I grew up in Minnesota, and visited grandparents a few times every summer in Wisconsin, which we pronounced "wih-SKAHN-sun". Then in my high-school years we moved to Pennsylvania, where I noticed they pronounced it "wiss-KAHN-sun", the 's' moved firmly from the second to the first syllable. I wasn't even sure until just now why the distinction was so clear in my mind.
If you'll allow me just a bit of linguistic geekery, it's because the nature of the following 'k' sound is different. When we say "kin", the 'k' sound has a very slight expiration of breath after it, not so much that you would think I was actually pronounced an 'h' but it's there. When we say "skin", that slight expiration is missing. So when I hear "wih-SKAHN-sin" and compare it to "wiss-KAHN-sin", I'm pretty sure that the difference is actually in the 'k' sound, although my brain interprets it as the placement of the 's'. Same with "rack-EFF" and "ra-KEFF". Phoneticists have a word for this (but I'm not a phoneticist, just a dabbler, so I couldn't tell you off-hand what the word is); it happens with the other plosives, too, in for example "pat" and "spat", and "tamp" and "stamp". If you want to put it another way, in "kin" your throat is open and the force of the 'k' comes from your diaphragm, causing that slight breath; in "skin" your throat is closed and the only force in the 'k' comes from the air already stored up in your mouth. It sounds too subtle to worry about, but it's one of the things you notice in some foreign accents even if you don't identify it consciously. (Actually they pronounced it "wess-KAHN-sin", with a secondary stress on the first syllable. And what's with claiming that I had an accent? Minnesotan's don't have an accent, we talk normally! It was years before I could watch a TV show and hear a Minnesotan accent.) --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Never let us be discouraged with ourselves; it is not when we are conscious of our faults that we are the most wicked....And let us remember, for our consolation, that we never perceive our sins till He begin to cure them. -Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of David Spiegel Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2023 23:51 ....the time I had temporarily been part of a team to do an ACF2->RACF conversion at a large Canadian bank. (That is a whole story in itself and almost cost me my IBM job.) Anyway ... There was this customer person, who in every meeting kept pronouncing it Ra-KEFF. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
