[QUOTE=amarone]
there is no way to justify a “th” sound at the end of “height”
[/QUOTE]
Yes there is - it’s the original pronunciation, from the Germanic ‘-itha’. It’s in my post on the first page.
My wife comes from a large family that for some reason puts a hard “T” on the end of the word “cousin”. As in ‘cousinT’ My wife seems to have stopped saying it over the years to me, but I regularly hear her say it on the phone with her siblings.
Anyone else ever hear it said that way?
In the rural part of Northwest Tennessee, people sometimes still say Cudin instead of cousin as part of a proper name: Cudin Bill, Cudin Rosalee.
Dialects are not wrong. That is a myth. That doesn’t mean that certain institutions of higher learning aren’t going to prefer certain pronunciations. And broadcasting and the entertainment industry will probably continue to prefer a Midwestern dialect. Some people will continue to judge others by their dialects. No one is more aware of this than Southerners. (That’s why The Colbert Report isn’t broadcast in a South Carolina dialect or accent.)
I say heighth because of my dialect, but I will break myself of the habit because I prefer the pronunciation that ends with the t sound. My problem is that I’m running out of time at my age!
About nuclear—the sound shift under discussion is a change from -[li]- to -[jəl]- …which I find simply bizarre. It’s an anomalous case of transposition of palatalization. In the standard pronunciation [nukliər] the [l] is palatalized by the vowel [i} that follows it. But for some reason in [nukjələr] the palatalization has migrated to the previous sound of [k]. The first schwa appears as a linking vowel, just to have a vowel sound to put after the palatalized [k[sup]j[/sup]]. The whole shift reminds me of the “yer” letter Ь, a palatalized reduced vowel, once used in Old Church Slavonic.
This version has rejected a medial palatal [λ] and shifted it to velar [L]. I can describe what’s happening phonetically, but it still defies all known English sound shift patterns as far as I’m concerned. The shift seems to have been triggered by the rejection of medial palatal [λ]. It’s anomalous because while English regularly uses velar [L] at the end of a syllable, here the [l] is depalatalized even though it’s followed by a vowel.
The only comparable example I can think of for such anticipatory palatalization was in my little sister’s baby-talk pronunciation of onion as “yunnion.” She moved the palatalization all the way to the front of the initial vowel. So the only way I can begin to account for Bush’s pronunciation is to compare it to that of a three-year-old girl.
No, but when I was 4 or 5 the kid next door was named David, and I temporarily believed his name was Davit. That was about the time when I temporarily believed that Batman’s name was really Badman. A bit unclear on the concept of dental voicing, I was. I’m not sure why, but maybe it was the influence of Cleveland dialect. The only Northeast Ohio dialectalism I’m certain of is “crick.” In grade school religion class one day, the priest got on our case (Clevelanders) for saying “crick” instead of creek. He might have been bored with religion because he usually talked about any other subject he could think of.
Keweenaw, the final -t in cousint might be a word-boundary effect: a way of transitioning from a voiced final consonant to the silence of the pause following it, which is unvoiced. This devoicing effect would result in an unvoiced /n/, but English doesn’t use unvoiced nasals. So one alternative is to substitute an unvoiced dental, which is /t/. I’m just saying there’s a rational explanation for how her dialect could have gotten that way. It still sounds deeply hick. Which is cool, because hinterland dialects have linguistic phenomena you don’t find in big cities… it’s all good. 
I’ve heard it recommended to study the speech of old people in rural Lithuania to get an idea of spoken Proto-Indo-European.
I just remembered the Indiana dialect poem “Little Orphant Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley. How I know it is Red Skelton quoted it in full in the preface to Red Skelton’s Book of Horror Stories. He was a comedian who often used rural dialect for a character he created name Clem Kadiddlehopper. He pointed out that Riley wrote the poem years before the Little Orphan Annie comic strip began.
[quote=Ima June Bugg]
Here’s another odd pronunciation. A coworker, who is one of the smartest people I know, pronounces the opposite of “maximum” as “miminum.” Strange, that.
[quote]
OK, was anyone whooshed by that?
Johanna
A posting referencing the schwa ‘ə’, the “rejection of medial palatal”, “Old Church Slavonic”, and Clem Kadiddlehopper. I am very impressed !!! 
Good research job. (Although I bet you wrote it extemporaneously, right?)
[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
Heaven forbid you ever hear my dialect-influenced pronunciation of ‘cutlery’. It’s the only word for which I’ve had fellow Brits ask me what the hell I was saying
[/QUOTE]
I know you live in Suffolk - were you born there? I was, and I pronounce it cu’-el-ree. :o Anywhere close?
And I believe Americans pronounce it “silverware”. 
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington]
Hey, gang, superior much?
I will say this slowly and soothingly for those of you too high on your horses to catch it:
Groups of people pronounce things differently than other groups. It is no reflection of their intelligence or mental capacity, nor is pronouncing things in the same manner as someone with a college education proof of intelligence. What is a mispronounciation to you is perfectly acceptable to another group. There is no correct or incorrect; there is only more acceptable for the situation.
Liberry? Nukular? Totally acceptable. I don’t say liberry, because that’s not how people around me said it when I acquired language, but I’d bite my tongue before I said nukleer. Sometimes I say melk instead of milk. My dog burries things, but there’s always a bare-ial at a funeral. And, dammit, I enjoy drinking pop.
Language variation: it’s a thing of beauty. Deal.
Jesus, people, I copy edit. I get paid to be pedantic and neurotic about language. I could not care less about how people say things, as long as I can understand what they’re getting at. There is no room for intellectual superiority when it comes to spoken language, and damned little when it comes to written language. Any surge of triumphal pride you feel at pronouncing something “correctly” is the thinnest veneer of bullshit.
[/QUOTE]
I can’t believe you are judging people about being judgemental. In many areas of the country you are raised to judge people by their pronounciation, and if you were raised that way then there is nothing wrong with it. Jeesh, get over yourself already.
Thanks, wolf_meister, yes it was extemporaneous, but then the SDMB has so many ideas at once, and each of them reminds me of something, which in turn reminds me of something further… It’s like playing a free-form glass bead game. The SDMB forms a universe of human knowledge and thought more comprehensive than anything else I’ve seen. I was going to compare it to the Library of Congress database, but libraries don’t have the personal insights and ephemeral repartee you find here, which is more like a coffeehouse conversation with thousands of participants at once. Brainy participants. On caffeine.
Dan, I can’t believe you are judging… Infinitely regressing logical loop, anyone?
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If you hate fractured English do yourself a favor and never, ever visit Pennsylvania. Particularly avoid Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
[/QUOTE]
My darling Marcie is from Pittsburgh. She uses words I think I’ve never heard of until I translate them back into English.
.
{Quote from Johanna in Post #85}:
[quote=Ima June Bugg]
Here’s another odd pronunciation. A coworker, who is one of the smartest people I know, pronounces the opposite of “maximum” as “miminum.” Strange, that.
WAS anyone whooshed? If so, that was not my intent; the friend’s transposition of the third and fifth letters of “mi-ni-mum” to “mi-min-um” was the point…oh, never mind…
Johanna, I respect your knowledge of phonetics and linguistics (I always enjoy posts of yours covering those topics), but I feel the need to nitpick your post. The pronunciation “nucular” is more than a Bushism; it’s used by many people in several regions of the US. (Can anyone find an ideolect map of nuclear vs nucular?) I would also disagree with the /nukjələr/; it’s definitely /nukjulər/ in my home area with a strong /u/ in middle syllable.
But I agree that it’s strange dialectal evolution that’s created it. Someone should write a staff report on it!
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Well, what about measure? I say MEH-zhure, so it peeves me when I hear people say MAY-zhure. Unless they’re Brits, of course, and then I just heave a lovelorn sigh.
[/QUOTE]
Never heard a Brit mis-pronounce MEH-zhure, i’d always say it that way.
But while i’ve jumped into this thread, what’s up with all the people that pronounce specific like the ocean? is the p coming AFTER the s not obvious enough???
[QUOTE=gigi]
But what about uncomfortable? The letters-mixed-up pronunciation is quite common, probably the most common?
[/QUOTE]
Thats a good one actually, i think most common in the UK would be to pronounce it without the or in the middle: un-comftable. Just lazy language i guess.
[QUOTE=Johanna]
About nuclear—the sound shift under discussion is a change from -[li]- to -[jəl]- …which I find simply bizarre. It’s an anomalous case of transposition of palatalization. In the standard pronunciation [nukliər] the [l] is palatalized by the vowel [i} that follows it. But for some reason in [nukjələr] the palatalization has migrated to the previous sound of [k]. The first schwa appears as a linking vowel, just to have a vowel sound to put after the palatalized [k[sup]j[/sup]]. The whole shift reminds me of the “yer” letter Ь, a palatalized reduced vowel, once used in Old Church Slavonic.
This version has rejected a medial palatal [λ] and shifted it to velar [L]. I can describe what’s happening phonetically, but it still defies all known English sound shift patterns as far as I’m concerned. The shift seems to have been triggered by the rejection of medial palatal [λ]. It’s anomalous because while English regularly uses velar [L] at the end of a syllable, here the [l] is depalatalized even though it’s followed by a vowel.
The only comparable example I can think of for such anticipatory palatalization was in my little sister’s baby-talk pronunciation of onion as “yunnion.” She moved the palatalization all the way to the front of the initial vowel. So the only way I can begin to account for Bush’s pronunciation is to compare it to that of a three-year-old girl.
[/QUOTE]
This dictionary disagrees:Nuclear - definition of nuclear by The Free Dictionary
“*Usage Note: The pronunciation (nky-lr), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (-kl-r), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (-ky-lr), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular.” *
In other words, the common way you’d pronounce nuclear is the way Bush does it.
About this being laid at Bush’s feet:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=nuclear
"Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in -ky&-l&r\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers. "
and Homework Help and Textbook Solutions | bartleby
The pronunciation (n´ky-lr), which is strongly objected to by many usage writers and others of their ilk, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (-kl-r), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (-ky-lr), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular. You may want to avoid this pronunciation despite the fact that it has been used in the recent past by some prominent speakers including Presidents Eisenhower and Carter. Note that the stigmatized variant can also occur in the word nucleus.
and here:Why does Bush go "nucular"?
*"Changing “nu-clee-ar” into “nu-cu-lar” is an example of what linguists call metathesis, which is the switching of two adjacent sounds. (Think of it this way: “nook le yer” becomes “nook ye ler.”) This switching is common in English pronunciation; you might pronounce “iron” as “eye yern” rather than “eye ron.” …
Bush isn’t the only American president to lose the “nucular” war. In his “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine in May 2001, William Safire lamented that, besides Bush, at least three other presidents—Eisenhower, Carter, and Clinton—have mangled the word.
In fact, Bush’s usage is so common that it appears in at least one dictionary. Merriam-Webster’s, by far the most liberal dictionary, includes the pronunciation, though with a note identifying it as “a pronunciation variant that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be questionable or unacceptable.” "*
So you’d also have to compare Clinton, Ike & Carter to 3 yo girls. :rolleyes: But in any case, the experts seem to disagree with you on “defies all known English sound shift patterns” as they claim it’s a **common ** pattern. 
Well, /-kjul-/ itself may be common, but getting there from /-kli-/ is not. Mostly because, as you say, /-kli-/ is uncommon. I can’t think of any other English examples, with /aiərn/ vs /airən/ being the closest equivalent. Can you find any other examples?
[QUOTE=Shrinking Violet]
I know you live in Suffolk - were you born there? I was, and I pronounce it cu’-el-ree. :o Anywhere close?
[/QUOTE]
Spot on (apart from the birthplace bit!)
[QUOTE=Ima June Bugg]
WAS anyone whooshed? If so, that was not my intent; the friend’s transposition of the third and fifth letters of “mi-ni-mum” to “mi-min-um” was the point…oh, never mind…
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry! Here you were giving a perfectly good example of metathesis (or Spoonerism?) but I didn’t see it at first. In the cavalcade of mostly parallel vertical lines in that word, the individual ms, ns, and u can be hard to make out distinctly. Or maybe I need my prescription adjusted at the optometrist’s. This sort of effect is worse in Cyrillic. And it was worst of all in medieval black-letter hand, in which all of those letters were nothing but so many identical, evenly-spaced pickets in a fence. Like ||||||||||||||| is pretty much how they’d write “miminum.” Which reminds me of my sister’s baby-talk pronunciation of cinnamon as “cimmanom.”
[QUOTE=Keweenaw]
My wife comes from a large family that for some reason puts a hard “T” on the end of the word “cousin”. As in ‘cousinT’ My wife seems to have stopped saying it over the years to me, but I regularly hear her say it on the phone with her siblings.
Anyone else ever hear it said that way?
[/QUOTE]
A hell of a lot of people must say it that way, because I’ve seen student writing samples from all regions of the US and “C[o]usent” is an extremely common way for the little ones (grades 3-5) to spell it; most of their misspellings of the word end in T, actually. Kids that way very often spell what they think they hear (we saw “usual lee” today for instance, and there’s the ever popular “self of steam” and “lactose and tolerant”) and they’re definitely hearing a T in there all over the country.
[QUOTE=Zoe]
Dialects are not wrong. That is a myth.
[/QUOTE]
What proportion have to mispronounce something before it moves from being wrong to being a dialect and therefore OK? When the first person says “pronounciation” is that OK because it is a dialect of one, even though it is based on ignorance as to how to spell the word?
[QUOTE=amarone]
What proportion have to mispronounce something before it moves from being wrong to being a dialect and therefore OK?
[/quote]
You’re starting from the premise of ‘mispronunciation’, rather than coexisting pronunciations, or indeed coexisting synonyms with similar pronunciations or spellings.
An example I used in another thread recently is the significant minority of my pupils who use various dialectical words, including a word pronounced ‘larn’ (=‘teach’). Is this because they’re ignorant of the existence of the latter, and also of the spelling of ‘learn’? No. Not unless you start with the assumption that the correct word for the context is ‘teach’.