Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
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From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Re: Pronouncing "five sixths"
Message-ID: <DMw6wK.53n@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <4g29vv$ec5@globe.indirect.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 23:36:20 GMT
Lines: 18

stevemac@indirect.com (Stephen T MacGregor) writes:

>  Slowing down doesn't help some people; there are sound combinations 
>that they simply cannot make.  I had a sergeant in the Army who simply 
>could not say "breakfasts" -- it came out something like "breakfusses".

The dialect plurals of nouns in -st have a complicated history.  In
Middle English, I gather, they were regularly disyllabic: postes,
nestes, etc.  These forms, with the t clearly pronounced & the e like
a short i, survived in various dialects; James Agee wondered about
them in Alabama (_Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_).  In some dialects
the t disappeared (cf. "listen").  In standard English, of course, it
was the e that disappeared, leaving a hissy cluster that is
troublesome to some.
-- 
        Joe Fineman             jcf@world.std.com
        239 Clinton Road        (617) 731-9190
        Brookline, MA 02146
