Who'd A-Thunk It

I used to snicker whenever Steven said words like "duke" and "assume" and "dune," because he pronounces them "dyuke" and "assyume" and "dyune." I'm aware that my phonetic renditions are completely non-IPA, but I'm sure you get it. I've heard him do it so much now that I just tyune it out.

So, I decided to explore what I thought was an outdated rule: When a "u" is preceded by any of the consonants in the words "Daniel sitteth," one is supposed to prounounce the "u" vowel with what S terms a j-glide. I was dyubious and thought it sounded overly and mistakenly pretentious, like the habit of somebody I know of referring to Michelangelo's David as "the statue Dah-VEED" (in a delightful southern accent).

I found a useful excerpt from the book Singing: The Mechanism and Technique, by William Vennard:

Everyone pronounces the vowel [u] with a preceding glide [ju] in such words as 'music,' 'cure,' 'cute,' 'pure,' 'abuse,' 'few.' Marshall lists these, and adds a useful mnemonic device for remembering the words in which the same practice should be followed, but about which there is doubt in many minds. She says that [ju] is used after [d, n, l, s, t] and [th] {written in IPA as theta, but I'm too lazy to go chasing after symbols in MS Word}, which are the consonants in the words 'Daniel sitteth,' and adds that the rule does not apply when [l] is preceded by another consonant, as in 'blue,' 'clue,' 'flute,' 'glue,' 'plume,' slew,' (Marshall, pp. 139-141).

Fascinating. I'm not sure that members of the proletariat such as myself should employ such lofty pronunciation, but now I'm aware that my derisive snickering is not its dyue! Ahem.

My Mermaid O' Honor dress was delivered yesterday - and it's stunning. Absolutely. Annnnd it needs to be taken in about 3 inches along the entire length of the bodice. It's a delicate lavender-pink, silk with tulle, very fitted through the entire midsection to the tops of my thighs, and then flared out ever-so-wonderfully to a short train. Jenny Yoo, $400, baby. Goes great with tan skin and blonde hair. ;)

I found a long-lost super-cool buddy, S - who is expecting a babby and amazingly works in a flower shop not 4 blocks from my workplace. Score! Unlimited lunch hijinks galore!

And, in other news, my mother is fascinated by Tibetan throat singing. I find it very ominous. As she passionately described it, she'd affect this great expression - sort of like in that one episode of X-Files when those people who were infected by malicious throat fungi gulped for air; only when my mom did it, she'd emit a deep hum. I was impressed.