Date:  Wed, 8 Nov 1995 15:34:45 -0800

From:  Peter McGraw <pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU>

Subject: Re: supervisor/coupon



I think Bruce has hit the nail on the head about the sociolinguistic

aspect of /u/ vs. /ju/. I strongly suspect that some of the responses

we've seen would have to be amended if the responders could manage to

catch themselves off-guard. I suspect we resort to a lot of spelling

pronunciations in an effort to bring consistency to the preceived lack of

correspondence between pronunciation and orthography here, and that this

eventually leads to hypercorrections like /njun/. I defy anyone to

use /ju/ in all applicable words in the sentence "I assume there was no

news of the supervisor this noon" without laughing.



Peter McGraw