Thursday, September 17, 2009

Her reaction: priceless.

Turn down the sound if there are innocents within earshot.



What does he say to start off?


Takes a tough man to make a tender forecast.


Is that right?

But after that, he must have meant "keep plucking" right? 'Plucking' starts off with a voiceless bilabial stop [p] which must have been influenced by the voiceless labiodental fricative [f] both at the end of tough and the beginning of forecast, contributing to phonetic assimilation.

But that lovely taboo gravity has to have been at work there too. He's just got [fʌkɪn] on the mind.

If you missed his coanchor's reaction, watch again.

2 comments:

  1. The first thing I noticed was actually the woman co-anchor. Her face is one of those priceless ones...

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Taboo gravity" is a good way to describe the phenomenon. Like Poe's Imp of the Perverse, it is most evident at the edges of cliffs and curse words.

    The local taboo gravity from pluck to fuck may be especially strong on account of the well-worn rhyme: "I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son..."

    And yes, the co-anchor's reaction is brilliant.

    ReplyDelete

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