Date:  Mon, 1 Jan 1996 21:52:06 -0800

From:  Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: New Joiner Here



Welcome, Lurker!



On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Russ McClay wrote:



> My intention is to lurk. But before I get into that mode, thought

> I'd throw a few things out there:

>

> Another is celestial. For some reason I've always slipped an r in

> after the t. Though I've nearly cured that one.



Does this therefore become 'celeshtrial'? If so, this fits into previous

discussions of str -> shtr phenomena.



> And two more: though I am a touch typist (about 60 wpm, 95% accuracy

> excluding numbers), I have what I consider the strange habit of not

> typing the "r" when I type the word "your". I've noticed this with

> others on the net.



This sounds like rhota-mysticism!



> And lastly, the word "definitely". I see this word

> spelled as often definately as I do the correct way.



As a descriptively oriented linguistics prof, I must admit I don't know

what to do with this one. I grind my teeth often as I see 'definately'

appear over and over in my students papers. If I knew what the -a- was

based on, like some stressed idiom (DEFinATEly!), I could perhaps

understand this quite widespread misspelling. Is it just that schwa most

often (?!) transliterates as an 'a'? I really don't understand this

amazingly frequent misspelling, tho I try.