Post by t-bob on Mar 29, 2019 10:17:45 GMT -5
1. the transposition of letters, syllables, or sounds in a word, as in the pronunciation aks for ask.
Quotes
''NOO-kyuh-luhr''-sayers, who number in the many millions, in fact, move the l in nuclear to the final syllable and thus avoid the unusual pattern. (Linguists refer to this sound-switching process as metathesis.) -- Frank Abate, "On Language: Nuclear," New York Times Magazine, January 12, 2003 Remember this when the next time you hear someone complaining about aks for ask or nucular for nuclear, or even perscription. It's called metathesis, and it's a very common, perfectly natural process. -- David Shariatmadari, "8 pronunciation errors that made the English language what it is today," The Guardian, March 11, 2014
Origin
In linguistics, metathesis is the transposition of two consecutive letters or sounds of a word, as in the now nonstandard pronunciation aks for ask (Old English has the verbs áscian and axian, and Middle English has asken and axen). Every well-disciplined schoolboy knows that in Greek quantitative metathesis is the change of long vowel + short vowel, e.g., ēo, to short vowel + long vowel, eō. Metathesis comes via Late Latin metathesis "transposition of the letters of a word," from Greek metáthesis “change, change of position, transposition,” a compound formed of the common Greek preposition and prefix metá, meta- “with, in the middle of, among” (metá is related to German mit and Old English mid “with,” as in the first syllable of midwife). Thésis “placing, location, setting” is a derivative of the verb tithénai “to put, place,” from the very common Proto-Indo-European root dhē- “to place, put,” and the source of Latin facere “to do” and English do. Metathesis entered English in the 16th century.
