Monday, September 28, 2009

Voicing, with tongue in cheek


There's too much to blog about these days,* so this probably counts as randomness: Over at wonkette, as part of a snarko-screed called "Lo! The Wretched Ancient Saga Of Liz Cheney",we find this description of the voiced sibilant /z/ in English:
According to several popular children’s ghost stories books, centuries ago Dick Cheney created another in the image of himself. He called it “Liz,” for he liked to draw out the zzzz and allow the vibrations produced by the humans’ language tickle his tongue-organ.
Wow, pretty poetic description of vocal fold vibration, there, Wonkette.

*For instance. this piece on standardized testing. Or this remembrance of Safire by John McWhorter.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, and NON-HUMAN voicing!