Friday, July 22, 2022

Made up distinctions?

At the risk of mockery, here is an inquiry.  Is there a term for words whose meaning is subtly different depending on pronunciation.  I have three examples in mind and in each case, it seems to me, the meaning is slightly different depending on the pronunciation or accent.  

However, this might be substantially due to my having grown up overseas.  Many words are pronounced differently between England, America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the regions within England and the US.  I am pretty accustomed to morphing pronunciations based on where I am located when speaking.  

Entirely separate from this, there is the ever present issue for all who are voluminous readers and whose vocabulary is more grounded in the written word than the spoken.  People for whom their first spoken use of a novel word is a hazarded guess.  For me, the first that I recollect was my pronunciation of bureau (as a piece of furniture.)  My confident guess, or at I least I rendered it confidently, was sounded as buroo.  

From one of his monologues, I recall Garrison Keillor having had a similar issue; for him, his anticipated pronunciation from reading of the word "Egyptian" was with a hard G, E-Gyp-tian.

Having grown up internationally, with many years of my childhood in England or former English colonies, I am accustomed to stumping my listeners with a strange pronunciation and having to re-render the word, occasionally to mockery for my first version.  

All this I am familiar with and therefore have never particularly focused on these three words before (and there are likely others).  There is always a non-zero chance that I have simply mispronounced a word or manufactured a definitional distinction which does not actually exist.  

In each of these three examples, I think there is something else going on.  I don't know if there is and I don't know if it is a real phenomenon or merely the product of a quixotic upbringing.  Or if there is even a word covering this linguistic phenomenon.  

All this is brought to mind from reading a review of Verdicts of History by Thomas Fleming.

In Verdicts of History, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming highlights six courtroom dramas that changed the future of America. From unexpected verdicts, like the acquittal won by John Adams when he defended British soldiers charged with the Boston Massacre in 1770 to stirred passions when abolitionist John Brown was convicted of murder - a precedent to the Civil War - to the breakthrough in racial relations when Clarence Darrow won a stunning “not guilty” verdict for black physician Ossian Sweet - at a time when black Americans could hardly expect a fair trial. 

"Precedent to the Civil War."  Precedent can be pronounced either of two ways.  One pronunciation covers both meanings and one is only used with one meaning.  

I use the hard second e, \ pri-ˈsē-dᵊnt.  This pronunciation gives the clear signal that John Brown's trial was

prior in time, order, arrangement, or significance

However, it can also be pronounced ˈpre-sə-dənt, the same pronunciation as when the meaning is:

1: an earlier occurrence of something similar 
 
2a: something done or said that may serve as an example or rule to authorize or justify a subsequent act of the same or an analogous kind 
//a verdict that had no precedent 
 
b: the convention established by such a precedent or by long practice 
 
3: a person or thing that serves as a model

I make the distinction between "prior in time" with \ pri-ˈsē-dᵊnt and "an earlier occurrence of something similar with ˈpre-sə-dənt.  Am I correct to do so?  Seems like I am.

The second word with with this feature is coincident.  Coincident has two distinct definitions.  

1: of similar nature : HARMONIOUS
//a theory coincident with the facts

2: occupying the same space or time
//coincident events
//Animal hibernation is usually coincident with the approach of winter.

Webster's has only one pronunciation and it is the same for both meanings, \ kō-ˈin(t)-sə-dənt.  I would use that pronunciation for the first definition "of similar nature."  

For the second meaning, "the same space or time" I distinguish with a hard i instead of an ə, \ kō-ˈin(t)-sī-dənt.  

Charles' quirk, a real distinction that only occurs between English and American pronunciation or merely a vernacular randomness?

Finally, there is interrogator.  

1: one that interrogates

2: a radio transmitter and receiver for sending out a signal that triggers a transponder and for receiving and displaying the reply

It is pronounced  in-ˈter-ə-ˌgā-tər.  However, I thought there was a different meaning with a different pronunciation.  To interrogate has an intimation of coercion and uni-directionality.  One person interrogates another.  

But what about when there is a non-coercive dialogue where each is asking questions of the other.  I pronounce that as in-ˈter-rog-ˌgə-tər, a different accent point.  

It has been suggested that that is neither a correct distinction nor a proper pronunciation.

Am I speaking broken English or are there real phenomenon here?

1 comment:

  1. What about “address”? At least in my part of the US people tend to accent the first syllable when using it as a noun and the second when using it as a verb.

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