Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 6

= October 6 =

Rhyming "root" with "foot"
I know a couple in their 80s who live in Cleveland, Ohio. They pronounce "root" as if it rhymes with "foot." Was this a common pronunciation in the Midwest at one time? Why would they pronounce it that way? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a not uncommon pronunciation, also where I grew up in Missouri. See Midland American English (though unsourced). Deor (talk) 02:09, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the way I pronounce it when I'm speaking about a single root. And I grew up in the Midwest.  Dismas |(talk) 02:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's common enough that the m-w.com dictionary has two pronunciations for "root", "hoof", etc. The exact choice of which oo vowels get pronounced which way varies from place to place. For example I use the same vowel for foot and hoof, and a different vowel for roof and root. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not relevant to Cleveland, but a related phenomenon is the foot-goose merger, which most notably affects Scottish English. L ANTZY T ALK 02:41, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There are all kinds of neat language things going on in English. See Northern cities vowel shift, and next have your mind blown when you find someone who pronounces wash like "warsh". Shadowjams (talk) 06:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Heh, that won't blow my mind. My father, who grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, says the capital of the United States is Warshington, DC. Related to this accent is pronouncing measure as may-zhur, and treasure as tray-zhur. My father, a Shakespearean professor, often speaks of that famous play, May-zhur for May-zhur. In any case, root rhyming with "foot", somewhat akin to roof as "ruff" and route as "rout" is fairly widespread over much of the US. Pfly (talk) 10:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I used to until someone pointed out that I did it. Dismas |(talk) 19:43, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's odd, though, that I've never heard anyone else from Cleveland say the words that way. Perhaps this pronunciation used to be common over a wider area of the Midwest? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * See http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_25.html. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Rational national
'Rational' is related etymologically to 'ratio', yet when we say it, we don’t start out with the same opening long vowel as in 'ratio'. We give it a short vowel to rhyme with 'national', as if it were derived from 'ration' rather than 'ratio'. It would be more rational to rhyme 'rational' with 'sensational', 'inspirational', 'locational', 'navigational', or any number of other –ational words that have the long vowel. 'Nation' --> 'national' is another example where the vowel changes from long to short.

Why are there these solitary exceptions (there may be the odd few others) to what seems to be the general rule that the addition of –al to convert a noun into an adjective does not reduce the length of any of the preceding vowels? -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 05:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't got an answer, but I notice that these are the only examples where the vowel in question is in the first syllable. I also notice that there are apparent parallels in "passionate" and "fashionable" - these are not the same in etymology or spelling, but they may nevertheless provide analogy in speech. --ColinFine (talk) 06:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Colin, I don't follow. There's no vowel shift in passion --> passionate (--> passionately), or fashion --> fashionable (--> fashionably).  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   20:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't. But they are models of words pronounced . That's all I meant. --ColinFine (talk) 23:24, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Another example: "nature" → "natural". --Theurgist (talk) 09:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Partial explanation at Trisyllabic laxing (though Chomsky & Halle is way out of date as a phonological reference). AnonMoos (talk) 09:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * "Ration" itself comes from "ratio", which doesn't explain anything, but it's another inexplicably shortened vowel (particularly since "nation" comes from "natio"). 81.131.64.87 (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * "Ray-shuns" (to rhyme with "nations") is an alternative pronunciation, I think British. However I don't know of "Nash-uns" being a common alternative pronunciation of "Nations". There might have been some subconscious effect from "rasher", the British term for a slice (usually of bacon). —— Shakescene (talk) 00:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not correct - no-one in the UK would say "Ray-shuns". Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not now, no, but the OED (2nd ed.) lists that pronunciation as the primary one, and says of "the second pronunciation is usual in the army, and may be due to the adoption of the word from Fr. in sense 3" (i.e. in the sense of food or other consumables). That fascicle of the OED was published in 1903; earlier, Lewis Carroll rhymed "rations" with "quotations" in The Hunting of the Snark. I am reminded of the word "patent" which is normally  but in the UK at least Patent agents and lawyers who work with them say . --ColinFine (talk) 18:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I bet most non-native speakers would stumble over "ration stations". --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   21:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * H.W. Fowler, who did serve in the Army during the Great War, says in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford 1926)"ration. Pronounce ră- or rā-. But the army says ră- & the military use is the prevalent one." My mother who served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the war after Fowler's, says that both military and civilian pronunciation (e.g. Ration cards) was with a short "a". I say "paytent" for "patent nonsense" but "pattent" for the licenses issued by the U.S. Patent Office. But that may be due to my trans-Atlantic youth.—— Shakescene (talk) 21:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)