Feb-yoo-ary. Febber-ary. Feb-wary. Can\u2019t anyone around here say \u201cfeb-roo-ary\u201d?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to revisit dissimilation<\/em>, the labored linguistic theory that purports to explain why so many of us don\u2019t say February<\/em>\u2019s two r<\/em>\u2019s. The online American Heritage dictionary has the following usage note at \u201cFebruary\u201d: \u201cThe loss of the first r<\/em> in this pronunciation can be accounted for by the phonological process known as dissimilation<\/em>, by which similar sounds in a word tend to become less similar.\u201d<\/p>\n Translation: the second r<\/em> in February <\/em>makes people mispronounce the first r<\/em>.<\/p>\n My first reaction was that some intellectuals with too much time on their hands had come up with a fancy term for slovenly speech. Isn\u2019t dissimilation<\/em> merely an erudite synonym for tongue-twister<\/em>? I\u2019m not quite ready to buy all this \u201cphonological process\u201d business; the simple truth is that people generally are hurried speakers, and saying words like February<\/em> takes a little extra care.<\/p>\n Here are some other hard-to-enunciate dissimilation words:<\/p>\n Asterisk\u00a0<\/strong> The second s <\/em>gets dropped, and we are left with the icky \u201caster-ick.\u201d<\/p>\n Candidate\u00a0<\/strong> People say the first two syllables as if they were saying \u201cCanada.\u201d<\/p>\n Hierarchy\u00a0<\/strong> You often hear \u201chigh-arky,\u201d with the er\u00a0<\/em>slurred. We should aim \u201chigher.\u201d<\/p>\n Prerogative\u00a0<\/strong> I bet most people think this word is spelled \u201cperogative,\u201d because that\u2019s typically what you hear. Only careful speakers say the first r<\/em>: pre-rahg-ative.<\/p>\n Minutiae\u00a0<\/strong> Here\u2019s a word no one says right. The traditional pronunciation, believe it or not, is min-OO-she-ee or min-YOO-she-ee. Good luck with that. I\u2019ve never heard anything but \u201cmin-oo-sha,\u201d because \u201csha\u201d is a whole lot easier than saying two long-e<\/em> syllables, one right after the other<\/p>\n * \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0* \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0* \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0*<\/p>\n I\u2019ve put in enough time on this odd little topic to observe that dissimilation has a flip side. I\u2019m calling it \u201cimpulsive echoing\u201d: the tendency to irrationally add similar sounds within words, despite their spelling. Check these out:<\/p>\n Ouija board\u00a0<\/strong> If you are American, either you or someone you know says \u201cwee-jee.\u201d The standard pronunciation is WEE-ja. How does ja <\/em>become \u201cjee\u201d unless impulsive echoing is real?<\/p>\n Cummerbund\u00a0<\/strong> Look at that spelling and then tell me why so many speakers add a phantom b<\/em>: \u201ccumber-bund.\u201d<\/p>\n Pundit\u00a0<\/strong> I\u2019ve heard seasoned public figures\u2014hello, Hillary Clinton\u2014say \u201cpundint.\u201d<\/p>\n Whirlwind\u00a0<\/strong> I\u2019ve also heard veteran TV journalists\u2014hello, Wolf Blitzer\u2014say \u201cworld wind.\u201d<\/p>\n Sherbet\u00a0<\/strong> That\u2019s how you spell it, all right. What happens when the people who add a second r <\/em>and say \u201csher-bert\u201d meet the people who drop the first r <\/em>in\u00a0February<\/em>?<\/p>\n \u2014Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Feb-yoo-ary. Febber-ary. Feb-wary. Can\u2019t anyone around here say \u201cfeb-roo-ary\u201d? It\u2019s time to revisit dissimilation, the labored linguistic theory that purports to explain why so many of us don\u2019t say February\u2019s two r\u2019s. The online American Heritage dictionary has the following usage note at \u201cFebruary\u201d: \u201cThe loss of the first r in this pronunciation can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,49,37,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-pronunciation","category-spelling","category-vocabulary"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}