# The slow demise of the letter "E" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 25, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807 "2011-06-25T06:07:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/21 "2011-06-25T16:59:34Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > No, but I don’t have to. So, what makes your manner of speech less lazy than other manners if you don’t have to put more effort into it? It’s not like distinguishing phones as phonemes is some kind of virtue. Different dialects/languages distinguish different phones. If you’re a native English speaker, you don’t distinguish /p/ from /pʰ/. Is that because you’re lazy? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/22 "2011-06-25T17:30:39Z")
This thread brought to you by the letter **J** and the number **4**. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/23 "2011-06-25T18:02:03Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Be clear, however. The e sound in the word ‘senators’ is short, not long, so, to answer your earlier question, no, it is not pronounced ‘SEE-neh-tor’, it is pronounced 'SEH-neh-tor. Which is my point. It doesn’t belong on that list. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/24 "2011-06-25T19:16:24Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I’ve been noticing something about the letter “e” that I find a little perplexing. In some cases it’s becoming an “i.” > > I first noticed this several years ago, when a woman on tv was talking about weaning . . . except to my ears she was saying “winning.” Then I started noticing other people doing it, more and more often. > > Dealers have become dillers. > Feelings have become fillings. > Leaders have become lidders. > Senators have become sinnators. > And anything real has become rill. > > CNN’s Brooke Baldwin does it a lot, though not consistently. > > Is this a regionalism, or what? Yes. You just live too close to Pittsburgh. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/25 "2011-06-25T19:26:37Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > There is a much bigger difference between changing a long e into a short i than changing a short e into a short i. “Dealers” pronounced “Dillers” is a big change. “Senators” pronounced “Sinators”, not so much. “Senators” was at the bottom of a long list of long e words. My point was that it shouldn’t even be on that list, because it is not as big of a pronounciation shift as the rest of them. Ok, I get your point. The fact is, I’m hearing both the long “e” and the short “e” becoming a short “i”. Both “seeks” and “sex” are becoming “six”. Admittedly, the latter is less of a shift, but it’s happening nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/26 "2011-06-25T19:29:41Z")
> [@missred](#): > > Yes. You just live too close to Pittsburgh. 😛 Except that I’m hearing it more on TV (like cable news) more than IRL. (Although I agree that I live too close to Pittsburgh, for other reasons.:D) ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/27 "2011-06-25T20:41:42Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > I’ve heard the phenomenon expressed as the “Rise of the [Schwa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa)” even if that’s not all that’s involved. The ‘rise of the schwa’ phenomenon usually impacts the last syllable of a multisyllabic word. What the OP refers to is the replacement of the long e sound in a word with a short i sound, so ‘reed’ is pronounced ‘rid’. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/28 "2011-06-25T20:56:22Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Again, it is probably a regionalism, as the words ‘pin’ and ‘pen’ are not in any way homonyms in my part of the world. They have distinct pronunciations, so if someone says “I saw a pen on the sidewalk and picked it up” there would be no confusion as to whether the speaker meant a pen or a pin. [This map](http://aschmann.net/AmEng/) shows, among many other things, the areas where “pin” = “pen” and the areas where “pin” ≠ “pen”. It’s a purple line with hatch marks on the “pin” = “pen” side. It covers most of the South (excluding Savannah, Georgia, New Orleans, southern Florida, and parts of coastal Virginia), the southern parts of the Midwest (surrounding, but not including Cincinnati), Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, most of Missouri and a swathe stretching northwest from Nebraska into Montana, as well as California’s San Joaquin Valley. The author of the map notes that he’s in disagreement with the _Atlas of North American English_ (ANAE), which doesn’t show the “pin” = “pen” areas extending as far out of the South as he does. [This map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pin-pen.svg) seems to be of the ANEA’s version of things. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/29 "2011-06-25T21:28:26Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Onomatapoeia, I’d be very interested in why you think your manner of pronunciation is The Manner of Pronunciation. Because even a language as disparately inflected as English has a baseline pronunciation of its words that is considered appropriate, and used to be taught. When I went to school, for example, teachers used to correct our pronunciation during oral reports. Proper pronunciation was drilled into us throughout our formative years. Today, and woefully evident in American schools, many teachers are themselves poor speakers with an embarrassingly low command of the language. I don’t think standards of speech are even taught anymore. We are now seeing the results of this with people, who know no better, justifying and rationalizing improper and lazy speech. I used an example earlier of the words ‘pin’ and ‘pen’. It is becoming increasingly evident that these words are homonyms to a growing number of Americans. However, it has degraded further than this as I’ve heard them pronounced with an inexplicably inserted diphthong and even split into two syllables, so the word ‘pin’ (or ‘pen’) is pronounced ‘peean’ or even ‘peeyan’. > [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > edit: Your name has 4 consonants and 8 vowels. That’s a sickening imbalance. No wonder people don’t speak correctly. You’re hoarding all the vowels. Heh. Yes, it is quite sickening. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/30 "2011-06-25T21:53:37Z")
> [@Strinka](#): > > So, what makes your manner of speech less lazy than other manners if you don’t have to put more effort into it? I speak a number of languages, and use three of them in the course of my work so, for me, it has become an organic process. I don’t have to think about my pronunciation, but am expected to maintain at least a baseline standard, which I exceed. Pronunciation is extremely important if one wants to be taken seriously by native speakers of other languages, especially in business. > [@Strinka](#): > > It’s not like distinguishing phones as phonemes is some kind of virtue. Different dialects/languages distinguish different phones. If you’re a native English speaker, you don’t distinguish /p/ from /pʰ/. Is that because you’re lazy? There used to be a commercial on American TV that began, if I remember correctly, “People are judged by how they speak…” This is as true today as it was then, whether we like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/31 "2011-06-25T22:00:06Z")
> [@waterj2](#): > > [This map](http://aschmann.net/AmEng/) shows, among many other things, the areas where “pin” = “pen” and the areas where “pin” ≠ “pen”. It’s a purple line with hatch marks on the “pin” = “pen” side. It covers most of the South (excluding Savannah, Georgia, New Orleans, southern Florida, and parts of coastal Virginia), the southern parts of the Midwest (surrounding, but not including Cincinnati), Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, most of Missouri and a swathe stretching northwest from Nebraska into Montana, as well as California’s San Joaquin Valley. The author of the map notes that he’s in disagreement with the _Atlas of North American English_ (ANAE), which doesn’t show the “pin” = “pen” areas extending as far out of the South as he does. [This map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pin-pen.svg) seems to be of the ANEA’s version of things. Yep, that first map was linked in the other thread. Interesting. I think the ANEA data are old. ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Medlo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@Hi\_Medlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Medlo)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/32 "2011-06-25T22:38:00Z")
The Stillers have been playing in Pittsburgh for as long as I can remember. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/33 "2011-06-25T23:06:53Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > I speak a number of languages, and use three of them in the course of my work so, for me, it has become an organic process. That’s a reasonable answer. So, tell me, what about people who happen to luck into being taught the right dialect and speak “correctly” without extra training? Are they speaking lazy? Why or why not? This isn’t intended to be a gotcha. Is lazy speaking a matter of how much energy they put into correct pronunciation, or merely having correct pronunciation? > [@](#): > > There used to be a commercial on American TV that began, if I remember correctly, “People are judged by how they speak…” This is as true today as it was then, whether we like it or not. People are also judged by what they wear. That doesn’t mean a business suit is objectively better than other forms of clothing. It may be better in some contexts for some purposes (e.g. impressing a business partner), but not necessarily all. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/34 "2011-06-25T23:52:58Z")
> [@Strinka](#): > > That’s a reasonable answer. So, tell me, what about people who happen to luck into being taught the right dialect and speak “correctly” without extra training? Are they speaking lazy? Why or why not? This isn’t intended to be a gotcha. Is lazy speaking a matter of how much energy they put into correct pronunciation, or merely having correct pronunciation? I think one must define what one means by dialect within which, from my perspective, pronunciation is but one component. There are standard pronunciations within a dialect, but I don’t believe the other way 'round. So, although there are no correct or incorrect dialects, there can be correct and incorrect pronunciations of words within a dialect. I don’t know how much luck plays into it as even those with access to educational resources that should serve to improve their speech over time can and do fall into regionalistic patterns of speech. It does take extra effort to learn to employ standard pronunciation as a matter of normal course, but it is easier, to state the obvious, when this is inculcated from a young age. > [@Strinka](#): > > People are also judged by what they wear. That doesn’t mean a business suit is objectively better than other forms of clothing. As you mentioned below, it is all about context. > [@Strinka](#): > > It may be better in some contexts for some purposes (e.g. impressing a business partner), but not necessarily all. I disagree. I believe how one presents oneself says something important about us, and everything, having a context, provides cues to what’s appropriate. It is up to us whether or not we choose to ignore those cues. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807/35 "2011-06-26T00:52:04Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > So, although there are no correct or incorrect dialects, there can be correct and incorrect pronunciations of words within a dialect. So, what’s wrong with a dialect changing, or a new one being formed? > [@](#): > > I believe how one presents oneself says something important about us, and everything, having a context, provides cues to what’s appropriate.. What happens if everyone starts making the same mispronunciation, and pronouncing it the old way is then considered inappropriate in formal contexts? Is that still lazy speaking, or has the standard baseline legitimately changed? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slow-demise-of-the-letter-e/586807.md?page=1)