of the week: “mofo” (27:10)
Music bumper from “Tonight,” by Zach Ashton (31:33)
The inverse of elision: hypercorrection (32:02)
Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network
Theme music by Kick the Cat
time: 38:13
size: 26.2 Mb
rating: R (Our Rude Word is an elision of one of the most taboo words in North American English–and we explicate it.)
I think pronouncing the word “ask” like “axe” counts as an would an elision. Oh! Gotta admit, but sometimes during casual conversation I’m guilty of slurring.
btw, I’ve listened to plenty of editions but, can’t recall any discussions of “word whiskers.” Like, have you guys ever, like, discussed them?
This episode brought to mind something I remembered from a week I spent in Charlotte, NC for work quite a while ago (I’m from New England). I noticed several people had the habit of hypercorrecting plurals so that, for example, the word “lists” became “listses”.
Thanks for that comment, emach. When Howard and I prepared for this show, we considered exactly that type of hypercorrection, and we just didn’t get around to mentioning it.
The version of it that I remember from school was uttered when a kid had maybe two or three quizzes or exams on the same day, and he would say he had two “testes.”
Not realizing what he actually was saying, of course…
There are some standard German elisions:
am = an dem
beim = bei dem
im = in dem
If you choose not to use the contracted form you emphasise the article. Non-standard elision is e.g. the clipping of the word “es”, as in “wie geht’s” (how is it). You can use, but it is always spoken language (as don’t).
Confusing elision for non-natives in English: the pronounciation of the reputed four-syllable words “vegetables” and “comfortable”.
I was lost in the move. I just realized I had not heard your show in weeks and found out you had changed the feed. You might try using feedburner so that you can have the same feed even if you move you podcast.
We actually did not change the feed. That is, the feed URL we published from the very beginning (thewordnerds.org/rss) still works. It re-directs to the actual feed, which resides at thewordnerds.org/feed.
We do have the same feed address as always. We never published the LibSyn address since we started doing the ‘cast.
MoFo is also the nickname of a respected law firm, Morrison & Foerster LLP. See http://www.mofo.com.
Texas governor Rick Perry’s phrase “Adios, Mofo” seems to have become something of a catchphrase:
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/06/24adiosmofo.html
Wow! I almost feel prudish giving this edition an “R” rating.
I do note that the American-Statesman, while quoting Urban Dictionary, did not actually even hint at the word for which “mofo” is an elision. Rude is rude, after all.
The identification of the Shenandoah Valley’s Staunton as a shibboleth brought to mind a few of Vermont’s weirder examples:
Corinth = co RINTH
Calais is pronounced exactly like callous
Charlotte = shar LOT
And those are just the c’s.
Emach’s comment brings up another oddity of Vermont speech. We have trouble with t’s. An “almost shibboleth” is the name of the state, pronounced Vermon with a sort of nasal fade away. I have a terrible time with plurals of some words that end in t. The letter that precedes the t matters, and s is the worst. Lists! Tests! Help me.
The slurring issue made me think of something politicians and media people often say — instead of “social security,” they say “sosscurity.” And sometimes you’ll hear a slur of “President of the United States” that sounds more like “Pressaunitedstates.”
It’s like they speak these terms so often that they aren’t patient enough to get the whole phrase out.
When saying the alphabet, kids typically do not say “L-M-N-O-P.” Instead, it’s “Ellamenno P.”
Just a couple I thought of.
Will
A classic example of elision is “tempercent,” as in:
“That’s about tempercent (ten percent) of the total amount.”
Utah residents have become somewhat well known (or is that derided? you choose…) about their tendency to elide several words (much to the delight of local FM radio DJs) such as:
juh - “You”
djuh - “Did you?”
djew - “Did you?”, (Panguitch version)
djeet - “Did you eat?”
lawnmore - “lawn mower”
leafblore - “leaf blower”
squeet - “Let’s go eat”
And I’m not sure if this one fits in hypercorrection or just general mispronunciation, but if I have to hear:
“Well, that’s just a mute point.”
one more time, I think I’m going to have to revoke said speaker’s diploma and/or intigate their deportation paperwork.
Love the show.
Not sure how the ’silent L’ derives from elision, but I do know that there are significant (and directly opposing) differences between American and British pronunciations. ‘Solder’ and ‘Folks’ for instance, where Brits pronounce the ‘L’ in the first but not in the second, and Americans vice versa.
BTW, have you ever done an episode covering the differences between British and American English?
Great show!
Living in Austin, Texas we’ve got a nice shibboleth in the following street name.
Manchaca = man SHACK
Also, wanted to remind you of a signature elision here in the deep south: y’all and its plural all y’all
I don’t know how we skipped over “y’all.” It is, of course, ubiquitous in the South, which may be why it skipped our attention.
But I do want to insist once again, as I have several times before on the show: I don’t know a single native speaker of Southern American English who would use “y’all” as a singular pronoun. it is a plural form, comparable to “ye,” “ihr,” “vosotros,” and many other informal singular forms of the second-person pronoun in a number of languages.
I have only ever heard non-Southerners use it as a plural form. (Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves!)
orientated.
said a lot here in australia. i’ve read it and heard it from people of all echelons*-o-society.
if you do differences between uk and brit isles english to american, do not leave out the aussies or south africans (like their “just now” meaning eventually, but don’t hang about waiting for it, girlie).
like- oh this is fun to say publicly- fanny, root, and pull off. never tell your taxi driver to pull off here. if you tell him to “pull off by the rest stop, because my fanny itches” he’ll wreck the car.
*yes, all. i made a point of asking about their rank in society, kept a file and yes. all echelons. every single one. it was a busy week.
Just discovered your podcast, so here are some delayed observations…
Is “wens-day” an elision, or is “wed-nes-day” an overcorrection?
Then there’s the place name “Worcester.” Since the “cester” is a morpheme (a fortified place), you’d think it would stand apart phonetically.
My pet peeve “ta” is “preventative” (used when “preventive” would do). But it seems to have worked its way into most dictionaries as an accepted variation.
After 16 years of checking on my daughter every morning to see if she had gotten out of bed, I noticed our exchange had deteriorated to this:
“Yup?”
“Mup!”