Well the starfish post was supposed to have been the last post. But alas! It was not meant to be my swansong.. Or err, swanpost..
Instead ladies and gents, it seems that there is some sort of conspiracy out there to annoy me with some form of new pronunciation innovation. Something boomz, y'know.
So there I was in class today, an EL class anyway. Minding my own business when the professor/tutor/teaching assistant* (I will not reveal what his/her post is) pronounced the second vowel in matron and apron as /
ɒ/, instead of a schwa. So yes, the second syllables of matron and apron were pronounced in the same way the third vowel of Megatron is pronounced.
Of course, the class was very excited about this and you could hear murmurs all around. Said professor/tutor/teaching assistant* seemed oblivious.. Or was s/he? Hm.
I turned to my friend, who also happened to be the one I had a talk about the
vays/vas distinction (Lazy lah to copy-paste the IPA symbols :D), seated beside me. So I asked her what was up with the homo"tron"phone in apron and matron. She shrugged. I frowned.
I checked dictionary.com for a pronunciation check (for the last time!) and yes! It was supposed to be a schwa for both words. Why did s/he pronounce it that way?!
It's like these people know I'm keeping a blog on lexical observations, and they're trying to get themselves on this blog.. Or maybe it's just me :D
*
Delete accordingly