Yes! The way people think they speak, and the way they do speak, is often very different.
Also, this is a thread wher it might be helpful to note location. It makes a huge difference.
Ree sez Pee sez.
I call them Reese’s Cups.
I heard “Reesee Cups” a lot in the early '70s - there was a candy store near my flat that kept all the candy behind the counter, so you had to ask for what you wanted, and a lot of kids said it that way. I always thought the two-syllable pronunciation was stupid, especially since the woman who worked behind the counter was named Mrs Reese, and everyone pronounced her name correctly…
Are you Scottish? I know that Scottish doesn’t have the fir/fur merger. So it wouldn’t be surprising if you keep distinct vowels in other words, too.
That said, I do maintain a difference between schwas. I at least have two, one for I and E and one for the rest. I also sometimes have a different one for O and U, where O is a rounded schwa and U becomes short oo as in book or the French schwa (which is fronted and rounded).
Because, really, what happens in English is vowel reduction, and it doesn’t always go all the way back to the original schwa.
No, I’m not Scottish. I have the fir-fur merger. My accent is mostly midwestern, but there are some vowels I don’t reduce.
“Rhesus” is an example of one “divide/division” is another one.
The vowel I gave in my pronunciation of “thesis” is the reduced [ɪ] vowel, or is meant to be, unless my notation is wrong.
I think we’re all right about this. The problem is that “reduction” is a continuum, from a clear * (as in “this”] to a clear schwa. The decision of where along that continuum to use one symbol of the other is bound to be more or less arbitrary.
But Acsenray, simply writing * does not indicate the reduction in question. In some other context it might – for example, if someone pronounces “feet” the way most people pronounce “fit” – but that’s not what we’re discussing here. This is about to what degree someone reduces an unstressed vowel that was already “short” to begin with.
Also, I’d wager you pronounce the same word “thesis” slightly differently in different situations (hurried speech, tired speech, etc.).
I did not indicate a reduction by “simply writing ." I specifically wrote “[ɪ̈],” which is not ",” in at least two important ways. If you’re not seeing the difference, then that might be a technical issue.
I don’t know what accent or display you’re using, but I would transcribe the pronunciation of “this” in general American as [ðɪs], not [ðis].
Right, sorry, I was being lazy. I wasn’t using IPA, but rather trying to communicate to a broader audience.* Thanks for clarifying.
Our points still stand. You sense that you tend to NOT reduce a “short i sound” (as in “this”) in unstressed syllables enough to warrant changing its notation to a schwa. If I heard your unguarded speech, my mileage might vary from yours – perhaps I WOULD notate with a schwa. Such are the limitations of notation.
*In IPA, * is the “ee” in “feet”, while the other symbols Acsenray used are varieties of the “i” in “this.”
I still believe you’re not understanding my notation not fully reading my posts.
General American does not have a single reduced vowel. In most cases it has two reduced values, a fact that BigT’s post refers to.
So we are still not meeting minds here. Because:
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The vowel we are discussing in “thesis” is a reduced vowel in my notation. It’s not the same reduced vowel as the schwa, but this is a standard feature of general American accents.
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I am well aware of the important role of vowel reduction in many English accents and that is present in my accent. I have however indicated—accurately—that there are a small number of words for which I don’t reduce the vowels. You can either take me at my word or you can continue to tell me about things I already know.
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If we are going to have this discussion in a way that minimizes misunderstanding, I recommend using the IPA symbols you do mean to indicate.
Indeed, there are notation systems and phonemic inventories for General American that treat [ɪ] unmidifoed as the second principal reduced vowel.
Okay, thanks for the lesson (no snark intended). Let’s say a maximally reduced vowel is the sound emitted without moving the tongue from its rest position. That’s notated as a schwa. As the tongue DOES move (other mouth parts, too), it can do so in certain “directions.” At some point, we leave schwa territory, and enter the realms of what are commonly (erroneously) called “short” vowels. Keep going, and you’re off into the “long” vowels. (Halfway “out” are the mid-vowels of, say, Spanish).
This can be thought of as analogous to a tree-branch diagram of a language family – let’s take Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European is like the maximally reduced vowel, usually written as a schwa (but maybe deserves a new symbol now, to indicate “undifferentiated grunt”). I was under the impression that the “short” vowels were like Sanskrit, Latin, Proto-Germanic, and Old Persian. What you’re telling me is that there is an “earlier” (more fundamental) division that’s worth recognizing – the very reduced “short i” sound. This is rather like the recognition that, very early on, there was a division between “Indo-Iranian” (very short “I”) and “all the other branches”,*(schwa).
*Let’s leave Hittite out of this! 
‘Cause if the Rhesus’ end was harder than the candy shell, the shells would crack and the contents escape. Then they would just be Leaky Feces.
:eek:
Once in my old lab, a postdoc had just finished performing a necropsy on a monkey. As is protocol, he put the cut-up body in a biohazard bag when he was done. I saw him in the hall on his way to the carcass fridge. I asked what was in the bag and he said “Rhesus pieces.” It rhymed when he said it. REE-ses PEE-ses.
For me
Reese’s pieces REE-sehz PEE-sehz
Recess REE-sess
I hear “Reesees” around here (with or without the “peecees” followon). One fellow even used to say “Reesee” (no final ‘z’ sound).
“reesez piecez” is easier to say than “reeseez pieceez” - you need the alternating long (accented) and short (unaccented) vowels to flow smoothly.
Admittedly I’m biased - I grew up quite close to Hershey, and there was a water tower we used to pass that was painted in the Reese’s colors / logo.