Fun with Phonology

No, wait! Wait, come back! Phonology is fun, I promise.

Phonology is the study of sound systems: why many native Spanish speakers say "estudy Espanish" and why Americans aren't sure how to get their mouths around Gstaad.  Phonology offered me an entirely sensible explanation when a little boy on my caseload started saying "bagel" instead of "camel." See?  What fun?

One of the things I noticed when we moved to Scotland was that they used a lot more "y" sounds than I was used to. Styupid. Nyewspaper. Dyuty, to use Mary's example. Because I am a phonology geek, I pondered this. In American English, omitting a "y" where it belongs is quite conspicuous. If someone says "bootiful moosic from the footure," you notice. (You also wonder what, precisely, he thinks he is talking about.) If a wedding usher says "May I show you your poo?" when he means "pew," you really notice. I was suddenly curious: did Americans sound that odd to Britons? I started adding in the occasional "y."

In most dialects of American English we don't use a "y" sound after tongue-tip sounds like /t, d, n/. It also drops out in some less familiar words where it actually belongs even on this side of the ocean. Legoom instead of legyume. Scoot instead of scute. Spur-ious instead of spyur-ious. (Spellcheck is having a cow about this post, waving its little hands and saying, "Will you stop already with the 'y' thing?") If it were sturious instead of spurious, I'd never have mentioned the difference, since we don't pay attention to that in my part of the world. But spur-ious makes me think of someone saying "coo the boogles" when he means "cue the bugles," or "poor" when he means "pure."

Today one of my classmates teased me about saying "spurious," suggesting that I'd confused it with "furious." But really, what native English speaker would say "furry-us" when she meant "furious"? I find her amusement curious. Curry-us, she might prefer me to say.