OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23685, 17 December 1938, Page 20

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

RANDOM NOTES By Professor Arnold Wall "Demeeze."—lt was with a shock of surprise, not unmingled with amusement, that I learned from a correspondent that " demise" had been heard as " demeeze " from the lips of a public speaker. Needless to say, this word may be pronounced only with the same final sound as "surprise." Evidently the speaker was misled by the example of " chemise," which we pronounce as French. A thing like this could never happen to a very well-known word, and the speaker on this occasion must have been quite unfamilar with it as spoken; it is, of course, a technical legal term. Something of the same sort has happened in my experience to " prepense" in "malice prepense," which I have heard, from a university professor, too, as "prepongse." What would happen if people should begin to treat our French borrowings as a group in this fashion? Well, among other nice things we might hear that a man "realeezes with surpreeze that he has won a preeze." Pronunciations in Question

A correspondent asks for a general rule governing the pronunciation of words in which d, t, c and n are followed by the sound of i. This is too big an order for my firm and I must ask my friend to be content with a statement about each of the words which he supplies as examples. " Genius."—Pronounce " jeenyus," no other pronunciation is possible unless, of course, one is speaking or reading Latin. "Peculiar."—Hardly any variation is possible here either. The i is lightly pronounced as it is normally in all words with this combination of sounds. " Peninsula."—This is not so easy. In modern speech, however, it is. pronounced, according to the best authorities, with the "Su" as " Sew." The older pronunciation gave the S the value of sh, which it has in "sure," "sugar," etc., and old-fashioned speakers may be heard to say " peninshula " still, and listeners must very often hear it on the air from one station. It is especially after s that we find remarkable variations in the sound, but most of the difficult cases have been dealt with already in these notes. " Intellectual. —Here again there is room for differences of opinion. The "tu" is pronounced both as "tew" and " choo." But' I think that all careful speakers keep the t clear and say " tew." "Century." Rather %doubtful again. Both t and ch are in use, as in "intellectual," etc., but " oenchery," or " cenchury," is better established than " intellekshooal," and Daniel Jones records it as the " best" (or whatever he does mean). "Punctual."—Much the same sort of variation is to be observed here, and the pronunciation varies between "punctewal" and the vulgar " punkchal." Jones would prefer the " tew."

"Subsidiary." —The variation possible in this word is very slight and cannot well be represented without the use of phonetic symbols. The i of "di" is very lightly pronounced, but may be clear enough to constitute a separate syllable, so that the word may have either four syllables -or five. Jone gives the normal pronunciation with four. The same correspondent wants guidance in respect of these:— " Roaring."—ls it "roarring" or "rawing"?- This is the question as put to me. It is, of course, pronounced as spelt, and the r in the middle has its full sound. It is odd that some people, not Scots, find this difficult, saying " rawing," while others find it hard to say " drawing," and say " drawring." Our notoriously feeble pronunciation of r in English is at the root of these vargaries. " Government."—This is an extremely interesting case, and I am surprised that I have not been asked about it before. It is peculiar in that the pronunciation is not at all in doubt, but, though the speaker knows what he says, the listener; is not always certain as to what he hears. The "correct" pronunciation is exactly as the spelling indicates, that is, Ihe n before the m is distinctly pronounced. Yet, while the speaker is sure that he has pronounced it the hearer may be equally sure that he has heard only "goverment." What happens is that the sound of the dental n is masked by that of the following labial m which blocks the passage just as the other fellow is emerging. All the family are bidding you farewell, but the host roars it so loudly in the porch that you do not hear the meeker voices in the hall. " Modern."—Whether " mod-ern," with "em" clear as in "tern" though lightly stressed, or "modden," " moddn," to rhyme with " sodden," —that is the question. Undoubtedly the proper pronunciation gives the vowel sound between d and n quite distinctly, and to say "moddn" as so many people do is slovenly; yet in certain phrases, especially in "modern languages," as Daniel Jones observes, the normal sound is "moddn."

Nearly all of the following, submitted for decision by one correspondent, have been already mentioned in this column and must be very briefly passed in review:— "Decade." —Pronounce with stress on "dec" and the "ade" with obscure vowel. "Harass." —Stress on "har," as in "Harry," and the second a obscure. " Despicable."—Stress on " des," not on "spic" as so often wrongly pronounced. "Amenable."—Pronounce " ameenable," with stress on " meen." "Lamentable." —Stress on "lam, not on "ment." "Requisite."—Stress on the first syllable; pronounce s as z. " Replica." Pronounce " repplika "; stress on " repp." " Deficit."—Pronounce as " defficit," but " deeficit" is also allowed by the Oxford Dictionary. "Civilisation." Pronounce the "is" as "ize," not "iz." The short sound, which is traditional, has now been displaced by the long, except in America. " Indicative."—As used in grammar this is always stressed on " die," but when meaning "pointing out" on either " nd " or " die," " die " preferred. " Illustrative." Authorities disagree. The 8.8. C. and the Oxford Dictionary stress on "lust," Daniel Jones refers stress on " ill." I should prescribe the stressed " lust."