Originally Posted by Platonist
This is called transposition; it’s a normal occurrence in all languages and happens more or less spontaneously. Think of what children invariably do to spaghetti: they transpose the s and the p, and get: “psaghetti”. You can not only see this happen spontaneously in a child, you can see it historically: so, for example, the word “asked” has the /sk/ phoneme - yet, in the middle ages the middle english pronunciation was: ax-ed. Same word, but the s and the k were transposed (from our perspective). Interestingly, there has emerged in the past few decades a linguistic subculture that transposes the phonemes in the exact same way: “I axed (re: “asked”) you to stop doing dat.”
Once you know these language rules, a modern english reader can easily read middle english: so, for example, you may have heard of another phenomenon in English called the Great Vowel Shift. If you see the word “brid” in middle english, and you know the “i’ phoneme was actually pronounced as a long “e” sound, but is now pronounced as a short vowel: so, in modern English: “breeeed” to “brid” - AND, then you transpose the “r” and the “i” - you get modern “bird.” So, Middle English: “brid” (pronounced “breeed”) to modern english: “bird”.
I’m a total blast at a party. :)
I’m totally on board with you, but at the same time, we would correct the child when he/she has matured to a level of understanding to the correct pronunciation of it. They would also spill the spaghetti on their face, which - just the same - is less endearing when they are an adult ;)
I genuinely did not know that it was actually once pronounced as “axed”. From my experience with this pronunciation, it is usually how uneducated black people pronounce the word “asked” in America. Not so much the case for uneducated white people there or black people in the UK or in the EU in general. Although, we have something _horrendous_ in the UK called “th-throttling” where people for whatever reason pronounce “th” as an “ff” sound. I.e.”I fink I hit my fum with somefink” (I think I hit my thumb with something”. It’s plain awful, especially in London. This is equal for white and black people, but rare for Asians/Indians etc to speak this way. Again, it’s mostly the uneducated that talk this way, as I was raised on a council estate and was surrounded by people speaking this way, but though high school, college, uni, I found less and less spoke this way by noticeable leaps, to literally nobody at all in med school speaking this way.
Nice snippet of info there, thanks!
And for the record, I’d invite you to a party and pick your brain for a while, sounds like fun :P
Originally Posted by PhoenixNow
For my defense, English is not my original language. And for my offense, I’m an inbred with 22 chromosomes.
No defense necessary, I was just informing people :P
Second languages are tough, I know, and I always appreciated it when someone corrected my spelling or pronunciation. My sympathies for the missing chromosomes!