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What's the name for the process by which a phrase gets changed by having a consonant replaced, making it easier to say? For example "home in on" is now widely said "hone in on", no doubt because having all n's makes it easier to say than with a lone 'm' stuck in the middle. What is the process called?
Last edited by sjmaxq; 01/22/07 06:31 PM.
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Could it be metathesis? Or is that too specific...
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Or either that or it sounds like it might could come under the general heading of assimilation, one. Usually you see examples of assimilation where the sounds are butted right up next to each other, like illegal from the prefix in slapped onto legal, or impossible from in + possible, but maybe it's still assimilation in a case like this. FWIW, Wikipedia refers to it as Anticipatory Assimilation at a Distance. But you don't have to take Wiki's word for it. There's also mention of anticipatory assimilation here. It also appears to be called regressive assimilation.
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Pooh-Bah
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sj: I'm still working on this one but will let you know if I find a better word
dalehileman
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Quote:
sj: I'm still working on this one but will let you know if I find a better word
The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Quote:
FWIW, Wikipedia refers to it as Anticipatory Assimilation at a Distance.
AAD. Isn't that the acronym for The American Dyslexia Association?
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
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Pooh-Bah
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The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
Alas, I'm devastated
However, for what it's worth, which isn't much, "metathesis" must be a very abstruse word indeed, because not only isn't it in the msn thesaurus, but the word completely flummoxes its software. Here's what it returns:
No results found for "metathes..."
Tempting me to make another unkind remark about Bill Gates, but I won't do so here because protocol has ignominiously relegated that sort of thing to another Forum at the very bottom of the Index
dalehileman
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Quote:
Quote:
The ones my friends have provided are perfectly adequate.
Alas, I'm devastated
However, for what it's worth, which isn't much, "metathesis" must be a very abstruse word indeed, because not only isn't it in the msn thesaurus...
oh dale, your plaintive plaints are so tortured. you will, of course, have known that metathesis gets 32 hits at OneLook dictionaries, two of which are AHD and MW-CD.
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Well, metathesis is rather easy to look up. And, for those who are not about to click, here's a short definition: "Transposition within a word of letters, sounds, or syllables, as in the change from Old English brid to modern English bird or in the confusion of modren for modern." [A-H] As nearly anybody can see from that quoted definition, metathesis it ain't.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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