Thursday, June 23, 2005
Sounds that bug me!
Title gotcha, did it ?
As composers we're sensitive to all sounds, not just notes ... so here are two pronunciation boo-boos that get me every time:
Folks who don't use the (correct) citation form for the article when it precedes a word beginning with a vowel. Correct form is 'thEE' and 'aN' (not "thUH" and "UH") in instances such as "the Internet" , "the article", "an alternative", "an orange", "the awfully good", etc.
Folks who don't pronounce the second consonant in the unit "NT" -- saying "Innernet" for "InTernet"; "counny" for "county", etc. But on a whimsical note, I relish the alternate pronunciations that often occur when juncture is misapplied.
(This linguistic feature helps us to get the difference between a place to grow plants -- a green-house -- and a lime-colored building -- a green house.) My husband picked up a wonderful instance of this on NPR during the Aldrich Ames brouhaha, where a commentator spent his 5 minutes dissecting " a spice candle" (spy scandal).
On a similar note, I relish the Emperor's personalization of how he speaks of foe Luke -- hissing the enemy's name (Skywalker) as "S-s-s- (h)ky - wahker".
posted by Judith Lang Zaimont
11:57 AM
|
