Pronunciations you had to unlearn

[Travis B.]

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/.

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/.

To me it can be either /ˈriːˌsɛt/ or /rəˈsɛt/ but generally not /ˌriːˈsɛt/.

[Moose-tache]

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/.

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/.

To me it can be either /ˈriːˌsɛt/ or /rəˈsɛt/ but generally not /ˌriːˈsɛt/.

I think they're just marking the FLEECE vowel as /i:/ phonemically, which makes sense. It shortens to /i/ in unstressed position, but no need to write that in phoneMic notation.

I have a theory that the prefixes re- and de- have two forms, with FLEECE and DRESS, the latter from vowel shortening processes in Middle English (requisite, demolition, etc.). The DRESS vowel is much more likely than the FLEECE vowel to reduce to full schwa when unstressed, so when you hear "reset" with a schwa, I propose that it is a realization of an underlying DRESS vowel. This switches to FLEECE when "reset" is used as a noun, because of course we have multiple patterns of vowel change when switching between verbs and nouns, and that's also an established pattern (it seems simultaneously most common in very early (default) and very recent (research) nominalizations).

[Travis B.]

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/.

To me it can be either /ˈriːˌsɛt/ or /rəˈsɛt/ but generally not /ˌriːˈsɛt/.

I think they're just marking the FLEECE vowel as /i:/ phonemically, which makes sense. It shortens to /i/ in unstressed position, but no need to write that in phoneMic notation.

Oh, I know that's just notation - FLEECE and HAPPY for me are realized identically, with no length distinction; the only vowel length distinctions I have are conditioned by stress and vowel length allophony, with the classic English phonemic vowel length being completely lost.

I have a theory that the prefixes re- and de- have two forms, with FLEECE and DRESS, the latter from vowel shortening processes in Middle English (requisite, demolition, etc.). The DRESS vowel is much more likely than the FLEECE vowel to reduce to full schwa when unstressed, so when you hear "reset" with a schwa, I propose that it is a realization of an underlying DRESS vowel. This switches to FLEECE when "reset" is used as a noun, because of course we have multiple patterns of vowel change when switching between verbs and nouns, and that's also an established pattern (it seems simultaneously most common in very early (default) and very recent (research) nominalizations).

I don't have unstressed DRESS at all, so it feels artificial to me to invoke an "unstressed DRESS", particularly where there is no sign of its existence for me.

[Moose-tache]

I don't have unstressed DRESS at all, so it feels artificial to me to invoke an "unstressed DRESS", particularly where there is no sign of its existence for me.

So in your dialect, what is the schwa in /rəˈsɛt/ the reduced version of? FLEECE? What about words like "Decameron?" Do you just force the stress to always fall on the DRESS vowel? Do other vowels reduce when unstressed, or is every word just a series of spondees?

[jal]

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/.

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/. :D

Isn't that the difference between the nound and the verb? (The noun being initially stressed and the verb finally?)


JAL

[Kuchigakatai]

I don't have unstressed DRESS at all, so it feels artificial to me to invoke an "unstressed DRESS", particularly where there is no sign of its existence for me.

"ancestry" pronounced /ˈænsɪstɹi/ instead of /ˈænsɛstɹi/, from an American's mouth? hmm

[Travis B.]

I don't have unstressed DRESS at all, so it feels artificial to me to invoke an "unstressed DRESS", particularly where there is no sign of its existence for me.

"ancestry" pronounced /ˈænsɪstɹi/ instead of /ˈænsɛstɹi/, from an American's mouth? hmm

For me it is either /ˈænsəstri/ (i.e. note that /ə/ here is [ɘ]) or /ˈænˌsɛstri/ - I perceive clear secondary stress on the second syllable if I pronounce it with DRESS.

[Moose-tache]

I don't have unstressed DRESS at all, so it feels artificial to me to invoke an "unstressed DRESS", particularly where there is no sign of its existence for me.

"ancestry" pronounced /ˈænsɪstɹi/ instead of /ˈænsɛstɹi/, from an American's mouth? hmm

For me it is either /ˈænsəstri/ (i.e. note that /ə/ here is [ɘ]) or /ˈænˌsɛstri/ - I perceive clear secondary stress on the second syllable if I pronounce it with DRESS.

OK, sure, but what is that schwa if not the DRESS vowel, reduced by lack of stress?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/.

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/.

Isn't that the difference between the noun and the verb? (The noun being initially stressed and the verb finally?)

On a game console, "reset" (/'riːˌsɛt/; me saying it sounds something like ['ɹijˌsɛə̯̆ˀt̆]) or the "reset button" is certainly a noun rather than a verb when it refers to some part of the console itself designed to cause the game and system to reboot. A French person pronouncing it probably would sound like [ʁi's̪ɛ(ː)t̪], however, so I can understand the confusion.

[Linguoboy]

When I was a kid, there was a button called RESET on my NES. I pronounced it /rɛˈzɛt/. It took me a long time to find the correct pronunciation /riːˈsɛt/.

Most people I know say /ˈriːsɛt/.

Isn't that the difference between the nound and the verb? (The noun being initially stressed and the verb finally?)

I think prosody might have something to do with it as well. "Reset button" in theory is parallel to "Delete button". But /riːˈsɛtˈbʌtən/, with its continguous stressed syllables sounds awkward to me and I prefer /ˈriːsɛtˈbʌtən/.

Another factor is that "do a ˈreset" is a fairly common phrase IMD. (There's no parallel *"do a delete", *"do a shift", *"do a control", etc.)

P.S.: I love that you wrote "nound". Deletion of final (and often medial) /d/ after /n/ is pretty standard IMD and I always have to be on the lookout for hypercorrections like this.

[Travis B.]

In my idiolect I think I generally prefer /rəˈsɛt/ (including in the case of "reset button") except when I am specifically using it as a noun (and it is not qualifying another noun as part of a compound), where then I use /ˈriːˌsɛt/ (as in the aformentioned "do a reset").

[Travis B.]

"ancestry" pronounced /ˈænsɪstɹi/ instead of /ˈænsɛstɹi/, from an American's mouth? hmm

For me it is either /ˈænsəstri/ (i.e. note that /ə/ here is [ɘ]) or /ˈænˌsɛstri/ - I perceive clear secondary stress on the second syllable if I pronounce it with DRESS.

OK, sure, but what is that schwa if not the DRESS vowel, reduced by lack of stress?

The thing is there is no single full vowel that unambiguously maps to /ə/ when unstressed, and there exist multiple full vowels for me, not just DRESS but also TRAP, which cannot exist fully unstressed (just their presence indicates secondary stress).

[jal]

On a game console, "reset" or the "reset button" is certainly a noun rather than a verb when it refers to some part of the console itself designed to cause the game and system to reboot.

The console resets itself when you press "reset", so I've always considered it a verb. In "reset button", I don't consider "reset" a noun, just as "kill" in "kill switch" isn't a noun (or at least I assume it isn't, "kill" itself can be a noun of course).


JAL

[Rounin Ryuuji]

On a game console, "reset" or the "reset button" is certainly a noun rather than a verb when it refers to some part of the console itself designed to cause the game and system to reboot.

The console resets itself when you press "reset", so I've always considered it a verb. In "reset button", I don't consider "reset" a noun, just as "kill" in "kill switch" isn't a noun (or at least I assume it isn't, "kill" itself can be a noun of course).

Now that I think on it more, it's... somewhat complicated. "Hit reset" (the button) can use either pronunciation, though I would normally have initial stress for "reset button"; hard reset and soft reset (as nouns) also seem to vary between the two. I might have better said it's ambiguous, or seems to vary based on the form that's easiest to articulate.

[Linguoboy]

I might have better said it's ambiguous, or seems to vary based on the form that's easiest to articulate.

Yeah, I'm leaning toward this explanation too.

[Travis B.]

I might have better said it's ambiguous, or seems to vary based on the form that's easiest to articulate.

Yeah, I'm leaning toward this explanation too.

The reason I personally favor RE-set for the noun in isolation but HARD re-SET and SOFT re-SET is probably that by default it weakly favors initial stress when used as a noun, but this weak preference is overridden to help preserve alternating stressed and unstressed syllables in used with hard or soft.

[Kuchigakatai]

ascertain /ˌæsɚˈteɪn/

I pronounced it uh-cértain /əˈsɚtn̩/ for the longest time. And its derived adjective "ascertainable" as /əˈsɚtn̩əbəl/.

[Raphael]

Until very recently, I could have sworn that the "a" in "ate" was a diphthong.

[StrangerCoug]

Until very recently, I could have sworn that the "a" in "ate" was a diphthong.

How did you think the diphthong was pronounced? In American English, diphthongal /eɪt/ is the standard pronunciation; in British English, it's interchangeable with monophthongal /ɛt/.

[Raphael]

Oh, it's a US/UK difference? That explains it. I had assumed /eɪt/.