I was listening to a radio ad this evening and the supposedly professional announcer said “…didjoo know that…” instead of the properly enunciated “did you.”
Then I wondered why that’s a common slur. It doesn’t seem to me that it’s any more difficult to pronounce properly (unlike some like “whattaya doin”).
Do linguists study this sort of stuff?
(Insert Woody Allen line here…)
Sure, words slur together all the time. Actaully, it’s dijoo, where “dy” becomes “j”-- much easier to say.
Cujoo (could you)
Wujoo (would you)
Hajoo (had you)
All the same.
[Jeff Foxworthy]
Jyeatyet?
Naw?
Yauntto?
Ahhight.
[/Jeff Foxworthy]
if a linguist considered such things a good deal of his time then he would be friendless and possibly have a lot of enemies, too.
here’s a good history of american slang written in american slang
If you know what this means:
“Jeetyet?”
“Nah. Jew?”
Then you’re from Jersey.
Yes, linguists do study this type of thing. And they have many friends, thankyouverymuch.
This phenomenon is called palatalization. The ‘y’ sound in ‘you’ is palatal, meaning your tongue is hanging out around your hard palate, though not quite touching it. The ‘d’ in ‘did’ is pronounced with the tip of your tongue against your alveolar ridge (the bump you can feel behind your teeth), though some people pronounce it with the tongue tip against the teeth or more back towards the palate.
Now, when you’re talking fast, the ‘d’ and the ‘y’ kinda smoosh together, giving you a ‘j’ sound, like in ‘judge.’’ The ‘j’ sound is a combination of two sounds, a ‘d’ and the sound in ‘measure’ or ‘beige’. This sound is pronounced with the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, not quite touching. If you blend the ‘d’ and the ‘zh’ (for lack of better orthography*) together, you get the ‘j’ sound. It’s like a compromise between the ‘d’ and the ‘y.’
*There is a better orthography, the International Phonetic Alphabet, but I was trying to keep things simple.
Some Linguists study precisely this kind of thing. Your comment was uncalled for.
what the mouth does depends on what the mind commands. and orthography is about written language not what your mouth does. quite frankly your description of someone’s mouth moving has no bearing on why that radio personality decided to say perform that “phenomena” called palatalization. the answer to that question is because he feels like it.
Jaimaka, since i’m being misunderstood on everything i say, i’m willing to compromise, i won’t speak and people won’t mistake my meaning.
These are not conscious acts. I’m not saying the brain has nothing to do with it, but people don’t decide to say things a certain way, most of the time. If all speech was 100% conscious, then talking would take forever. Further, if this were true, speech therapists and dialect coaches would be out of a job, sine we could all just decide to speak a different way.
And yes orthography is about the written language and not spoken. If I were taping this instead of typing it, I wouldn’t have any problem communicating what sounds I’m talking about. But since this is a written medium, I need to use letters that we all understand.
And, quite frankly, articulatory phonetics has everything to do with what this guy was doing. It explains why, in fast speech, we (all) say things like ‘dija.’
These days, “professional” announcers or media journalists apparently don’t study speech as their predecessors did.
Ath-uh-lete.
Nup-choo-uls.
Ex-peer-uh-ment.
And how are you filling?
I don’t care one way or the other. All I was saying is that you personally insulted various posters on this board and various friends of mine, and that there is no need for that.
I understand this insult was due to ignorance. Thus it baffles me that when an actual linguist (liberty3701) tries to educate you, you get all belligerent. I generally appreciate when my ignorance is cured.
Jamaika, there’s this thing that might be called “friendly sarcasm.” Or at least that’s what I’ve heard…
The “j” sound can be pretty indistinct. I’ve often heard (and said) it more as a hard “ch.” As in “Wacheetin?”
A nifty example from pop culture is the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” where you can hear “without you” and “withowchoo” (or “withowjew”) in the same song.
Around here it is “didja” for “did ya”. The d and y run together to make a j sound naturally. Say did you (or did ya) several times in a row quickly. You’ll hear what I mean.
Perhaps, with his first comment, telecommunications only meant the fairly innocuous observation that “if a linguist considered such things a good deal of his time [just for the purpose of saying to such speakers “You are wrong to do these things! Why do you persist in doing these things? Stop mispronouncing all the time!”] then he would be friendless and possibly have a lot of enemies, too [because people wouldn’t appreciate that, nor should they be expected to].”, or something like that. At least, that was the only way I could make sense of it at first, though now, I’m not quite sure what exactly he was saying.
“Did you eat yet?”
“No. Did you?”
I’m not from Jersey. Did I get it right?
I find that everyone thinks the canonical “Jeet yet?” “No. Jew?” exchange is isolated to, and thus emblematic of, their particular region, whereas it seems (in the inexpert observation of my anecdote-recalling mind) to be rather widely spread, at least across the U.S. I think I’ve at least heard it attributed to New York, Philadelphia, the South, Texas, and the Midwest all in my life, and Google searches back up all of those.
I don’t know why this is an ishoo.
I’m gonna think about it.
The “ch” sound and the “j” sound are pronounced the same, except that ‘ch’ is voiceless and ‘j’ is voiced. Voiced means that the vocal chords are vibrating during the production of the sound. ‘d’ is voiced and ‘t’ is voiceless, so it makes sense that ‘did you’ would become ‘dijoo’ and ‘what you’ becomes ‘whachoo.’ It’s the same process.
AIUI (IANALinguist), it’s a common misconception that linguists do this. They’re generally interested in studying variations in dialects, not in telling people how they “should” pronounce or use words.