Talk:Metathesis (linguistics)

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Spelling changes do not cause phonological changes; the US pronounciation is not a result of a spelling change in "jewelry/jewellery". I pronounce it "julrey", with only two syllables, which I suspect is the most common US prononunciation. (And I pronounce "jewel", normally, with a single long diphthong, in contrast to the usual two-syllable British pronunciation.) I think the spelling change reflects the three -> two syllable change, and not the metathesis "julary". Hence, I'm deleting entirely the comment about spelling. --Tb 00:45 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It struck me also that the pronunciation "julary" is the result of an analogy that likens the word to the many English words that end in -ary or -ery, rather than the result of spelling. -- IHCOYC 15:20 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Definitely. Metathesis is very frequently associated with analogy to other words. --Tb 20:43 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

What phonetic transcription is being used in this article? It's not X-SAMPA—I've never heard anyone pronounce "jewelry" with a doubled /o/ sound. — Gwalla | Talk 17:51, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's a proposed representation for English that I created after reading complaints about X-SAMPA being unintelligible, IPA untypeable, and English "phonetic spellings" hard to interpret. See Wikipedia:English phonetic spelling. There seems to be no great haste to adopt it. Smerdis of Tlön 18:05, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you're going to use a nonstandard phonemic representation, please say so somewhere. Frankly, I'd prefer IPA, X-SAMPA, or a set of symbols like those used in dictionary pronunciation keys to a system that uses digraphs confusingly ("ie" for IPA /i/ or English "long e"?). I agree about English "phonetic spellings" being awful—they're frequently confusing and occasionally misleading. — Gwalla | Talk 21:38, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I put in a tag to the page explaining them (EPS) but it seems it was not conspicuous enough. AAR, I have reverted it back to English phonetic spelling like it originally stood; that's probably good enough to get the point across. Smerdis of Tlön 03:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Would anyone else agree that the pronunciation 'Febyuary' for February isn't metathesis, but a contraction of the 'r' sound? It doesn't seem to exhibit the same reordering of the other examples. Xyzzyva 19:01, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I tend to agree; it's syncope instead. -- Smerdis of Tlön 20:01, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think aksian vs. ask and hwat vs. what also belong here, but I'm not sure of their ancient forms. Adam78 13:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

hwæt > what is not metathesis. This simply gives two examples of the spelling of aspirated w: hw in OE, wh in Modern English, which is usually pronounced as regular initial w. --Rich 19:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I just added the "wymon for women" example. I think it's a good common example, but as the vowel is also shifted if someone fells strongly elsewise please feel free to remove it. --Zombiejesus 03:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean 'wymon'? Is that a representation of pronunciation? If so, we need some more information to decipher it.

stragety for strategy. witness heqs 18:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Are "realator" and "nucular" really examples of metathesis? I think they're more accurately be described as examples of epenthesis, but certainly not metathesis.

Is "liberry" really metathesis? Seems to me more like an elision of the first r sound. 128.173.157.65

[edit] digression

I think the mention of the meaning of metathesis in chemistry is redundant due to the fact that it is mentioned in the disambiguation. The statement in the article ought to be deleted.