Tuesday, March 29, 2005
As quoted from a friend:
I got cranky the other day. I heard yet another one of my friends convert to ‘avenoo’ from ‘avenyou.’ It wasn’t the fact that there was anything necessarily wrong with pronouncing avenue without the ‘you’ (or what is called a y-continuant in linguistic circles), it’s just that the y-continuant wasn’t missing from the word before I left for a European summer vacation only 3 months before!
It seemed as if everyone I knew had adopted the noo avenoo, and it was driving me nuts. Maybe, I thought, they were conspiring to test my sanity. The nagging question actually drove me to consult the University of Winnipeg’s voice and diction coach, who also noticed the trend. She said that it was an American pattern, heard commonly in the media, on American television programs.
So there you have it. Stop that damn AVENOO and keep AVENYOU going strong. Don't be a son of-a-bitch.
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