Interesting examples of hyper-correction
Can anyone here think of some of their favorite bits of hypercorrection? Here are two of mine:
1.) Russians will sometimes pronounce the word "street" as /strIt/ (rhymes with 'skit'). /I/ is only used in unstressed positions in Russian, so Russians, in an attempt to avoid using /i/ for lax-i words, will use /I/ for words that should be pronounced with /i/.
2.) Some Germans, similarly, will attempt to avoid using /v/ for /w/ by pronouncing words like 'van' and 'very' as "wan" and "wary."
Any other favorites people would like to share?
I think Desi Arnaz's "You got a lot of 'splaining to do" is an example of hypercorrection. In Spanish an initial [sp], [sk], [st] is impermissible, with the equivalents being [es.p], [es.k], [es.t], so you might have a hypercorrecting tendency to reduce words like "explaining" that do have an initial vowel in English.
In American English, the 'ph' in 'nephew' is pronounced as an 'f' as in 'phone' due to an early Middle English etymological spelling error. The earlier pronunciation, still heard in Britiain, is with a 'v' sound for 'ph'
I'll contribute one I heard from a native speaker of English with some knowledge of Spanish. She pronounced the word 'empanada' using a palatal nasal [empaJaDa]. I guess she extended her knowledge that many familiar words like niño, piñata and jalapeño take the palatal nasal to other words containing a sequence VnV.
When native French speakers say "the potato is too 'ot to heat" Instead of 'hot to eat". Since the "h" in French is silent like the h in the English word "honor", sometiems French people add the "h" sound where it doesn't belong and remove it when it should be pronounced. I think it's very similar to the German "w" and "v" confusion.
The intrusive r in Bostonian English: The idear of.
Trawicks, the /I/ - /i/ confusion has nothing to do with hyper-correction. It's only a trait of the Russian accent due to the fact that the length of vowels in Russian is not phonematic.
All stressed vowels in logically stressed words tend to be longer in Russian.
Sometimes Russian speakers have an intrusive [r] as in
" the idea -r- of ", but can we consider it hyper-correction?
It seems native speakers do so, too.
<<Sometimes Russian speakers have an intrusive [r] as in
" the idea -r- of ", but can we consider it hyper-correction?
It seems native speakers do so, too. >>
It's wrong unless they want a Boston accent.
<<It's wrong unless they want a Boston accent.>>
Intrusive [r\] is standard for a modern British accent.
(As for whether it can be considered hypercorrection, I'm not sure.)
I don't think intrusive [r\] can be considered an example of hypercorrection. It happens because of non-rhotic underlying forms, and the application of linking rules.
Perhaps the hypercorrection for non-rhotic speakers would be the absence of 'normal' linking [r\] where it is to be expected (e.g. ["bEt@ "Qf] or ["bEt@?"Qf] for 'better off').
Intrusive "r" in rhotic American speech is very uncommon; a "vowel slide" or the use of a glottal stop is standard.
I thought the Germans tended to pronounce a "w" as a "v"? I know this is so because I have been asked for directions by German tourists, one of them being on the London Tube (obviously a German by his accent, but just maybe an Austrian, or at a stretch, a Swiss). He asked me which line he had to take to get to Vorterloo (he meant Waterloo, of course). I told him he had to take ze Central Line to Oxford Circus and then he had to transfer to ze sousbound Bakerloo Line vich vould take him straight down to Vorterloo. I sink he vos qvite happy viz my directions.
In the British comedy TV series "'Allo! 'Allo!" (the French way of saying it!) - set in German occupied France in WW2, usually in a cafe run by a bloke called Rene and his wife Edith in this small town in Northern France, with an array of other characters. The entire cast was British, some of them playing the parts of French people and the others Germans, with just a few more playing the parts of British people, all with exaggeratedly posh English English accents.
The assumed French and German accents were completely exaggerated, which added to the comedic effect. The head of the local Gestapo played the part in typical style, using the well known phrases, like "Vee haf vays of making you speak and zis vill hurt you more zan it vil hurt me!"
One of the female French characters played the part of a woman operating with the local underground Resistance unit working under cover to disrupt and undermine the occupying Germans. I think they were called the Maquis, or something like that. Whenever she wished to impart secret information to the French (and the British hiding from the Germans) she always started with the phrase: "Leesen vairy cairfoolly - for I vill say zees onnly vonce!!!" The "Rs" were, of course, exaggeratedly trilled.
One of the other characters was a British spy pretending to be a local French Gendarme (police officer). His French speaking skills were horrendously bad, and as the entire program was, of course, conducted in the English Language, he illustrated his poor French by using the wrong English words, if you get the picture. Rene and Edith always used to raise their eyes to the ceiling in despair whenever this Pretend French Policeman Brit walked into the cafe saying something like: "Good Moaning! I was just pissing by your frint door so I deseeded to drip in to saw you!"
Classic!
Germans would rarely pronounce an English W as an English V. Instead they are FAR more likely to pronounce an English V as an English W. For example they would say things that sound like "While I was at the uniwersity, I had the adwantage of playing wery well on the wiolin." I have yet to meet a German that does not make this mistake.
On the fine, warm, clear sunny afternoon of Thursday, 05 September 1940, when the WW2 Battle of Britain was reaching its climax in the skies of (mostly) South East England, Oberleutnant Franz von Werra was flying his Luftwaffe Messerschmitt fighter plane over the Kent countryside, heading for the RAF airfield at Biggin Hill, just to the SE of London, on which he intended to offload his cargo of bombs.
Unfortunately for him he was shot down by the pilot of an RAF Spitfire, and he crash landed in a field close to the village of Curtisden Green, and leaping out of his badly damaged plane he followed official procedure and began to burn his official papers as a posse of British Home Guard personnel, aided by local farmers gathering in the harvest and armed with pitchforks, sprinted across the field towards him.
He was apprehended, handed over to the local police and arrested, and driven to a British Army establishment at Cockfosters, in North London, where he was immediately declared a prisoner of war. He refused to declare his identity as he had destroyed all means of identification in that Kentish field. However, it did not take British Military Intelligence long to discover his name and his full details within the German Luftwaffe.
What irritated Von Werra more than anything, even more than being shot down the way he was, was the fact that the British continually made a mess of getting his name pronounced properly.
Everyone of the Brits addressed him as "Mr Werruh", and time and time again he yelled out at them: "What is the matter with you stupid people? My name is Fon Verrah!"
Needless to say, the Brits persisted in calling him either "Mr Werruh" or simply "Werruh". He genuinely believed they were mis-pronouncing his name deliberately.
Cutting a long story short, Mr Werruh (well, I am British remember) was sent to a Prisoner of War holding camp in an isolated part of the Lake District, in North West England, and in a remarkable series of events of great skill and ingenuity on his part, Mr Werruh managed to escape from the camp, was caught trying to fly out of an RAF base down in Derbyshire but was caught just as he was about to taxi out onto the airstrip. He was then sent by boat, along with a load of other captured German pilots to Canada, where it was thought he could be held very securely with no chance of escape back to Germany as he was now uch further away from his Fatherland.
But he did escape - he managed to jump out of the window of a train carrying him to a Royal Canadian Air Force base in the middle of the wilds of Canada. He managed to cross the frozen St Lawrence River to the neutral United States of America and to freedom as the Americans had no power to return him to the British as they had not, at that stage, entered the war.
Mr Werruh had the cheek to send a postcard from New York to the British Military Intelligence people back in Cockfosters, England wishing them well, and saying how much he was enjoying American hospitalty.
He eventually got all the way down to Mexico and managed to get back to Germany.
Mr Werruh's luck finally ran out in October 1941 when he was flying over the North Sea between the Netherlands and England, and unaccountably crashed into the drink and killed. The cause behind the crash was never discovered, but it was wartime after all, and strange things happen in war.
You have to admire Mr Werruh for his daredevil tactics. Sorry, I meant to say Oberleutnant Franz von Werra (You WILL say it as Fon Verrah, ja?).
You have to admire