Talk:Elision

Elision in Arabic
Isn't the way that the definite article al behaves before shamsi consonants in Arabic an example of an elision? For instance, the word for sun shams made into a definite noun is pronounced ash-shams with the sh pronounced as a singlular stressed consonant. However it is still written as al-shams in MSA.

Another example from Arabic is in the colloquial dialects, particularly those of the Maghreb, where short vowel sounds are usually omitted. For instance, "kitaab" is pronounced "ktaab".

Kansai
Kansai people do not elide vowels. Pronoucing every vowel is the basic technique to mimic Kansai-ben. They do elide "ikimasuka?" to "ikimakka?", but I think it is rather influence of Kanto's "ikimasska" than traditional Kansai-ben. So I do not think that Kansai dialect is a good example of eliding dialect. --Seitaro 09:54, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Latin-Romance and English-Japanese elisions
Why isn't anyone putting in Latin-Romance and English-Japanese elisions? lysdexia 06:55, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Long and short
Look at the markup I put in: it tells open and shut (long and short) vowels apart, unlike anything or anyone else. Someone needs to update the Japanese to tell what exactly "u" means, and the like. lysdexia 07:48, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The vowels in Tamil section are all short vowels. -- Sundar 08:21, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

whew
Rate my work. How do ye like my exact pronunciations and translations? lysdexia 03:03, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Lysdexia. Not being a native speaker of any of the languages that you added information on, I am not competent enough to give a rating. Still, on the outset, it appears to be a very valuable contribution. Continue with your good work. -- Sundar 05:35, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking about adding chatspeak, like cya, r, u, etc., but they were more acronyms than elisions. French has so many useless (nonfunctional), at least in speech, letters that its shortenings are quite close to the first words. lysdexia 10:04, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * This article is all about spoken language. "Chatspeak" is entirely written, so it's completely irrelevant IMO. Hairy Dude 19:27, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

English examples
I'm not sure what to make of these. There are hundreds of them, and they're not in any discernible order, they contain a myriad unexplained abbreviations, and the "pronunciation" or whatever that is is also in some obscure or undefined system. Further, I don't think that many of them are in fact examples of elision. Certainly not synchronic elision or monolinguistic elision. It should be clarified which are examples of synchronic monolinguistic elision (like e.g. the British pronunciation of secretary) and which are not, like for example coup, which was never pronounced in English with a p sound and while. And then there are the cases that not elision at all, like while, which just derives from a different inflected form of whilst, not an elision of the final -st. And I don't think it's particularly interesting to list every English word which has lost a sound in the course of the history of the language, because that includes pretty much every single word; for example every word that has a final silent e is an example of diachronic elision, but that should be handled by prose that explains the loss of final e, not an exhaustive listing of every word that has a final silent e. Similarly with all the other silent letters. And so on. I find this section to be so useless and misleading that I think it should probably just be deleted (I can't speak to the other languages' sections as I haven't looked at them yet, but they may be problematic too). I will leave it for a few days, but if these issues can't be improved, I geuninely can't see how we can with sound mind leave this heap of misinformation here, and I don't see any way it can be salvaged save removal of nearly everything and careful explanation of everything else. Nohat 05:44, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

English
I've gone through all the English examples and categorized them by what I think they are. The vast majority of them do not represent examples of "elision" except in a very loose sense of some time in the history of English, these words changed in a way that made them have fewer sounds. I don't think this is a very interesting or useful definition of elision, because pretty much every word in English would qualify in some way. I think we should stick to the strict definition of elision, which is where a single sound is deleted from the beginning or the end of a word OR a single vowel is deleted from the middle of word. By delete, I mean that the sound exists in the underlying synchronic form and is deleted in part of the phonological process of uttering the word. Nohat 01:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not elision
These are things I don't think are examples of elision or anything like elision or I was unable to understand what was being claimed.
 * (word[o e, u e]): "(word[o, u])"
 * -(vowel[y]): "-(vowel[y])"; "-(Vowel[])"
 * -*: "-*", "-y"; "-E"
 * -ar-: "-ar-"; "-a-"
 * -ca-, -que-, -ck- (L. Fr. E.): "-c-"
 * -d-, -t-: "-d-", "-t-"; "--"
 * -dg-: "-dg-"; "-jh-"
 * -er-, -ir-, -ar-: "-er-", "-ir-", "-ar-"; "-r-", "-a-", "-e-", "--"
 * -ft-: "-ft-"; "-f-", "-ff-"
 * -ia, -ium (G. L.): "-y"; "-E"
 * -ing: "-in'", "-ing"; "-in", "-"
 * -ol-, -al- (L. Fr.): "-ol-", "-al-"; "-O-"
 * -ol-: "-ol-"; "-O-"
 * -u[vowel]- (L. Ger. Fr. E.): "-u[vowel]-"; "-[vowel]-"
 * basketball, baseball: "B-ball", "B'ball"; "bEbol", "b'bol"
 * San Francisco (L. Sp.): "Frisco"; "friscO" (Though native San Franciscans tend to resent this.)
 * caravan (Per. It. Fr. E.), vanguard (L. Fr. E.): "van"; "væn"
 * creature (L. Fr. E.): "critter"; "crittr" critter may be related to creature, but not by elision; how not?
 * father: "pa", "paw"; "pa", "po"
 * snow: "sno'"; "snO" what exactly was deleted here? a w?; duh
 * tricycle (G. Fr. E.): "trike"; "trIch"
 * yoghurt (Tur. L.): "yogurt"; "yOgrt" gh just represents a phone not in [E]nglish--there is no elision here; ghost! ugh! ghasp!
 * zero (A. L. It. Fr. E.): "o", "oh": "O"
 * between: "'tween"; "twEn" the be- of between was added to tween, not vice versa; back-elision
 * betwixt: "'twixt"; "twicsth", "twicst" ibid; iatrogenesis
 * grow: "gro'"; "grO"
 * indict (L. Fr. E.): "indict"; "indIt"
 * low: "lo"; "lO"
 * sukoshi (J.): "skosh"; "scOSh"
 * sweet: "twee"; "twE" (baby talk)
 * whilst: "while"; "whIl"
 * wr-: "r-"
 * x- (G. L.): "x-"; "z-"
 * y-, i-: "-"
 * yeah: "ya"; "yæ"

Clipping
Examples of clipping, where large parts of words are cut off the beginning or end--not elision. Elision is just the deletion of a single sound. Also, for some of these cases where it looks like it could be considered elision, it's in fact not, because both the shortened form and the longer form would be considered separate lexemes. When someone says "bod" they're not saying "body" but leaving off the [i], they're saying a different, slang word, which was derived from body.
 * (Elision = Striking out &rarr; Omission = Sending off) ≠ Derivation = Streamening from. Slang is elision.  Also, please don't use the wrong vowel for body's ending.  Stick with English rules: bodE or badE, or bodee or badee if you like.  Then they are elided to bodh or badh and easily again to bod or bad.  You are thinking of the derivation bood or baad that is not the elision. lysdexia 3 July 2005 05:03 (UTC)

pudding: "pud"; "pud"
 * perambulator (L.): "pram"; "præm"
 * Bartholomaios (Ara. G. L.): "Bartholomew", "Bart"; "bRTolomEw", "bRt"
 * Japanese (C. Mal. Por. L. It. E.) "jap"; "jæp"
 * Robert: "Rob", "Bert"; "rab", "brt"
 * Thomas (G. L.): "Tom"; "tom"
 * Timotheos (G. L.): "Timothy", "Tim"; "timoTE", "tim"
 * Tutankhamen (Egy. L. E.): "Tut"; "tut"
 * California (A. L. Sp.): "Cal", "Cali"; "cæl", "cælE"
 * Hispanic (L.): "spic", "spick", "spig"; "spic", "spich", "spig"
 * Macintosh, macintosh (Sco.): "Mac", "mack"; "mæc", "mæch"
 * Massachusetts (Alg.): "Mass"; "mæss"
 * administrator (L. E.): "admin"; "ædmin"
 * advertisement (L. Fr. E.): "ad", "advert"; "æd", "ædvrt"
 * ampere (L. Fr. E.): "amp"; "æmp", "æmph"
 * application (L. Fr.): "app"; "æph"
 * bicycle (G. Fr. E.): "bike"; "bIch"
 * bisexual (L. Fr. E.): "bi"; "bI"
 * body: "bod"
 * brother: "bro"; "brO"
 * buddy: "bud"
 * carbohydrate (G. L. E.): "carb", "cRb"
 * cartoon (It. Fr. E.): "'toon"; "tUn"
 * champion (L. Fr.): "champ"; "Jæmph"
 * chrysanthemum (G. L.): "mum"
 * cigar (May. Sp. E.): "cig"; "cigh"
 * cocaine, Coca-Cola: "coke", "Coke"; "cOch"
 * computer (L.): "'puter"; "pEUtr"
 * cucumber (L. Fr. E.): "cuke"; "cyUch"
 * demonstration, demolition (L. Fr. E.): "demo"; "demO"
 * discotheque (L. Fr. E.): "disco"; "discO"
 * doctor (L.): "doc"
 * facsimile (L.): "fax"; "fæcs"
 * faggot (G. L. Pro. Fr. E.): "fag"; "fæg"
 * governor (L. Fr. E.): "governor", "gov", "guv"; "govrnr", "guvrnr", "gov", "guv"
 * graduate, grade (L. E.) "grad"; "græd"
 * gymnasium (G. L.): "gym"; "jim"
 * hamburger (Ger.) "burger"; "brgr"
 * helicopter (G. Fr. E.): "chopper", "copter"; "Joppr", "coptr"
 * homosexual (G. L.): "homo"; "hOmO"
 * introduction (L. Fr.): "intro"; "intrO"
 * kilogram (G. L. Fr. E.): "kilo"; "cElO"
 * logarithm (G. L. Fr. E.): "log"; "log", "logh"
 * merchandise (L. Fr. E.): "merch"; "mrJh"
 * million (L. Fr. E.): "mil"
 * modern, module, modulus, modification (L. Fr. E.): "mod"
 * omnibus (L. Fr.): "bus": "bus", "bush"
 * operator (L,): "op"
 * parent (L. Fr. E.): "rent"; "renth"
 * permanent (L. Fr.): "perm"; "prm"
 * photograph (G.): "photo"; "fOtO"
 * pizza (It.): "'za"; "za", "zu"
 * popular (L. Fr. E.): "pop"
 * potato (Tai. Sp.): "tater"; "tAtr"
 * president (L. Fr. E.): "pres", "prez"; "prezh"
 * propellor, property (L. Fr. E.): "prop"
 * psychopath (G. L. E.): "psycho"; "sIcO"
 * quotation (L. Fr. E.): "quote"; "cwOt"
 * raccoon (Alg.): "racoon", "coon"; "ræcUn", "cUn"
 * radical (L. Fr. E.): "rad"; "ræd"
 * refrigerator (L.): "fridge"; "fridjh"
 * representative, reputation, repetition (L. Fr. E.): "rep"
 * robot (Cz.): "bot"
 * second (L. Fr. E.): "sec"
 * signature (L. Fr.): "sig", "siggy", "siggie"; "sig", "siggE"
 * sister: "sis"
 * submarine sandwich, submarine, substitute teacher, sublet (L. E.): "sub"
 * sugar (S. Per. A. It. L. Fr. E.): "shug", "sug"; "Sœg"
 * taximeter cab (Gr. L. Ger. Fr. E.): "taxicab" (portmanteau), "taxi"; "tæcsEcæb", "tæcsE"
 * teacher: "teach"; "tECh"
 * technology (G. Fr. E.): "tech"
 * telephone (G. Fr.): "phone"; "fOn"
 * temporary worker, temperature (L. Fr. E.): "temp"
 * thousand: "thou"; "ThoU"
 * transmission (L. Fr.): "trans"; "trænsh"
 * wizard: "wiz", "whiz", "whizz"
 * delicious (L. Fr. E.): "delish"; "dEliSh"
 * emotive, emotional (L. Fr. E.): "emo"; "EmO"
 * federal (L. Fr. E.): "fed"
 * optical art (G. L. Fr. E.): "op art"; "op Rt"
 * public house (L. Fr. E.): "pub"

Diminutives
These are diminutives--words that are clipped forms with a diminutive ending added--not elision.
 * Montgomery (L. W.): "Monty"; "montE", "monthE"
 * McDonald's: "Mickey D's", "Mickey D"; "micEdEs", "micEdE"
 * address (L. Fr. E.): "addy"; "æddE"
 * blanket (Ger. Fr. E.): "blankie"; "blæncE" (baby talk)
 * fundamentalist (L. Fr. E.): "fundy"; "fundE"
 * grandfather: "gramps", "grampy", "grandpa", "gramp"; "græmps", "græmpE", "grændpa", "græmp"
 * grandmother: "granny", "grannie", "grandma", "gramma", "gran"; "grænnE", "grændma", "græmma", "græn"
 * handkerchief: "hanky", "hankie", "hankey"; "hængcE"
 * lesbian (G. L. E.): "lesbo", "lez"; "lezbO", "lezh"
 * mosquito (L. Por. Sp.): "skeeter"; "skEtr"
 * mother: "ma", "maw"; "ma", "mo"
 * napkin (Fr. E.): "nappy"; "næppE"
 * technician (G. Fr. E.): "techie"; "techE"
 * television (G. L.): "telly"; "tellE"
 * transformer (L. Fr. E.), transvestite (L. Ger.), transsexual (L.): "tranny", "trannie"; "trænnE"
 * umbrella (L. It.): "brolly"; "brollE"
 * underwear: "undies"; "undEs", "undEsh"
 * vegetable (L. Fr. E.): "veggie", "veg"; "vejjE", "vej"

Historical sound changes
These are examples that represent sound changes in English historical phonology--they may be examples of "elision" but not from a synchronic standpoint. They don't represent elision in any sense that someone is not saying sounds for simplicity--the sounds simply are no longer a part of the word.


 * (verb[an, en]): "(verb)"
 * (verb[st, th]): "(verb)"
 * -al-, -aw-: "-al-", "-aw-"; "-o-"
 * -ally (L. E.): "-ally"; "-lE"
 * -atique (G. L. Fr.); "-atic"; "-atic", "-ætic"
 * -ed: "-d", "'d"
 * -eigh-: "-eigh-"; "-A-"
 * -en: "-n", "'n"
 * -gm (G. L. Fr.): "-gm"; "-m"
 * -gn- (L. Fr. E.): "-gn-"; "-n-"
 * -ham: "-ham"; "-am"
 * -ight: "-ite"; "It"
 * -le: "-le"; "-l"
 * -let (L. Fr.): "-let"; "-lA"
 * -mb: "-mb"; "-m"
 * -mn- (G. L. Fr. E.): "-mn"; "-m"
 * -mouth: "-mouth"; "-muT"
 * -ough: "-o'"; "-O"
 * -shire: "-shire"; "-Sr"
 * -stl-: "-stl-"; "-sl-"
 * -wich: "-wich"; "-iJh"
 * Campbell (Ga.): "Campbell"; "cæmbel"
 * Featherstonehaugh: "Featherstonehaugh"; "fænSo"
 * Gabriyel (H. L. E.): "Gabriel", "Gabe"; "gAbrEel", "gAb"
 * God be with ye|you: "good[-]by[e]"; "gœd'bI"
 * Guinevere, Gwendolyn (Ga. W.): "Gwen", "gwen"
 * How do you do?: "howdy"; "huwdE"
 * I pray thee: "prithee"; "priTE"
 * Lucanas (L.): "Lucas", "Luke"; "lUcas", "lUch"
 * Matthios (H. G.): "Matthew", "Matt"; "mæTEw", "mæt"
 * Miykael (H. L. E.): "Michael", "Mike", "Mikey", "Mickey", "Mick"; "mIchl", "mIch", "mIchE", "michE", "mich"
 * Pfefferminz (Ger.): "pfefferminz", "peppermint" (PEZ); "pepprminth", "pepprmint", "feffrminz"
 * Pfeiffer (Ger.): "Pfeiffer"; "fIffr"
 * Phillipos (G. L.): "Phillip", "Phil"; "fillip", "fil"
 * Raphael (H. G. L.): "Ralph"; "ralf"
 * Yahuwdiyth (H..): "Judith", "Judy"; "jUdiT", "jUdE"
 * Yehowshuwa (H.): "Jehoshua", "Joshua", "Jesus", "jeez", "geez"; "jehOSUa", "joSUa", "jEsus", "jEz", "jEEz"
 * Yowsef (H.): "Joseph", "Joe"; "jOsef", "jO"
 * Arkansas: "Arkansas"; "Rcanso"
 * Birmingham: "B'ham"; "b'ham", "bham", "b'am"
 * Boudicca (Bry.): "dyke"; "dIch"
 * Christmas: "Christmas"; "crismes"
 * Cohasset: "Cohasset"; "cwasset"
 * Connecticut (Alg. E.): "Connecticut"; "conneticut"
 * Gloucester: "Gloucester"; "glostr", "glosta"
 * Illinois: "Illinois"; "illinOy"
 * Leicester: "Leicester"; "lestr", "lesta"
 * Mackinac: "Mackinac", "Mackinaw"; "mæcino"
 * Tucson: "Tucson"; "tUson"
 * Wednesday: "Wensday"; "WensdA", "WenzdA", "WenzdE"
 * Worcester: "Worcester"; "wUstr", "wUsta"
 * awe: "awe"; "o"
 * boatswain: "bosun", "bos'n", "bo's'n"; "bOsen"
 * business: "business"; "biznes", "biznesh"
 * chamois (L. Fr.): "shammy": "SæmmE"
 * corps (Fr.): "corps"; "cOr"
 * coup (Fr.): "coup"; "cU"
 * credit, credential[s] (L. It. Fr. E.): "cred"
 * denarius (L.): "denary"; "denRE"
 * herb (L. Fr. E.): "herb"; "rb", "rbh", "erb"
 * hono[u]r (L. Fr. E.): "hono[u]r"; "onr"
 * hour (L. Fr. E.): "hour"; "our", "owr"
 * island (L. Fr. E.): "island"; "Iland", "Ilend"
 * laissez-faire (Fr.): "laissez-faire"; "lAzsA-fAr"
 * magazine (Ara. A. It. Fr. E.), magnum (L.): "mag"; "mæg"
 * marquise (Fr.): "marquise", "marquee"; "mRcE", "mRcEz"
 * muscle (L. Fr. E.): "muscle"; "musl"
 * opossum (Alg.): "possum"
 * pubes (L.): "pubes"; "pyUbs"
 * rapport (Fr.): "rapport"; "ræppOr"
 * receipt (L. Fr. E.): "receipt"; "risEt"
 * sword: "sword"; "sOrd"
 * viscount (Fr. E.): "viscount"; "vIcuUwnt", "vIcuUwnth", "vIcuUnt"
 * crappa (L.): "crap"; "cræp", "cræph"
 * aisle (L. Fr. E.): "aisle"; "Ill"
 * along: "'long"; "long", "longh"
 * amidst: "amid"
 * amongst: "among"; "amung"
 * answer: "answer"; "ansr", "ænsr"
 * carbone (L. Fr.): "carbon"; "cRben"
 * carre (L. Fr. E.): "car"; "cR"
 * chez (Fr.): "chez"; "SA"
 * clapboard: "clapboard"; "clæbrd"
 * cupboard: "cupboard"; "cubrd"
 * do on: "don"
 * escalope (Ger. Fr.): "escallop", "scallop", "scollop"; "iscallop", "iscallep", "scallop", "scallep"
 * gn- (No. E.): "n-"
 * high: "hi"; "hI"
 * honest (L. Fr. E.): "honest"; "onesth", "onest"
 * http://dictionary.com/search?q=Japan Chipangu] (C. J. C. Mal. Por.) "Giapan", "Japan"; "jyapan", "japan", "japæn"
 * isle (L. Fr. E.): "isle"; "Ill"
 * jinrikisha (C. J.): "ricksha", "rickshaw"; "ricSo"
 * keikl (H.): "kike"; "cIch"
 * kn-, cn-: "n-"
 * listen: "listen"; "lissn", "lissen", "lisn"
 * mn- (G. L. Fr.): "m-", "mn-"; "m-", "n-"
 * over: "o'er", "ov'r"; "O'r", "Ovr"
 * pfeffernusse (Ger. E.): "pfeffernusse"; "feffrnUsh", "feffrnUss"
 * pn- (G. Fr.): "pn-"; "n-"
 * ps- (G. Fr.): "ps-"; "s-"
 * pt- (G. L.): "pt-"; "t-"
 * rendezvous (L. Fr.): "rendezvous"; "rondAvU"
 * sexus (L.): "sex"; "secs"; "secsh"
 * sinus (A. L.): "sine"; "sIn"
 * through: "thru"; "TrU"
 * two: "two"; "tU"
 * victual (L. Fr. E.): "vittle"; "vittl"
 * wh-, hw-: "w-"

Portmanteau words
These examples are portmanteau words--not elision but combination of parts of two words.
 * brown-green: "breen"; "brEn" (joke)
 * coder decoder (L. Fr. E.): "codec"; "cOdec"
 * modulator demodulator (L.): "modem"; "mOdem"
 * spoon fork (E. L. Fr. E.): "spork"; "spOrch"
 * smoke fog: "smog"; "smog", "smogh"
 * snow surfing: "snurfing"; "snrfing"

Elision
Finally, here are the few examples that I think actually represent a form of elision that occurs synchronically in English phonology. However, before they can be put back, the pronunciations need to be converted to IPA or at the very least explained in a sensible way.
 * (adverb[ly]): "(adverb[])"
 * asterisk (G. L. E.): "asterick", "asterik", "asteric"; "æstric"
 * history (L. Fr. E.): "history"; "histrE"
 * library (L. Fr. E.): "library"; "lIbrE"
 * police (L. E.): "police"; "plEsh"
 * postman: "postman"; "pOsman"
 * sandwich: "sammich" (baby talk); "sæmiJh", "sæmmiJh", "samiJh", "sammiJh"
 * about: "'bout"; "buOwt", "baOwt"
 * and: "'n", "'n'"; "en"
 * another: "'nother"; "nuTr"
 * around: "'round"; "raUndh", "raUnd", "ruUndh", "ruUnd"
 * because: "'cause", "'cuz"; "cuzz", "cuzh", "cuz"
 * cannot: "can't"; "canth", "cænth", "cant", "cænt"
 * do you: "d'you"; "dyU"
 * don't know: "dunno"; "dunnO"
 * don't you: "doncha", "donchya"; "dOnJa", "dOnJya"
 * going to: "gonna"; "gonna", "gunnu"
 * good day: "g'day"; "g'dA"
 * got to: "gotta"; "gata", "gatu", "gota", "gotu"
 * halfpenny: "ha'penny", "hapenny"; "hApennE"
 * have to: "hafta"; "hæfta"
 * have: "-a", "of"; "u", "a", avh", "ovh"
 * her: "'er"; "r"
 * him: "'im"
 * it is, it was, it has: "it's"; "itzh", "itz"
 * it is: "'tis"; "tizh", "tiz"
 * it should, it could, it would, it had, it did: "it'd"
 * it was: "'twas"; "twuz", "twaz", "twuzh", "twazh"
 * it will, it shall: "it'll"
 * madam (Fr. E.): "ma'am"; "ma'am", "mæm"
 * my (word): "m'-"
 * next: "next"; "necs"
 * of: "o'"; "O"
 * shall not: "shan't", "sha'n't"; "Sant", "Santh"
 * the (word): "th'-"; "T'-"
 * them: "'em"
 * two pence: "tuppence"; "tuppensh"
 * want to: "wanna"; "wana", "wona", "wanu", "wonu"
 * you all: "y'all"; "yol", "yool"
 * you are, you were: "you're"; "yuUr"
 * you: "ya"; "yu", "ya"

Editor's abuse
If you were going to make greater changes to this article, you should've emailed me before writing this chaff (L.: crap) as I cannot come to the comments page and Wikipedia doesn't email me updates as every other site does. You have made up exclusionary rules against a term which is defined by the intention of the speaker or writer, that of ease or laziness, which is not taken from a pool of accepted, standard language now but at any time that the elision has happened. I've made sure to not list each and every word that has undergone elision, and reasonably put affixes that class each and every kind of elided particle [which are obvious to read and understand]. If you had any reason to disconsider changes into accepted language, you should have deleted the whole Ebonics section and many of the loanwords in foreign languages. Other than your throwing out of portmanteaux, I'm not convinced that any of your elisions of mine are real or evident. "Clipping" is the rough English for "abbreviation" by intent; "shortening up" is the latter's meaning and former's goal, having nothing to do with the eliding for ease or laziness or corruption across languages and dialects, but specifically with the shortening for the sake of shortening. I may consider an inclusionary list of abbreviations, which includes elisions, but that would be overkill. Can you show how my lists did not meet the goals and meanings of eliding and elision, and thence belong under "abbreviation"?

http://dictionary.com/search?q=elide
 * e·lide
 * To omit or slur over (a syllable, for example) in pronunciation.
 * To strike out (something written).
 * To eliminate or leave out of consideration.
 * To cut short; abridge.
 * [Latin ldere, to strike out : -, ex-, ex- + laedere, to strike.]

(The paste elided my copy, as this text field doesn't understand the images or list rubrics, so it was an instance of elision by corruption. You elided my article, as you didn't understand the affixes, organisation, or careful planning.)

e·li·sion
 * Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation.
 * Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse.
 * The act or an instance of omitting something.
 * [Latin lsi, lsin-, from lsus, past participle of ldere, to strike out. See elide.]

(The second sense of elision may allow for portmanteaux though.) Where do you get your fantastic beliefs? My pronunciation key was near the ASCII key used by many dictionaries, and it should be read easily by anyone familiar with the common sounds tied to those letters in English. Where do you get off making changes without citation? lysdexia 3 July 2005 03:31 (UTC)


 * Why don't you just make it a list of every word in English that anyone has ever said in a shorter way than someone else? The list was so full of incoherent, incomprehensible pap that it wasn't worth trying to extract anything useful out of it. If you can't be bothered to explain or cite your work in a way that someone who is familiar with the topic can understand it, then you shouldn't be surprised when it gets removed. Nohat 3 July 2005 07:12 (UTC)
 * That was the plan, but I took the entries from what I had come across enough to warrant recording them. What does Wikipedia (not you) have against that?  If you didn't understand it, that was your problem, not mine, and you didn't bother asking for the meaning of what you didn't understand before or instead of prejudicially removing what is documented in English speech. lysdexia 3 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)

Pronunciation key
Oh, I deliberately used my version of showing speech because I dispute the IPA's. I deny the existence of the schwa, I object to r/R sounds as being difthongs, I refute its status of r and R as consonants but as vowels, I object to its fictive prescription of whether whichever words are aspirated or unaspirated, I object to its using lone or blended glyfs for clusters as careless overlooking of the intention of the key as showing a one-to-one relationship between sound and glyf, and as no part of speech was given to the words in my list. Do you wish to obscure my work from accuracy? lysdexia 3 July 2005 03:43 (UTC)


 * There are problems with the English language, too, but that doesn't mean that we should start writing articles in conlangs, does it? Your "transcriptions" were inconsistent, not well-defined (in fact not defined at all), and completely nonstandard. In other words, utterly useless.


 * The IPA has been effectively used for more than a century by scholars of language for transcription of English. If you had taken any introductory course in linguistics or even read an introductory book on the topic, then your "refutations" would be easily answered. I would suggest starting with Fromkin and Rodman's Introduction to Language. Nohat 3 July 2005 07:12 (UTC)
 * How were they inconsistent and undefined? What you reference should be more accessible to the referencer than the referencee.  If you are claiming that my words are answered, then tell me with what length, breadth, and depth and how much of it you can yourself answer here.  If it were that easy, I'd expect you to do it. lysdexia 3 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)


 * Well, it's inconsistent because there is no apparent distinction between what is an orthographic representation and what's a phonetic representation. Then there are the capital letters. What is the difference between w and W? e and E and EE? There's nothing explaining the system, so it's completely opaque. Nohat 3 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)
 * How else do readers interpret the ASCII key in dictionaries if they were not familiar with the common sounds represented by the letters? They already know their language has fonetic rules, and later learn the exceptions—mostly due to illiterati and foreigners.  Where did you see W?  I don't know where you come from, but English speakers have a strong awareness of the difference between a lowercase vowel's sound, often in wordly context, and the sound corresponding with its name, the same as the uppercase vowel, and that they are respectively short and long or shut and open.  Rather than inventing new sumbols for new sounds as the IPA blindly does, I found it better to do away with the uppercase letters as they are used in writing—which did little more than duplicate the lowercase letters—and use them to replace the ambiguous digrafs in spelling, with enough correlation to the former letter-sound approximating the digraf's sound.  There are only a few uppercase consonants in my key, and W is not one of them. lysdexia 8 July 2005 00:47 (UTC)


 * As for your problems with the IPA, half of them don't even make any sense. But let's start at the beginning.
 * What do you mean that you deny the existence of "schwa"? That there is no such sound, or that the sounds that are described in English as "schwa" are in fact something else?
 * I have no idea what you mean by "r/R sounds as being difthongs"—I don't think anyone claims that r sounds are diphthongs—they're approximant consonants or vowels, depending on the position.
 * The IPA doesn't "prescribe" whether consonants (not words) are aspirated or not; it is linguists who use IPA symbols to describe English (and other languages) that make those descriptions. The reality is that some voiceless stops in English are aspirated and others aren't, depending on position. This can easily be shown by looking at a spectrogram, or just holding your hand in front of your mouth when you pronounce a word.
 * I'm not sure what you're referring to by "blended glyfs for clusters". The only controversial aspect of the IPA in this area that I'm aware of is the transcription of affricatives by using a combination of the constituent stop and fricative symbols. Some linguists exchew /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ for /č/ and /ĵ/, but this isn't really adequately damning of the entire system. Please elaborate further by wheat you mean by this.
 * "I object to its prescription of accents when any word may be said without stress or breaks to the benefit of speakers from any background without change to the referent". This is totally bizarre. Again, nobody "prescribes" the use of "accents" for transcription of English—the use of suprasegmentals is considered by English phonologists to be necessary for a complete phonemic description of the language, because some words differ only by the placement of stress. Nohat 3 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)
 * Both are right. The "schwa" is often the shut e or u.  Indeed, the IPA and lexicografers deny the English shut u and assign it to schwa, likewise assigning the European shut u to English's oo.  The English u should be a distinct, unique vowel.
 * Some words having the -ar-, -er-, or -ur- spellings are taken to have difthongs, even though many people do not say the former vowel often.
 * Of course consonants are aspirated, but the floating aspirations such as in transliterations of Greek breathings make it truer to say that words are aspirated, as it is the speaker's choice to breathe by word and its meaning rather than by letter. I breathe whenever I want, and I can say any word with or without the puffing. (put?)
 * That, and the inscript and postscript marks do not show sheer sounds well as an unbroken jot (glyf). This may be a great part due to Greek speech, which has a history of mingling two sounds in the same letter.  The IPA et al also wrongly claim that some sheer sounds are clusters, when it is an illusion made by the poor speaker.  I take the page from Merriam-Webster OnLine as an example: It says that our ch is a cluster of our t and sh, and gives the expressions "white shoes" and "why choose" to have the same sounds if spoken without the break.  However, the ch can be spoken at once, with no cluster and at a different spot than the t, so a difference between the expressions can be made and heard even with no break.  I contrast sheer sounds from clusters differently than the authorities in that any sound that can be extended, with or without puffing, is sheer.  Hence, A (a_e) is never a difthong and J (ch) is never a cluster.  Each and every letter in my key is unmistakably one sound.
 * This is a lexicon, not a dictionary. lysdexia 8 July 2005 00:47 (UTC)

Let me set a few things straight:

--Pablo D. Flores 8 July 2005 02:03 (UTC)
 * 1) Whether you or anyone else (including me) feel about the IPA is irrelevant. Like Nohat explained, the IPA has been used for a very long time to describe sounds in English and other languages. There's an informal policy of using IPA throughout Wikipedia, and it makes little sense to resort to other schemes, especially if they are not standard. I don't particularly like the IPA myself, but at least I can read a symbol and find a standard table that tells me what it sounds like, and everybody who visits this page can do the same.
 * 2) My first language is Spanish. My English reference dictionary uses the IPA, and neither I nor anyone else should be forced to learn a different system to transcribe English.
 * 3) I don't understand what you mean here... "exceptions [of English transliteration are] mostly due to illiterati and foreigners". Could you elaborate?
 * 4) I don't know what "shut" means for you. Regarding your comments on "shut e", "shut u" and the schwa, the fact is that you won't get far if you try to map orthography to phonology. English oo represents two phonemes in most dialects (that I know of), and English u sometimes corresponds to one of those, or to IPA "inverted v" (which some take as an allophone of the schwa). The schwa appears everywhere (doesn't have a fixed transliteration). What's the problem with that?
 * 5) You have no idea what aspiration means in English. I'm sure you aspirate the p in pot and not the one in spot, automatically (as English speakers are supposed to do), and if someone said pot with a non-aspirated p you'd probably hear bot. Phonetic realizations are not "the speaker's choice", even if you can willingly produce a phonetic feature outside the rules of your language.
 * 6) What's the problem with the "blended glyphs"? They show both constituents of an affricate sound, but it's clear that they form single phonemes. You can even use an upper tie-bar to join them explicitly (but it's usually unnecessary).
 * 7) As Nohat said, stress is suprasegmental feature of English and it must be shown (if we're doing things properly). Spoken English would be very difficult to parse if everybody moved the stress of words around and said those words without breaks.
 * 8) You wrote "This is a lexicon, not a dictionary", but in fact this was supposed to be a short list of words which show elision (with a pronunciation key to show precisely what happens). So in fact this is a set of examples with a pronunciation key.
 * Whit people understand the IPA's keys compared to the ASCII keys? If I've shown that the IPA is wrong, confusing, unenabling, and inaccessible, then it's more than a feeling that weighs against "informal policy".  The keys for common words can be retrointerpreted, no matter the key, because the reader will already have heard it and understand what characters go with what sound.  But the key shouldn't be made overcomplex by having sounds that are the speaker's choice not to say, or by using foreign characters that few people remember.
 * You should look at online dictionaries more. They don't have the space problems of not listing variants.  Few speakers respect IPA pronunciations anyway, and choose to use their own vowels and accents.  My key is a subset of IPA; and if you're familiar with English speech, you won't have much problem.  Besides, there should already be articles explaining the English sounds, as they're already taught in grammar school to little kids...
 * English, like most languages, is supposed to be spoken as it's spelt. However, illiterates making up most of the speechbase took the sounds away from their letters, which is why there are so many "silent" letters, whilst the spellings didn't change as much.  Loanwords use the spellings of foreign languages, which make for the other exceptions in pronunciation.  Loanwords should not be considered English but foreign English.
 * Take the u sound in shut, and you'll know. :P But shut is supposed to be the opposite of open, though the IPA uses "close".  In chaotic speech, the "schwa" takes on vowels that are more shut than the open vowels used in the spelling, which may be near the schwa position on the table, but it isn't fair to split the vowel space into regular, summetric, equal spaces because the tongue has momentum like a pendulum and moves past neutral to pick a vowel.  Each letter in my key uses the unique sound made by each vowel; oo especially has one that isn't made by u or u_e.
 * You have no idea how speech works. Aspiration and voicing are independent.  I may as well say bh for b and p for p.  Mainly foreigners have trouble hearing and making the p sound, and many other duals, wherein a puff may help distinguish the unpuffed dual "b", but the puffing is not inherent in either sound.  One can easily make an unpuffed p by opening the mouth and|or slight sucking.  Defective speakers should not influence a language.
 * Fonemes don't have constituents!
 * Words don't have inherent stress or needful breaks. If they did, every word would be written with the added pronunciation and pause marks.  The speaker must first know all the words' parts and parts of speech they mean in order to place stress on the important sullables, and to follow the obvious rule to put stress on the longest sullables.  But heavily-declined, usually-foreign, overlong words may not have any stress or breaks because the speaker doesn't care what its parts mean.  No, it wouldn't be "very difficult" if English-speakers moved stress around, if it were done with purpose: stressing declension or condition over the base, or one idea over another in an agglutination.  Many features of the pronunciation key are illogical because they disregard dunamic context, in a sentence which shows no clues other than punctuation.  If I were to learn and say a new foreign word without pronunciative clues, I would either match the accents so it fit the rhythm of the sentence's language—itself being like or unlike the word—and dialectal accent, or would play it safe and not put any stress or breaks in the word.  Learning the rules of the foreign speech, including those for word-compositeness, would be an outside exercise if the speaker cared to put importance on any part.
 * Who got to say it was supposed to be a short list? And why are you surprised that an elision article elided the pronunciation? lysdexia 03:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)


 * "You should look at online dictionaries more. They don't have the space problems of not listing variants." This is not a dictionary. You have the right, as a user, to mention illustrative examples of elision in an article about elision, and also to create a specific article, List of English words showing elision, and add all words you believe to be examples of elision in English. Such a list will be promptly nominated for deletion, since it's almost completely useless (except as trivia) and unencyclopedic.
 * I wasn't claiming it was a dictionary. I wanted a wordlist, which is not forbidden by What Wikipedia is not.  If you're saying that my list is unbroad, it's the very embodiment of broad.


 * "Few speakers respect IPA pronunciations anyway, and choose to use their own vowels and accents." Speakers don't know IPA and IPA doesn't tell speakers how to speak. IPA describes, it doesn't prescribe. And most certainly people do not "choose" their own vowels and accents; they grow up within a dialect and use that.
 * In other words, few speakers speak as the IPA exclusively describes. I didn't say it prescribes!  The IPA isn't loose enough.


 * "My key is a subset of IPA; and if you're familiar with English speech, you won't have much problem. Besides, there should already be articles explaining the English sounds, as they're already taught in grammar school to little kids...". Little English-speaking kids, yes. In what way is your key a subset of IPA? English sounds are explained, in terms everybody (not only English speakers) can understand. For example, /i/ (what you would call E or "long e", as in teen /tin/, phonetically [tʰiːn]) is a tense close front unrounded vowel.
 * If someone doesn't understand how a foreign language sounds, never having taken the class, then try listening to the many media. It's not an excuse to stop using elements of the language to describe itself, especially because it is the easiest for everyone to learn and use.  How helpful or mindful is the IPA key for those (most students) who haven't studied it?  My key takes spoken archetupes and leaves all modifiers or variants out.  Sounds like stops or aspirations that cannot be spoken continuously or extendedly are not part of the language, are considered to be artefacts, and are left out.  Stress does not belong in the general pronunciation key: It should be used for senses or dialects only.  I can and do hence say "teen" many ways that aren't and are described by the IPA.  I'm sure others do.  And I'm sure the IPA doesn't consider the many voice qualities that any kind of people have that deviate from its key.  I only need to write "tEn", "thEEn", "thEn", "tEEn" in rough order of generality or frequency.


 * "English, like most languages, is supposed to be spoken as it's spelt." Wow, this is really too much for me. Please tell us readers, who or what mandates such a thing? What a problem for illiterate children! How did people before the advent of writing learn? What languages are (in your view) not supposed to be spoken as spelt? And why the difference? Literacy rate? I've never had a problem communicating with illiterate people over here (they all seem to speak the same Spanish as I do).
 * Why is anything written? Why is anything filmed?  Why are there mirrors?  It's so people can be well-reminded what they're doing, and tell what's best and right from worst and wrong.  Contradictions and inconsistencies are wrong because they are self-thwarting.  (Obviously languages that don't give a damn about letters aren't spoken as they're spelt.)


 * "Loanwords should not be considered English but foreign English." That makes up about 70% of English vocabulary if you go backwards just a few centuries (1,000 years at most).
 * I know. Those damned Romans...  Er, I mean, those doomed Romans...


 * "You have no idea how speech works. Aspiration and voicing are independent." Wrong. Aspiration is the period between the release of the stop and the onset of voicing (see voice onset time), i. e. aspiration is by definition the opposite of voicing. Most languages having "voiced aspirated stops" in fact have clusters of voiced stop + /h/. Some studies show that English speakers employ aspiration (rather than voicing) to distinguish initial /b/ from initial /p/ for example, so that a non-aspirated initial /p/ tends to be heard as /b/.
 * Which means they're independent, so not wrong.


 * "One can easily make an unpuffed p by opening the mouth and|or slight sucking. Defective speakers should not influence a language." Defective or not, I can readily make an initial non-aspirated /p/ without resorting to weird mouth gestures. If you suck air in, maybe you're inadvertently doing a click. Or an implosive.
 * How about readily telling it from a b?


 * "Fonemes don't have constituents!". Phonemes have features. That's how they're described. Roundedness, nasalization, point of articulation, etc. are all features.
 * I wasn't talking about features.


 * "Words don't have inherent stress or needful breaks. If they did, every word would be written with the added pronunciation and pause marks." Try this: "Arabic words have no inherent or needful vowels. If they did, every word would be written with the vowel marks." Now go look for a book in Arabic (not the Qur'an or a children's book) and tell me where all the vowels are (the short ones at least). And then also tell me how I am supposed to know the position of the stress in particularly.
 * If Arabic needs those vowels, then it's written defectively. But you can put the stress anywhere on "particularly" by what you want to call attention to, if anything.


 * English stress and vowel reduction (what you see as vowels carelessly being turned into a schwa) are interdependent and may obscure your perception of the importance of stress. Do yourself a favor and see timing (linguistics).
 * They needn't be. Nor do people need or ought to drop all difficult sounds if it loses descriptive power: knock, cough, and ctXpO, bAchO in Greek.  Soooo, do you find words like "scrounged" hard to say? :)


 * At first I was having trouble convincing myself that you were not a troll, but it seems like you're actually trying to get work done. Unfortunately, while we may freely disagree on policies like the use of IPA, neither of us may disagree on common phonology theory or insert original ideas on English phonology in this article just because we don't like how English is described, taking "illiterates", "foreign English" and "defective speakers" into account (see No original research, NPOV).
 * I'm not a troll; I'm a chit with an itchy mind. You forgot the most important page, Verifiability!  This is an article about how people speak, and is based on what I've heard and read and can regularly be heard and read.  So it's not original.  Likewise, if I write to English-speakers to "say R" or "say r or rr", they'd know what I'm talking about and can say it.  And there's no prohibition on the format I choose to write articles in.  Using new letters for sounds should be forgiven because they're given next to the word, as-written, that most people know how to say.  And anyone can verify by speaking and feeling that \ch\ is not made from \t\+\sh\ as the IPA claims.  It's common knowledge; common to find out, that is.


 * I will shut up now.


 * --Pablo D. Flores 11:46, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * lysdexia 06:38, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

And again
I'm copying some of what Lysdexia replied to my... replies, so as to keep section size down and avoid my head from blowing up.


 * I wasn't claiming it was a dictionary. I wanted a wordlist, which is not forbidden...

OK, a wordlist. A wordlist with all the words in English that you consider to have undergone elision, which, by your criteria, are tens of thousands. That your criteria are too broad has been already discussed ad nauseam. That a list with more than a couple dozen items is ridiculous long for the purpose of illustration is IMHO obvious too.
 * Wrong, my criteria included a bunch of elided classes so that! each word needn't be listed. What part of -cn- don't you understand?

You had said: "Few speakers respect IPA pronunciations anyway, and choose to use their own vowels and accents." And I replied: "Speakers don't know IPA and IPA doesn't tell speakers how to speak. IPA describes, it doesn't prescribe." And now you say:


 * In other words, few speakers speak as the IPA exclusively describes. I didn't say it prescribes!  The IPA isn't loose enough.

I'm feeling like... what would be the opposite of "preaching to the choir"? IPA is not supposed to do what you believe it should be supposed to do. Do you understand the difference between a thing and a representation of the thing? And also, you didn't say "prescribe", but that's what you implied when you said "few respect IPA". You don't respect descriptions, you respect laws or principles dictated from outside, i. e. prescriptions.
 * The difference is nominal. The IPA is too strict, meaning that its descriptions are inaccurate.  Then editors, like you, enforcing IPA enforce its prescription.


 * If someone doesn't understand how a foreign language sounds, never having taken the class, then try listening to the many media.

First of all, you mean English, so why do you generalize? Second, suppose I don't have access to the "many media". Third, why should I cope with a myriad accents listening to CNN, BBC, etc. or watching reruns of Friends or The Simpsons or whatever, if English can be written down using IPA in a very good approximation? A trained linguist might be able to listen and abstract phonemes from speech heard on TV, and then write them down, but the average Joe cannot. Yet you don't need much training to understand the IPA. Millions of students of English throughout the world do it all the time.
 * It should work for all languages supposed to have a relationship between spelling and speaking. The signs used by IPA are too different than those in native alfabets; the pronunciations are too detailed; the keys are not quick studies; and it's not worth the time studying what all its signs mean to get a lone word spoken right.  Writing keys in native letters, with however many variants needed, and knowing how to say the letters is easier I guaranty than any other published sustem.  Our memories are polluted with superfluous characters.  Just look at all the crap (L. chaff) in Unicode.


 * Sounds like stops or aspirations that cannot be spoken continuously or extendedly are not part of the language, are considered to be artefacts, and are left out.

Try learning any language using those ideas. If everything a linguistically unaware native speaker considers "an artifact" or unworthy of mention must be suppressed, then it is impossible to note down the language correctly unless you know it beforehand!
 * *snap* *crackle* *pop* That's a language for cartoons. The individual should deem what is correct about a language, not the main body of speakers.  People are corruptive as a whole.  Using native representations (letters), judgement calls can be made within.


 * I can and do hence say "teen" many ways that aren't and are described by the IPA.

How brave.
 * And many do, of all words.


 * Why is anything written? Why is anything filmed?  Why are there mirrors?  It's so people can be well-reminded what they're doing, and tell what's best and right from worst and wrong.

I don't even know what to call this. Writing has a moral purpose? Having a written language helps me telling right from wrong? I'm sorry for the millions of illiterate people out there. You're not only deeply mistaken but bordering on the strangest kind of fanaticism I've ever encountered.
 * It's ethical, not moral. A rose, besides its smell, does have another meaning by any other name.  Sounds are objective; order is objective; choices are objective.  Knowing what one is saying from one's meaning is ethical; speaking and writing come later but help this.  So you misunderstood, not knowing the difference between ethics and morals, and meaning and writing.


 * "Loanwords should not be considered English but foreign English." That makes up about 70% of English vocabulary if you go backwards just a few centuries (1,000 years at most).
 * I know. Those damned Romans...  Er, I mean, those doomed Romans...

I meant French.
 * more Latin than French

You said "Aspiration and voicing are independent." I explained why this is not so. Aspiration excludes voicing by definition. Some studies show that English speakers employ aspiration (rather than voicing) to distinguish initial /b/ from initial /p/ for example, so that a non-aspirated initial /p/ tends to be heard as /b/. Which means that aspiration is used as a contrast to voicing.
 * That's what independent means. I was talking about what sounds are or aren't needed to speak a letter.


 * "Fonemes don't have constituents!". Phonemes have features. That's how they're described. Roundedness, nasalization, point of articulation, etc. are all features.
 * I wasn't talking about features.

But it was. If I call features "features", then that's a technical word; better to say that phonemes have certain constituents, "which linguists call features".
 * The so-called length or articulation or quality that tacks on a sumbol in the IPA key's suntax is not a feature but a constituent. I already contrasted these with the features like pitch or speed or volume.

About Arabic script:


 * If Arabic needs those vowels, then it's written defectively. But you can put the stress anywhere on "particularly" by what you want to call attention to, if anything.

It's not written defectively. It leaves some things out. You do not write everything, in any language. "Particularly" is stressed over tic, but that is not written anywhere in the word.
 * Such stress is not needed. It changes with speed, mood, and case.  When people say "partic?!ularly", they are being impatient.  And this is especially not needed in an article about elisions.


 * Soooo, do you find words like "scrounged" hard to say? :)

I have no idea where that came from, but no, as a matter of fact I don't find it hard. Because I knew the word beforehand, that is.
 * Because Spanish doesn't have words like that.


 * Using new letters for sounds should be forgiven because they're given next to the word, as-written, that most people know how to say. And anyone can verify by speaking and feeling that \ch\ is not made from \t\+\sh\ as the IPA claims.  It's common knowledge; common to find out, that is.

The IPA doesn't claim anything. The IPA uses conventional symbols for a necessarily incomplete, but approximate enough, transcription. Ch is not t plus sh, but it is formed by a stop part and a fricative part. This is a fact.
 * voiceless postalveolar affricate, affricate,
 * The stop part may be involved in the forming, especially as a mistake, but not in the saying. All parts conspire to make a unique sound that has no [sounded] parts.

--Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * lysdexia 05:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Factual accuracy and inclusive definition
I think we can remove the factual accuracy tag from the article now (the criteria for such a dispute are not met anymore). Also, some clarification would be needed as to the meanings of elision. What I'd like to see is a distinction between synchronical elision (which is the one mostly being discussed now), and diachronical elision.

I would rather not include "accidental" elision (that is, simply omitting sounds by mistake or lack of familiarity) and in general the unrestricted, unsystematic meaning of elision as simply "leaving out things". And of course, elision as "leaving symbols out of a written word" should not even be mentioned here.

Nohat, you seem not to agree with the idea of diachronical elision for this article; is this so?

--Pablo D. Flores 11:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * A discussion of diachronic elision is warranted. But I think we both agree what is needed is a discussion, not a laundry list of English words that have undergone diachronic elision over the course of history of the English language. The only encyclopedic way to do it would be to describe the patterns of diachronic elision with a few examples for each type. Nohat 15:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I think we can remove the factual accuracy tag from the article now (the criteria for such a dispute are not met anymore).
 * OK, I have done so. If the factual accuracy should come into question now or in the future, please add the tag back in but explain what facts are disputable.  Be specific! — The Storm Surfer 06:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Elision vs. Syncope
The article says that "syncope" is a synonym. The Syncope article is vague about the relationsip, so your input at Talk:Syncope would be valuable. If they are synonyms, the articles should be merged. -Pgan002 07:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I see them used interchangably sometimes, but I also see the distinction sometimes as 'elision affects consonants' and 'syncope affects vowels,' but to add to the confusion, I also see the opposite of what I've just described, so go figure. I think elision should deal with either vowels or consonants and then syncope should deal with the other, with notes at each page acknowledging the varying uses of each term.  I don't know if you're going to find a definitive answer for this, so acknowledgement of ambiguity might be the way to go.--Hraefen 01:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

"gonna"?
"going to" ---> "gonna"

Is this an example of the phenomenon discussed here? Michael Hardy 00:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think so. It's probably related, but gonna is its own word, so if it ever was an example(doubtful) it's not now. BioTube 05:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see how "gonna" is its own word; it is only used in situations where "going to" could be used with no change in meaning. In my dialect, anyway.  If you have a "gonna" that is different from "going to", I'd be very curious to hear about it.  — The Storm Surfer 06:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, in the reverse direction, you can say "I'm going to the store", but you can't say "I'm gonna the store". "Gonna" has become a helping verb, almost, though you're right in saying it's still interchangeable with "going to".  It's a subset of the uses of "going to".  68.191.180.62 (talk) 11:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

En-ger-land
England football fans often turn "Eng-land" into "En-ger-land". In poetry and songs, the author's choose between the short and long form of words in which elision exists, depending on how many syllables they need. They sing "En-ger-land" because they need three syllables in the tune they sing it to. I believe - though admittedly I have no evidence to back it up - that this is an example of the opposite of elision. Imagine that the actual name of the country was "Engerland". Elision would probably reduce the pronunciation to "En-gland", but in poetry and song, either form would be used depending on the syllables needed. I'm not sure whether there's a name for this reverse process, but it might be worth including in the article. Hope this makes sense. --82.4.55.101 (talk) 12:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, the longer form Engeland (with the middle e clearly pronounced) is not unusual in old folk songs in Swedish, especially where this longer form is better suited to the metric. However, this does not seem to be cases of elision; rather the converse. JoergenB (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Other uses (within linguistics)
The accompanying verb, (to) elide, redirects here. I found this article investigating some articles about (linguistic) ellipses, like Verb phrase ellipsis and Sluicing. These two actually provide short explanations of what they mean by "eliding"; which in their context is the omission of entire words or phrases.

Is there already some other article about this use of "elide" (and thus, I suppose, implicitly or explicitly also "elision")? If not, should one be written; or a paragraph or a short section be added to this one? I'd like to have an adequate link for forms of 'to elide', in such contexts.

I just noted that this talk page is noted as a "stub class poetry article" and a "classical music article". That's two other (related but not identical) usages. Especially the usage in music, IMHO could not be reduced to just a subcase of "phonemic" elision. JoergenB (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Merger
I am against merger of this article with any other. It can stand on its own, and is notable. Furthermore, an article of this age will have an editing history and talk page that would be lost -- along with attributions -- that can not be re-created. I can think of no reason to merge. Bearian (talk) 19:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * No editing history will be lost, and there is nothing on Talk:Deletion (phonology) worth preserving. I'm going ahead with the merge (of that article into this one). CapnPrep (talk) 15:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Merger might make sense if it were to merge "deletion" into "elision". There is no reason to have the separate "deletion" article as it describes the exact same process but less clearly. To be honest, I think "deletion" is just the layman's term for "elision", in which case any links to "deletion (phonology)" should just direct to "elision". EmCat24 (talk) 10:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with opposition to merger of elision article into deletion article, and disagree with merger of deletion article into elision article, and advocate that the two remain separate.

One may elide or delete something from a set; however, if an entire set is to be eliminated (and the set is not designated explicitly as a subset of another set), it should be regarded as to be deleted and not as to be elided.

One might elide or delete a character from a character string while one might delete a file or elide a file from a file system.

255.255.255.255 (talk) 05:55, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The proposal is to merge with Deletion (phonology), not File deletion, or Set "elision" or any other non-linguistic uses of the words you might imagine. And it is obvious that anything (other than technical discussion of formal phonological theories, which should have their own articles, if sufficiently notable) that could be added to Deletion (phonology) would also be relevant here, if it's not here already. CapnPrep (talk) 15:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Of Mice and Men
I'm not sure adding that whole quote was necessary or appropriate. Regardless, how is "whisky" an elision? That's how it's spelled. Tad Lincoln (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Need proper example of 'a contraction that is not an elision'
The end of the 2nd para uses 'cannot' -- but this is a compound not a contraction. Suggestions?

humanengr (talk) 09:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

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Massaging misinformation out of the intro (and beyond)
I'm going to begin editing with just a few changes and deletions to reduce the thicket of misinformation, mostly in the intro bit above the contents inset. Suggestions, disagreements, etc. can be discussed here. 47.32.20.133 (talk) 16:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Turkish
This page mentions that elision is common in Turkish; the article could use some examples from that language. -- Beland (talk) 16:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

English examples: 'comfortable'
I'd like to ask for advice here: the pronunciation /kʌmftərbəl/ is given for 'comfortable', and the pronunciation of the second syllable with /ər/ is new to me. I'm not doubting that some American speakers have this pronunciation: Merriam-Webster gives it, and I can hear it in a number of the American pronunciations of 'comfortable' given in Forvo. I am concerned that some readers may be confused by the presence of a second phonological process in addition to elision: as well as the elision of the /ə/ between /f/ and /t/, the example shows a shift of /r/ from the end of the citations form's second syllable to the end of the following syllable. The example may be confusing because I am sure this shift doesn't happen in non-rhotic English accents and it makes it hard to see how the transcription fits such accents in a diaphonemic fashion. I wonder how many other words show this pattern. I think it should be possible to find a simpler example of elision for this article. RoachPeter (talk) 14:56, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this looks like an example of metathesis rather than just elision. I suggest we either replace the "after" notation with /ˈkʌmftəbəl/ or remove the row altogether. Nardog (talk) 15:08, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

"elision" in programming
The article states that elision applies to sounds or words, but there's no mention of the programming application.

Elision is used when typing out programming syntax is optional, for example the optional comma is called (https://tc39.es/ecma262/#prod-Elision), and https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.8.0/book/lifetimes.html has the section "Lifetime elision".

Also Copy elision  AltoStev  ( talk ) 19:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

MOS:CURLY
This article seems to violate MOS:CURLY. Is there some justification for that? (It also seems to use single quote marks rather than the double quote marks that seem more common in Wikipedia articles.) —&#8288;&#8202;&#8288;BarrelProof (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2022 (UTC)