Date:  Thu, 21 Sep 1995 10:04:19 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: Mouse/Mice=House/Hice



Don writes



>Have you noticed the increasing frequency of the use of -s- in the

>plural of 'house'? Lots of people say 'housses' these days. People

>from all over. I notice it on tv. Hice, no, housses yes.

>You can plug this one into your problem too, Terry. Over the last 37

>years of teaching I observed 'blouzes' give way to 'blousses' and now

>the last one is going.    DMLance



Paradigm leveling strikes again. But there's one little datum of revenge for

the [+voiced] crowd: A linguist friend of mine insists she has always

pluralized 'housewife' [HAWSwayf] as 'houZewives' [HAWZwayvz].

 On a related topic, perhaps the unexpected palatalization of 'Pulitzer'--

which as some of us have observed was evidently pronounced PULLitzer by the

family--is a mere spelling pronunciation. If they'd just spelled it right,

even the most avid palatalizers would have curbed their instincts. I don't

think the linguist Geoff Pullum has trouble with anyone pronouncing his last

name PYU-lum, and I can't recall ever hearing about PYU-leys (as in ropes and

___) or, for that matter, PYU-lets (as in those surprising chickens).



 Larry