L103-A-MEDIA GOOFS

GOOPHASMS FROM THE U.S. MEDIA: HOW
SPEAKERS ON THE MEDIA BETRAY THE WAYS
THEY FALL SHORT OF BEING CORRECT

Since living languages are not static but always changing; some things that would be errors (where error is understood as something conflicting with the language system) at one time are not errors in a naturally evolving language system; if they conflict with the system, this is usually not the case. The system is in our heads, but some are quite unaware of it, often because of misteachings in the grammar books . . . some of which will be cited later. One of the keys to natural development is whether it is patterned.* In what
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*This characterizes the change of (s)tr to (sh)chr in train and strain and other words with the underlying //(s)tr// in a given (sub)variety of English; cf. extremely. This may affect given individuals as well as entire groups of speakers of a certain age group, class, etc., in given locales. One should not use dialect pejoratively; it is just another term for a language (sub)variety. An unpatterned (not rule-governed) change is, except at the very beginning of a general change, unlikely to be good English, etc. This comment does not apply to the choice or import of given words─their cognitive senses or pragmatic forces. It also does not apply to mispronouncing foreign orthographies; e.g. the common failing of misapplying what one may have learned about how to pronounce "ch" in French or Portuguese (where some uses of "x" are also like English "sh") to other foreign languages. These constitute unpatterned, random guesswork, not patterned (rule-governed) change. One traditional exception has been cherub with its plural cherubim (Modern Hebrew & Modern Greek cheruvim).

follows, novel pronunciations or usages that deviate from cultivated usages* will be

*Except at the beginning of a note like this, an asterisk that precedes a word or construct indicates that it is a solecism. Usages can have checkered histories, especially in the orthography, resulting in disparities like -cede in precede and -ceed in proceed. This affects pronunciation (cf. machine vs. machination; the "ch" in charity comes from Old French, the "k" in charisma comes from Greek) more easily than syntax, which is more resistant to being violated, if anything. Saying "phenomena is" may look like a syntactic error but it is really a lexical error, i.e. the assumption that the word is singular.

compared with usages that are not in dispute but which are crossed or violated by the errors cited. Professional announcers and other speakers should take a simple course in which one learns what language is about. . . . how we determine that inquiry has a stressed long-ī on the middle syllable of doctrínal in one pronunciation or on the preceding syllable in another subsystem; intestínal and cervícal are parallel with "i" as in final. (It hinges on the difference that -al is not word-final in Latin the way it is in English; contrast festival with feast or bestial with beast.) Other questions worth noticing are how we determine why err should have the same vowel as deter, whereas deterrent has the same stressed vowel as error. Many speakers do the converse with both words! There are quite defensible historical patterns that dictate why era begins with an "ee" sound, whereas error does not. The product Zetia is pronounced as though "zettia" on the media; as it is spelled, it should rhyme with Lucretia; its stressed -et- should, in the pronunciation system of English, sound like the stressed -et- of facetious. And acumen is stressed on its middle syl-lable, not its first.

When I hear someone say an algæ, a phenomena, a criteria, etc., I can sympathize with those who haven't found out, one way or another, that these words are plurals in Latin and Greek. The final æ is pronounced ee in English, as generally except when in the third syllable from the end or, otherwise, when following by two consonants*
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*Note that in most rules, pr, tr, cr each counts as one consonant; br, dr, and gr do likewise in certain words, but not usually; cf. hybrid.. (Putrid is not exceptional but rather the result of another rule.) Occasional exceptions to any rule may arise in cultivated usage as the result of various accidents (usually false analogies) in the history of language; cf. English putrid. See pp. 185 and following of Bailey, English phonetic transcription (SIL and University of Texas at Arlington, 1985; additions and corrections are found on the orlapubs website).

and when immediately preceding -ic, -ish, -id. Cf.meter : metric, final : finish. Contrast the way -st- behaves in festival, bestial and Christian. The Latin plural data sounds more acceptable as a singular, seeing how easily it can be treated as a mass noun or nouns ending in -ics (e.g. politics, physics, ethics), which are singulars: We say "Politics is," not "are." (I would not advise a plural *datas.)

But what about minutiae, properly pronounced minéwshiee? Another problem is species, which is singular and plural alike and has the same "sh" sound as special for a like reason. In both minutiae and algæ, æ is pronounced "ee." Although algæ is pronounced aljee; I recently heard "an algay"─a twofold error that is about as bad as it can get. I would prefer formulas to formulæ, even if many people mispronounce the "æ" of formulæ. Preventive should be like inventive; it is not preventative like augmentative. Criteria, bacteria, phænomena, are plurals, not singulars (but see below on using plural data as a singular mass noun). The Greek singulars are criterion and phenomenon; the Latin singular is bacterium. The Greek plurals used for rhinoceros and octopus are rhinocerota and octopoda. (I have heard the risible *rhinoceri and *octopi.) The London DAILY TELEGRAPH senisbly writes bateriums. On the media, I even heard an alumna say, "I am an alumni of . . . ," making herself both masculine and plural!!! The last syllable of alumni sounds like nigh.

Recently, I heard chimæra pronounced with the wrong e in the penult syllable. (It is accented on the first syllable in Greek, but on the middle syllable in English, according to the old Latin rules for pronouncing Greek in earlier days.) I am quite happy to admit that some words of this sort─e.g. data; although one can no more say a data than a trash─are able to function as singular mass nouns, but I can only wonder what the plural of non-mass nouns like algæ or phenomena or criteria would be for speakers who think that the words are singular forms. (Does one just add -s to make them plural?) The first syllable of mediæval can have a light "e" (Latin short-e) or a heavy "e" because of its phonetological environment. The digraphs, æ (for Classical Latin "ae" and Classical Greek "ai") and œ are treated exactly like "e" in English─heavy or light as dictated by the principles of English pronunciation as illustrated elsewhere on this page─; both had become different kinds of "e" in Latin at the time the words containing them were brought into English. The word Judæo-Christian is mispronounced oftener than algæ; in both "æ" is like "ee."

The issue of using the plural of a foreign word vs. adding the regular sigmatic plural is more a matter of taste than coming up with a fixed principle or rule. The best approach that I can suggest is to use English plurals where possible (e.g. milleniums, not to speak of agendas─where the word is already plural in Latin, though singular in English, an uncommon situation). It is not always possible. It would be absurd to say datums for data,. Phenomenons and criterions are not very feasible; and *algas would be beyond reason. Most Hawai'an plurals are like singulars, but there is a vowel-length distinction in the plural of kanaka "human being": kānaka. I use English plurals; e.g. wahines (females, usually adult); others can do as they wish.

The English pronunciation of foreign words is difficult in an age of world communi-cations. Musicians have their own usages of Italian words, though commentators on music composed with foreign names or having a foreign title require a special source. Carmina Burana has the stress on car- (not on mi-) and -ra-. The best guide to Latin terminology is to ascertain the way they are pronounced in law schools. Via will be as in viaduct, and de facto and a fortiori will receive their proper pronunciations, not the monstrous botches that some who have had a year of public school or parochial school Latin with their equally weird pronunciations of Latin, with their ignoring the true length of some vowels, etc.

The pronunciation of ancient Attic Greek became "modern" by ca. 0 AD. It came to be pronounced like Latin in the Western Middle Ages, probably influenced by the Doric Greek of Magna Græca in southern Italy. Local pronunciations of Latin grew up in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Britain, etc. Useless for studying the sound systems of the Classical languages, these pronunciations served well enough for lecturing and conversing. The result in English is lawyer Latin, the proper form of pronouncing Latin words in English, unless one fancies oneself a philologist and knows enough about the true pronunciation of Latin in Cicero's day (not really what the textbooks think) to give it a shot. The RC Church uses an Italianate pronunciation of Latin, the butt of one comedian's jokes.

When we heard Arabs on TV say jihad to rhyme with English had, Islam with English slam, and Sadr with English sadder, there is little justification for the failed attempts to sound knowing by pronouncing the long "a" as "ah." That is childish.

As I was writing an earlier part of this, I heard a prominent leader of a pbs new show say a vertebray for vertebrae─which is a plural word. I suppose the speaker would say algay for algae and Cayzar for Cæsar. In minutiæ, the digraph is like English "ee". The word does not end in -a, which would be singular; it is plural!! It certainly is not pronounced minutiay! Aapparently not very widely known is that many "e" orthographies have replaced earlier "æ" (in demon) and "œ" (in economics)─which had become a variant form of long "e" in Latin by the time the relevant words were on the way to us. A good example is the prefix prae- in the word just mentioned; would one say pray-fix . . . or daymon for demon. All different kinds of ē (whether from æ and œ or not) get lightened in certain environments, though there are a few exceptions like scenic, as pronounced by probably most people. Can the reader see why vertebray is so far out of the ballpark?

One accepts an agenda, two agendas, etc., although the form pluralizes an abstract verbal noun in Latin; the title of a document evidently functioned as a singular; it got cited as such long enough to eradicate any angst about the word's being a plural. Soon after writing the foregoing, I heard "People is . . ." . . . but it's "People are," although one can say "a people is . . ." The latter use has a plural of its own─peoples. Plu-ralized folks has pretty generally replaced folk in the sense of "people generally." But even an elementary knowledge of Greek, Latin, or English should show that pro-active should be pre-active. One thing that a bit of Classical knowledge should help is to avoid geneOlogy for geneAlogy or that fēral is not ferral; nor is culinary cullinary. And capricious is not capreeshus, though it is related to caprice.

Even the dictionaries have given up on internecine. This does not relieve professional media announcers from the need to get real. Redundant invented terms like the barbarism virtuosic should have no place. Virtuoso is adjectival as well as substantival. (Virtuositous would be more well-formed than virtuosic.) In a recent interview (20070413), some professor mentioned (more than once, as I remember), "a phenomena." The media goes with a plural verb, are, not is; I use goes here because it is one expression. I suppose one could raise a mass noun to the status of a collective noun; but if a media means anything, it would have to mean a kind of media, not precisely one of the media. What a teeth means, even in context, is quite beyond this writer . . . perhaps a kind of denture. What ceremony (what gets done) and ritual (what is prescribed to be said; also directions for doing what is done) get as constantly confounded as eternal and everlasting do.

[The pages of the orlapubs website give information (citing Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis, Oxford University Press, 1996; see its index) concerning the be-get passives, the have-get causatives, and the will/be gonna posteriors. of English.]

What is to be said of diper (like wiper) for diaper? The "a" should not be omitted. It can be noticed that di- and tri- (in disyllabic and trisyllabic) have short-i in Greek; this has generally been changed to heavy-i in English.

It exhibits an ignorance of word-formation to say attendee for attender; Latinate attendant has acquired different force.

To tell the truth, a smattering of Greek or Latin can lead to error as much as ignorance can; think of the would-be, invented plurals of rhinoceros and especially octopus mentioned earlier. Spelling transcriptions of foreign words are also problematic. Some do not realize that the accent rules of Latin were used for pronouncing Greek words in previous days. To get the stress right, one has to know which vowels are long and short, though diphthongs are long.

"Ou" was formerly like English "ow," though "oo" is normal today. As a graduate student in England decades ago, I heard professors rhyme Greek (untranslatable) noûs ("outlook, mindset, cognitive paradigm") with the noun mouse. Louisiana is "Looziana" for the same reason that "ui" in bruise, cruise, fruit, etc. (but not phoo(+)ey, Lou+ie, and other words with a formative boundary) is pronounced "oo." One often hears conduit pronounced with three syllables, although the "u" is not pronounced it conduit, biscuit, or circuit―but of course circúitous is another matter. The older aristocratic native pronunciation of the city was (is?) Nyáwyunz. Carmina and incognito are stressed on the antepenult syllable. A-historical should be avoided; the word is anhistorical (cf. anhydrous). Caramel is not carmel. This word has three syllables; the last syllable is mid-stressed by a few older speakers. Incidentally, the "a" in macro- is like the "a" in mate, not like the "a" in mat. Notice that the stress in grimace is on the second syllable!

A little French is worse than none. Think of all of those names with nasal "(e)in" that get pronounced as though "en/an"─even Messiaen (which ends the way bien does) and of course Gauguin. But there is the southern French Poulenc, whose closest English equivalent is poo-lank. Some speakers of English seem to think that English "ah" (as in the more common pronunciation of pecan) can make any word sound foreign enough to get by. On the other hand, that Greek or Scottish "ch" are used for a sound that is closer to English "k" (as in chaos, Murdoch) than anything else is a fact that is easy enough to learn, despite the trouble some have with it, say in machination which irregularly does not have the "sh" sound heard in machine (pronounced as in French). English has one or two other examples of this variance, which is due to the peculiar histories of the words in question. Cf. In fact, only French and Portuguese (and some of the languages of their former colonies, mainly in Africa) pronounce "ch" like English "sh." (This also one of several pronunciations of Portuguese "x" and Chinese "x.") Another rule with few exceptions is that a stressed vowel other than sound spelled as "i" gets its heavy pronounciation (i.e. whatever would have been "long" in earlier English) when followed by one consonant in the spelling (or pr, tr, cr/kr) plus unstressed "i" and another vowel (often mid-stressed); cf. Milton : Miltonian, theology : theologian. The vowel in question will be full-stressed in this position. "I" gets the opposite treatment; cf. vice with vicious and ignite with ignition. Compare particularly divīsive : division.

Incidentally, -sive is one of the few exceptional instances in which -s- between vowels is not pronounced as [z] in good usage. Many exceptions are the vanguard of a change of rule ordering from amrked to unmarked (see Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis [Oxford University Press, 1996, Chh. 5-6); this is largely due to a predictable change of the order of the sound rules. A few rule pairs are marked regardless of which comes before or after. Ration can have heavy "a" or, if a verb, "light a" or heavy "a"―usually light when plural and referring to food. But rational in the sense of "reasoned" or "reasonable" has light "a"; and national rhymes with it. The second syllable before a fully stressed syllable normally (i.e. if no word boundary intervenes) has a light vowel in place of a heavy vowel; cf. vain : vanity, lēver : leverage, deprīve : privity. (Probity and some other words are exceptions; see below.) The rules involved lighten any vowel before two unstressed syllables and make vowels other than heavy (but change change //ī// to its light equivalent) when standing before a single consonant, unstressed "i", and a mid-stressed or fully-stressed vowel; examples are and ignition (contrast ignite) and division (contrast divide). Like the second syllable of ignition, the first syllable of ideology and ideation should have light "i" in the first syllable (contrast idea), though many educated speakers pronounce the words the initial eye- heard in idea. Vowels generally (there are exceptions) are stressed and lightened before -ic; e.g. tōne : tŏnic; cf. also automatic with automation or static with station . . . but a subsequent rule keeps "u" heavy in cubic (cf. somewhat irregular rubric). A similar rule lightens "i" and other vowels before -ish; cf. in final : finish, stone : astonish. The order of the rules determines the outcome. Most heavy vowels are lightened before two fully unstressed syllables. What creates "exceptions" is that an original "marked" order does not change the output of an earlier rule that could be its input (naturally) changes to an (unmarked or feeding) order in which the output of the one rule gets changed by the following rule. This natural change starts with a few words and then naturally generalizes to all appropriate words, in which case the new situation is no longer exceptional but the norm.

We often hear of a "litany" of complaints or whatever. An itemized list is not what a litany is. It is a list of petitions (that are prayers) having the same request response (from one or more often many responders) to each petition. C'mon folks; let's get our terminology within the ballpark! And what of the frequent use of demean on public radio for bemean? As in demeanor, demean meas "behave." Etymologically be- here is the same causative be#fit, be#token be#grudge, etc.

Many on the media say less instead of fewer with countable nouns. Maybe it's a useful language change, since it gets rid of a distinction of no great importance─not reciprocated in positive more─though the difference between few and less (with non-countable nouns, nouns not normally pluralizable in the same sense─like sugar, chemistry, etc.) remains.

By the way, who invented "preventative"? It should be like inventive, lacking the -ta-. Words from a different Latin class do end in -tative; e.g. expectative. Before one invents words, a little knowledge is helpful. It's too bad that such things are not taught in the fifth or sixth grade.

We may say recoup for one sense of coup, but recuperate is not *recouperate. . . . When did warranty become warantéé?

The British write "El Qa‘eda" and correctly pronounce the Q-word with three syllables; Americans don't write it correctly and hence mispronounce it in two syllables. Cf. Sa'ud(i). Compare the pronunciation of Hawai'i, which should have four syllables and have the stress on the first //i//─the second mora* from the end. What we regularly hear has three
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*A mora is the length of a short vowel. A long vowel is like two shorts without an okina [glottal stop] between them. There are no diphthongs in the English sense, just vowel sequences. The stress falls on the second mora from the end. Since a word-final long vowel is bimoric, it gets the stress. In the case of compound words, the accent of each part is on the the third mora from the end of each part, if there are that many moras; otherwise on the second from the end if there are two moras.

Many speakers add a further principle if the vowel that would be stressed according to the forego-ing is preceded by another vowel. (This would not happen if a consonant―including the okina―or an internal word boundary (#) separates the two vowels; the latter situation is uncommon except in the obvious situation of reduplication, as in a'i#a'i . . . but cf. ma#úka.) The vowels then form a falling diphthong with stress on the third mora (third and fourth mora, in the instance of a long vowel) from the end, as in máui ("sweet potato"), Māui (the island) . . . but not in ka#íli.

syllables, the result of omitting the first //i//, which would get the stress according to the rule. When earlier Hawa Íki underwent a sound change that replaced //k// (and yielded [v] for "w") with the okina (glottal stop), the pronunciation should have become HawaÍ‘i. Unfortunately, the media often MISPLACE the accent on the second "a," which is the second mora from the end AFTER the first //i// has dropped out of that position. Proper pronunciation does not stress the second "a" of Hawai'i or the first "a" of Sa'ud(i) or of Qua'eda. One frequently hears Hŏnolulu (or even Hŏnolula) on the media, although time was when Hōnolulu was de rigueur.

Misspelling hybris (Greek ‘ÝBPIC) as hubris is simple ignorance, at least when one backs off from spellings like dunamic, hupnosis, huper-, gunecology, and above all hubrid. The last word in Greek is //hybrid-//; when //s// is added, the //d// changes to /s/, and /ss/ simplies to /s/, yielding hybris. BTW, who replaced properly formed systematic with that abortion “systemic”? The Greek root is systemat-; the //t// drops out when no vowel-first ending follows. Greek gyne (the y is short, the e is long and accented), which means "woman," is pronounced like English gin in androgynous; but the y in androgyne ends up like i in fine: The final syllable is like the formerly colloquial pronunciation of join, viz. jine. In gynæcology, the principles of English phonetology require gyn- to be like English gin. Pronouncing the formative gyn- with a hard g and the wrong vowel is as ignorant as it would be to pronounce gym (for gymnasium) as gyme with hard g and with y like i in crime or grime. Greek names ending in -eus should not have the diphthong eu pronounced as two syllables─in Zeus or any other name of this class. Orpheus and Morpheus, are dissyllabic; the second syllable of these words is just like the second syllable of the noun (not verb!) refuse; Classics scholars say Orphewss, Morphewss, Odyssewss (third syllake like the second syllable of the noun misuse, not the verb) etc. In these names, "eu" is like the unstressed syllable in nephew and (relevantly) Greek-derived pneumatic; cf. "u" in menu. Therapeutic would be relevant if "eu" were not differently stressed.

And where did the media people get that abortion─memorabeeelia? And the old problem with

Someone in the media should commission a list of foreign names, especially place names, so that media announcers could get Rio de [not "day"] Janeiro right. Those who do Classical Music programs need a list of composers whose foreign-languageg names might pose pronunciation problems. I heard Vladimir mispronounced a few moments ago; it is Vladéémur.

In good English, we do not use the past form of a verb for an event that is not at a specific TIME (it can be as vague as "long ago" but not "every day"), a time that is mentioned or implied, but can occur in a clause beginning with "since") or PLACE (it can be as vague as "somewhere". These examples:

To say they spoke French their entire lives is all right if they've died; not if they are still alive.

Where always makes the specificity of repeatedly doing something at a specified time ("at noon") irrelevant. Given the different from a specific time and a span of time ending with now, the following is correct, although the media announcer omitted has:

This is wrong become of the specificity of a single "at noon," rather than often, usually, generally, or always. The present-anterior formed on have or has indicates a SPAN of time that has ended end prior to now. (See further HERE.)

Expressions like "The child behaves well when guests are present" also indicate a span of time that overlaps the present unless otherwise indicated.* We no longer say

√ This guy comes up to me and tells me there's something illegal going on.

This verb form is the exochronous verb form discussed in Bailey, ESSAYS ON TIME-BASED LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS (Oxford University Press, 1996; see the index). It (or its progres- sive variant) is the default future form in a subordinate clause. Try it in a clause beginning with when, as soon as, etc. This is the default use of the exochrnous modality, often misnamed the present simple tense in grammars. To change "The child behaves well" (a general statement having nothing specifically to do with the present moment) to a present, we say, "The child is behaving well."

have just for something that (has) happened a moment ago; we simply use the past form of whatever verb is used.

In proper English, there has till recently existed a difference between the following verb uses─both the predicate in the if-clauses and of may (formerly used like can for potentiality) and of might (formerly like could for a doubtful contingency) in the contingency clauses─differences that have been lost from the grammars of many on the media. We now hear the if-clause of the first example used in place of had said in the second example, so that the previously existing difference has been lost:

Just as prevalent is the reversal of may (no longer used for a potential more or less the way can is still used) and of might (now no longer used for a dubious or contingent potential the way could is still used). Note that the second of these examples has a counterfactual if-clause with a doubtful or contingent might or could in the contingency clause. By contrast, the first of the foregoing two examples has an if-clause that conveys no hint of the deed's being true or false; it can be used for a hypothesis. The may or could in the contingency clause indicates what would follow IF (and only if) the predication in the if clause should turn out to be true.

English is constantly changing. Some of the foregoing have probably already become "proper" English for many. But one expects speakers on the media to be better informed. That so many educated speakers on the media have lost counterfactual conditionals, using a past instead of a past-anterior in If it was proven for If it had been proved has not been

acceptable English in days gone by. But today, even past-anterior verbs built on the auxiliary verb had has disappeared for many on the media!

There needs to be a course on language to acquaint professional speakers with what is mythological (that English is "not phonetic," as one author in The Atlantic recently wrote), what is right, and what is wrong. Some rules are easy enough to learn, e.g. the rule that a vowel other than one spelled as "i" gets its heavy pronunciation when followed by one consonant (or groups that count as one like pr, tr, cr) plus unstressed "i" or "e" followed immediately by another vowel. Examples include immediate, specious (special and an older pronunciation of one sense of ration are notable exceptions!), and words ending in -tion. Incidentally, the word in pronunciation, not pronounciation.

Pronouncing "j" is a source of ridiculous goophasms . . . of the category characterized by the saying that "a little knowledge is dangerous." What can one say about changing the first and last vowels of lingerie in defiance of every principle of French orthography? To know how linge is pronounced and the difference between -ie and -ée does not seem to register. Then there is "j" in foreign names. The letter in Beijing and Falluja is not like French "zh"; and the same is true of most foreign-language words, since only a few (African and ex-French colonies in southeast Asia) languages use "j" for the French sound. Germanic languages and transcriptions of Slavic languages use "j" for a sound whose closest English equivalent is "y." In all other languages, the closest English sound to orthographic "j" is English "j." So there is no need of far-fetched pronunciations of Beijing and Falluja! Music commentators are beginning to omit "zh" in adagio in proper Italian, though the "j' sound should be lengthened, as though adád-gio. (This is at least the case in Florentine Italian when "c" [spelled "ch" before "i," doubled to "cch" in pistacchio] or "g" is followed by "y," i.e. unaccented "i" plus vowel. The long "j" is heard in the "dj" of English bad job.) I don't know how Dimaggio is pronounced. In North Italy, the long consonants can get reduced to a single short consonant; even in everyday Florentine, a single gi becomes (or at least used to become) "zh," i.e. like "s" in pleasure or vision.

Southerners do not syllabize //l// plus //y// the way Northerners do. Hence, William is not like will plus yum; it is rather
Wi(l)yum. And so with other terms. Million is not like mill plus yun; it is rather mi(l)yun. In the same kind of pronunciation, failure is not like fail plus yun . . . any more than the second t of station is like the second t of state. In faster tempos, /ly/ becomes [y] in Southern States English, where the automobile is a To~yota, not a toy~ota!

Hebrew "y" has become English "j." Yahweh, Eliyah, etc. in Hebrew were transcribed into Greek and Latin as "i." Where "i" was pronounced quickly as a consonant, it got a long tail in Latin─our "j". This came to have the modern "j" (dzh) sound in Romance and English, and this "j" became "zh" in French and in street Italian (at least in Florence); in Spanish, it acquired the "Arab sound" of jota; but Portuguese went the way of French. The real Hebrew remains like English "y" but our "j" sound as in JUDGE is the normal English usage for the historical reasons just stated.

Incidentally, the most educated pronunciation of certain Latinate words is often missed by radio announcers. Especially affected is a heavy "i" in the prefinal syllable, as in doctrinal, cervical, etc.─when "i" carries the main stress and is pronounced like eye.

One thing that needs to be learned is the difference between the boundaries + (a formative boundary, which seldom affects pronunciation) and # the internal word boundary. Any radio or television announcer could learn the semantic and morphological difference between re#creation and re+c~reation (where ~ is a syllabic boundary, there are several + boundaries in these words)─click HERE──and then apply that knowledge to the difference between re#present "present again" and re+p~resent. (I've just heard re-conciliation for re+c~onciliation and pro#ject [noun] for proj~ect on the media.) Incidentally, Covert is not co#vert; conjoin is not cojoin. Pre+s~entation is not pre-sentation; that word (where "s" is not [z]) has another meaning!

Many educated young and middle-aged speakers no longer use compound verbs formed with have or had (with the sole exception of examples like "It has been standing here for many years"). One reason is the faulty explanation of the anterior verbs forms of English grammars─the exochronous-anterior (whose progressive form has just been illustrated) the present-anterior (which disallows the foreigners' "They have lunched at noon"; but making it an exochronous-anterior by inserting always makes the statement acceptable), and the past-anterior formed on had. For older speakers, this is especially troublesome in the case of counterfactual statements, i.e. when the past is used for the past-anterior, as in "If it was done, . . ." for "If it had been done, . . ." (The change heard in I just did it for older I've just done it is more rational, since it merely indicates that the past time SPAN indicated by an anterior verb formed on have stops a moment before now, rather than, as in earlier times, with now itself, . . . as in "It has been standing here for years.") The situation is made more difficult with the current reversing of the force of may and might. While may and can once had the same force, as did might and could, may and might have switched so that the contingent or dubious force of might now parallels that of can rather than that of could. In the example just given, many would now say "If it was [or had been] done, they may be pleased"; and one regularly hears examples like "If it's ready by tomorrow, they might be pleased," where might conveys no force of doubt but simply signifies likelihood.

Consider the way announcers say "speeseez" (with s instead of accepted sh) for species . . . violating the principle that unstressed "si" or "ci" preceding a vowel is "sh," as in special, specious, speciation, gracious, etc. is pronounced as "sh." Cf. "ti"* in -tion, which

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*This phenomenon occurs when /s/ (derived from //s//, //t// (as in spatial), or //c// (as in specious and official) is immediately followed by an unstressed underlying //i// that itself is immediately followed by a not wholly unstressed vowel. While special and precious have the "sh" sound, in acceptable English they are recognized exceptions to the principle that would make the "e" preceding the "sh" sound heavy─as in spēcious and spēciation. On this and other pronucniation matters, see Bailey, English phonetic transcription (1985; online addenda HERE)

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is usually -shun but after //s// is "ch," as in question. Cf. also t in the same circumstances, e.g. martial, action. Even mention can be so pronounced though nt often sound like "nch"; st is regularly shch, as question. (Speakers of English that have grown up in Hawai'i often change "t" to ch before "r' as in train, strain.)

We might as well give up on proved, which most speakers seem to have lost, along with the difference between predicative proved (used as a verb, as in has [been] proved) and attributive (adjectival) proven, as in a proven theory or It's proven. All they have to do is to use proved like rotted and proven like rotten. English has three other similar contrasts, along with some isolated examples; click HERE.

Many conflicts with the system arise in words coined by those whose insight into the system is not very clear. Why not say sterotypal instead of steriotypical or short-līved (I'd prefer short-lifed) instead of the meaningless short-lĭved (short-living would at least make sense!)?

Terms like tense, mode, and, it would seem, even voice (diathesis)** are inappropriate

**Active and passive. The latter is the "unmarked" (not unusual) usage only when there is no agent, as in "It was said that the glaciers are melting").

for English, though (in)transitive is still applicable for uses of a given verb. English has many modalities, a general term that subsumes the foregoing and more, not just those miscategorized as tense, mode, etc. Cf. others like the causative modality in "They made/had us do it" and "We caused it to happen that way."*** The term MODALITY embraces

***Notice to absence and presence of the infinitive marker, to, in the foregoing. One needs to distinguish a marker from the category of being marked, a term in linguistics that refers to an item with special attributes that contrast with its unmarked equivalent. The form or use of an item may reverse in a marked context, so that what a form that is marked in an unmarked context becomes marked in a marked environment . . . and mutatis mutandis. The oddest reversal (it occurs mostly in uncultivated usage) is found in the use of anymore with non-negatives to mean "still" or the like.

all combinations of auxiliary verb plus durative(-active) or passive participle (rarely infinitive) as well as processual phenomena such as the optional (but usual) deletion of should or the insertion of do in negations of the sort illustrated doesn't (but not isn't or couldn't***) in in American English after expressions of volition or necessity and of

***When have is not the main verb there is no do-insertion; do-insertion occurs with have when it is an auxiliary verb. With the verbs need and dare, there is modal force only when do is not inserted in the usual places; contrast doesn't need to with needn't and do they dare speak of that with dare they speak of that? Colloquial be sposeta and be bounda are semi-modal modalities; causative help may omit the infinitive marker to if the complementary infinitive follows help fairly closely─something depending on the tempo of speaking. Contrast also have (got) to do that with have (got) that to do. English no longer uses must as a past the way, e.g., Robert L. Stevenson did; we say had to (hadda) or didn't have to.

importance or propriety. The be in an example like I always just be myself on those occasions is not an example of should-DELETION but is sui generis in current English, where exochronicity is expressed by the exochronous modality (discussed below under SYNTAX) of any verb—including is.

The verb frequent is stressed on the second syllable. It belongs to a small class of paired verbs ending in -ent, -ment, etc., that I have dealt with elsewhere, in which a verb is oxytonic (i.e. its final syllable is fully stressed) and the noun or adjective spelled the same way ends with an unstressed or mid-stressed syllable. Dissection has "ss" like disservice, dissent, and disservice . . . and does not mean what "bisection means; there is no disection. I may add the rules of pronouncing Greek words in English use k for Greek ch, as in chaos, archaic, and . . . you guessed it!. . . machination. (German "ch" is partly comparable; can you imagine pronouncing Back as Bash?) For the general principles of pronouncing Greek and Latin words in English, click HERE. Let's consider a notorious item, species: Why are "ci" pronounced as English "sh" rather than in that very precious mispronunciation─spees(i)eez? The answer is anything but complex; prevocalic "ci" in the foregoing in this word as in special, specious, vicious, atrocious, crucial, commercial. Consider -ssion in mission (not as in persuasion) and -tion in ignition. Consider also words in which "s" is like "z" in a like environment, as in vision, evasion, nauseous, and nausea.) If you intelligently object that the second syllable of species is not wholly unstressed (like most of my examples) but rather mid-stressed, what can I say?It would be precious to pronounce the verb assóciàte with "ci" pronounced as si. "S" can, however, be tolerated before full stress in slow tempos, as in assòciátion and pronounciation. I would not use "sh" in pronunciation.. Note that -tion is -shun in words having that ending; cf. negotiation. I presume that no educated speaker would pronounce inertia with "t" in even the slowest of tempos . . . other than to indicate the spelling to someone wondering about it!

Some announcers have trouble pluralizing names; I recently heard Rubens for Rubenses (paintings by Rubens, not by Ruben!).

Numerous changes are going on with regard to anterior participles. Predicative proved is replacing formerly attributive proven. Molten (metal, rock) is semantically differentiated from melted (e.g. butter). It is the same with distracted and distraught, loaded and laden, freighted and fraught, wrought and worked, bereaved and bereft, cleft and cloven. (See details in Missing the boat (2d ed.) on the Orchid Land Publications website, part L. Differences in pled : pleaded, sped : speeded, showed : shown—not to speak of dove : dived—are rapidly eroding in favor of the former item in each of these pairs. Thrived is heard for throve or thriven, and the situation is similar with strive. Shrive is so restricted that it maintains its peculiarities. Fit has replaced fitted, except in outfitted, for many speakers; lit no longer simply means “almost drunk” but has replaced lighted to a considerable degree. The special sense of quitted (which is infrequent) is maintained against the sense of quit. Readers can check their own useages of knitted : knit, girded : girt, abided : abode, creeped : crept, leaned : leant, leaped : leapt, dreamed : dreamt, and speeded : sped. It is my feeling that strived is ousting the older pair, strove : striven]. Note that bade, sate, and shone have light vowels (as in cat and bond). Showed is gaining on shown; cf. sowed is replacing sown, and hewed is too rare to comment on, though rough-hewn is still current. The senses of broke (“having no money”) and broken are still well-maintained; but (a)woken : awakened : waked still vary considerably. Differences in some, e.g. swollen : swelled, stricken : struck, hidden : hid, bidden : bid are being better maintained. While bade has virtually disappeared in favor of bid, forbade is still heard as the past of forbid. Spat is seldom heard. Span (past of spin) is purely Australian (and probably New Zealand), so far as this observer is aware. While archaic bounden exists only in bounden dury, misshapen lives on. New pasts made from verb derived from nouns like weed-eated and flied (in baseball) continue to be created.
My advice on the foregoing comes down to th'ole sayin', "You pay/s yr money; you take/s yr choice"! But I would add the proviso that there are kinds of formal writing─well short of liturgical writing─in which no few of the newer uses would not go down very well. But one can even hear Elvis's "all shook up" on the British media. But then, there are educated Brits who violate every principle of stressing by placing the stress of municipal on -cip- . . . to the distress of other educated people in the British Isles.

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