[FRIAM] metathesis

glen gepropella at gmail.com
Fri Dec 1 10:21:15 EST 2023


So, on the death of The War Criminal, I've been reflecting on the most irritating thing to me about George W Bush's stint: nukular. Sure. It's irritating that he started a war for no good reason. If we learn anything from Kissinger's treatment by the press, it's that those sorts of things don't actually matter.

But the way you pronounce "nuclear"? That matters ... to me, anyway. I've managed to grind off the burrs in my thinking when someone says "axe" instead of "ask", glottals their Ts, etc. But I just can't get over nukular. Every time someone says it that way, whatever it was I was doing or thinking goes straight out the fscking window. With, say, "axe", I can actually do it myself without feeling shame. Same with t-flapping. (And vocal fry.)

Wikipedia gives me a nice list of triggerable attributes of language: metathesis, elision, epenthesis, flapping, assimilation, dissimilation, etc. My request, here, is for examples from anyone that rankle you or that you've overcome. Presumably, the more aware I am with others' struggles with such, the less I'll be triggered by my own.

-- 
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ



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