An historic moment

The indefinite article of English is either <a> or <an> depending on whether the following word starts with a consonant or a vowel sound - so far so regular. But what do we make of book titles such as these?
How do you pronounce the phrase "an historical" or "an historic"? Should it be /ən ɪstɒrɪk(əl)/ or /ə hɪstɒrɪk(əl)/? Could one also say /ən hɪstɒrɪk(əl)/?
Well, Alex Rotatori has spotted an interesting spoken example of the latter version (though the indefinite article is used here in its strongform /æn/); it's taken from Theresa May's speech in the House of Commons announcing the delivery of the Brexit letter to His Excellency Mr Donald Tusk, president of the EU.

Is it something which occurs occasionally, even regularly, is it idiosyncratic or just a slip of the tongue/brain?

Seven Sisters

"Seven Sisters Station" is an underground and overground station in an area of North London called  "Seven Sisters". This strange name seems to go back to seven elm trees that had been planted there in the 17th c.,

before they were finally replaced by a ring of hornbeam trees at the end of the 20th c., though not exactly at the same place.
The Independent published this photo of seven nuns making for an amusing appearance while they were waiting at Seven Sisters station.

credit: The Independent

PS: Should you be a lady heading for Cockfosters, a London suburb, and are unsure whether you are on the correct line, never ask the gentleman next to you: "Is this Cockfosters?" You might get an unexpected answer.
PPS: Others spring to mind: Bakerloo, Barking, Elephant and Castle, ... 

An old dictionary

It was by mere chance that I stumbled across an eighteenth-century dictionary indicating stress though not pronunciation:
Thomas Dyche (1740³), A new general English dictionary, (London). It's to be found at www.archive.org. Here's the title page of the 3rd edition:

Thomas Dyche

Next a sample page, which shows, among other words, the stress pattern for forthcoming.

 The final 20 or so pages contain a list of names of persons and places with their stress patterns. This list ranges from Aaron and Abaddon over Monserrat and Montanus to Zygaces and Zygantes.

We don't know much about Dyche; there is, however,  an interesting article on Dyche (and his co-author Pardon) written by D.T. Starnes and G.E. Noyes: "Thomas Dyche and William Pardon's A New English Dictionary (1735)" to be found in R.R.K. Hartmann, ed. (2003), Lexicography, vol. 2, pp. 15-28 (London, New York).

weakforms: BUT

BUT can function as a
- conjunction: "He rushed to the post office, but it was already closed",
- preposition: "I can come any day but Wednesday",
- adverb: "We can but try and do our best" or
- noun: "I don't want to hear any buts from you".
BUT has one or more weakform pronunciations. What you find in the three pron dictionaries is this:

EPD18:
strong form:  bʌt
weak form:  bət
Note: Weak-form word. The strong form /bʌt/ is used contrastively (e.g. ifs and buts) and in sentence-final position (e.g. 'It's anything but'). The weak form is /bət/ (e.g. 'It's good but expensive' /ɪtsˌɡʊd.bət.ɪkˈspent.sɪv/).

LPD3:
but strong form bʌt, weak form bət

ODP:
but strong form bʌt, weak form bət

Jack Windsor Lewis's PhonetiBlog has an entry (no. 441), in which he lists additional weakform variants:

The conjunction, adverb and preposition etc but has only a single ordinary weakform /bət/. However, before a word beginning with a vowel, a form of but reduced to the consonantal cluster /pt-/ may sometimes occur in relaxt style where the original initial /b/ is devoiced to a /p/ which is merely an unreleased bilabial closure. Meanwhile the release of the /t/ is without aspiration [...].

Here are three excerpts from a TV film (credit: BBC4) on the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson.

1. "/bət/ you can't, as it were, make decisions about which words should or should not be used." (speaker: Prof John Mullan, UCL)

2. "/bət/ in the course of his reading he found that - you know - some words had 20 or 30 or a hundred different applications [...]." (speaker: Henry Hitchings, author)

 3. "/bə i dʌz hæv/ the word retromingency, which means pissing backwards." In this excerpt I don't hear a /t/ at the end of "but".

Mr Right and Mrs Always Right

<Mrs> is a "title of courtesy prefixed to the surname of a married woman" as the OED (lemma: Mrs) tells us. The weakform pronunciation is ... ?
Well, the LPD indicates none nor do the EPD or the ODP. Jack Windsor Lewis in blog 528 lists these weakform variants: /mɪsz̩, mɪss̩/.
What about the strongform (variants)? Here's a quick overview:

			GB pron
EPD18	/ˈmɪs.ɪz/
LDOCE	/ˈmɪsɪz/
LPD3	/ˈmɪsɪz/
OALD8	/ˈmɪsɪz/
Oxf. Dict's online	/ˈmɪsɪz/
OED3	/ˈmɪsᵻz/1

(The recording of "Mrs" on the EPD CD is distorted.)




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 ¹ The symbol /ᵻ/ represents free variation between /ɪ/ and /ə/.

MMXVII = Annus Serenus?

A Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2017 to All My Followers!

Happy Xmas to all of you!

credit: www.seasonchristmas.com

  |twɒz ðə ˈnaɪt bɪfɔː ˈkrɪsməs | wen ˈɔːl θruː ðə ˈhaʊs |
| nɒt ə ˈkriːtʃə wəz ˈstɜːrɪŋ | nɒt ˈiːvn̩ ə ˈmaʊs |
| ðə ˈstɒkɪŋz wə ˈhʌŋ | baɪ ðə ˈtʃɪmni wɪð ˈkɛː |
| ɪn ˈhəʊps ðət seɪnt ˈnɪkələs | ˈsuːn wʊd bi ˈðɛː|

| ðə ˈtʃɪldrən wə ˈnesl̩d | ɔːl ˈsnʌɡ ɪn ðeə ˈbedz |
| waɪl ˈvɪʒn̩z əv ˈʃʊɡəplʌmz | ˈdɑːnst ɪn ðeə ˈhedz |
| ən ˈmɑːmər ɪn ə ˈkɜːtʃɪf | ənd ˈaɪ ɪn maɪ ˈkæp |
| həd ˈdʒʌst setl̩d ˈdaʊn | fər ə ˈlɒŋ wɪntəz ˈnæp |

phonetic puzzle

Find a word ending in <th> in which the digraph is not pronounced as /θ/.

If you need a hint, lemme know!

Update: My apologies! I forgot to add the /ð/. The word must not end in /ð, θ/. 

Update 2: If you've ever owned an elephant, you will be familiar with the word (and you'd better be!).

pun for fun - #2

Does this pun work for you?

Why is Henry’s wife covered in tooth marks?
-- Because he’s Tudor.

(credit: Adele Cliff)