As many of you may be aware, I'm quite fond of making linguistic observations about the speech around me. Even if I can open a book that tells me exactly what the rule is for a certain pronunciation pattern, I'm compelled to point it out when I hear it in real life...my apologies if my observations have made you paranoid of speaking in my presence. But really, I just can't help mentioning a difference I may notice between my speech and yours. I do try to keep it to myself...most of the time.
My latest obsession is observing how my friends, and especially my ESL students, pronounce words like false or else.
Please read these words and sentences aloud and pay careful attention to the sounds you make. Exactly what sounds do you hear?
false "Is the answer true or false?"
pulse "After his run, his pulse was racing."
else "What else would you like for diner?"
Now look at the poll on the right, read the questions and answers carefully, and answer the question honestly. There is no right or wrong answer. If you chose "something different" please tell me in the comments what you say.
*Sorry person who voted first- I had to add one more option to the list, therein deleting your response, so please revote!
5 comments:
Oh great, now I'm gonna be self conscious about how I say else. I used to pronounce it "eltse", but now it will probably be "else."
I'd like the option of "faltz like a waltz," please. Doesn't it seem much more elegant that way? Hee hee. This doesn't apply (strangely) to pulse or else.
My favorite part is how the sentences for "else" asks what else I want for diner instead of dinner. Maybe you are just trying to keep us on our toes. After reading this, I think I change my pronunciation depending on the word that follows else. I guess I'll have to be more careful.
I have no problem with you making observations about how I speak, so long as you aren't making fun of me, or too many observations! It is definetly interesting to listen and see what you add and subtract from words as you speak.
The plot thickens:
I think I've usually got an epenthetic a stop in "else" in rapid speech, and I think I'm unlikely to insert one in "pulse," but "false" is complicated.
If it's the end of the sentence, as in your example, I think I'd say it without the stop. But earlier in the sentence? Especially in rapid speech? And maybe if I'm emphatically accusing someone/thing/ of falsehood?
So I'm trying to imagine myself in a livelier context: "Well, yeah, but I think it's pretty much just false that Anglo-Saxon poetry ever has been considered apart from its setting, since its setting was the initial attraction it had to its first post-Enlightenment readers and critics and you're only trying to totalize the history of Anglo-Saxon criticism blah blah blah, you get the idea.
Unfortunately, someone needs to follow me around with a tape recorder so we can be sure. Oh, and find a lot of reasons for me to say "pulse", since that's just not a word I think I say very often. (Probably one reason it isn't subject to epenthesis for me.)
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