Dick,

 

Is Montagne from Chicago? There are some dialects that regularly do that. – Bill Spruiell

 

 

Lately I’m noticing some people pronouncing the word news as “noose” rather than “nooze.” For example, on Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep says “This is NPR nooze” but co-host Renee Montagne says “NPR noose.”

 

Generally Americans use the z sound for the plural marker following a vowel sound, as in days, fees, sighs, potatoes, and dues. So what’s up with “noose”? Does it mean that news has become a monolithic morpheme ( {news} rather than {new} + {PLURAL} ) for them and so escapes the rule mandating the z-sound-after-vowels for the plural marker?

 

Dick Veit

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Richard Veit
Department of English
University of North Carolina Wilmington

 

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