Re: pronunciation question

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

T. Michael Keesey writes:
>> This will sound like an incredibly random question, but I recently
>> came across a posting in an online discussion which you wrote, "I'm
>> willing to bet you drop the first "r" in _Jaxartosaurus_".
>> (http://dml.cmnh.org/2006Jun/msg00103.html)
>> 
>> Is 'Jaxatosaurus', without the r, the usual pronunciation? The
>> reason I ask is that I'm a linguist doing a study of words where
>> people omit r's, like 'the(r)mometer' and 'Feb(r)uary'. This would
>> be an interesting example.
> 
> In that particular instance, I guessed that Mike Taylor wouldn't
> pronounce that "r" because he is a Londoner, and the London
> variations of English (as well as British "received pronunciation")
> are nonrhotic.

It's worse than that.  Being English, I even _read_ the pronunciations
differently from you.  So when I read "Jaxartosaurus" what I heard in
my head is the same as you'd have heard when reading "Jaxatosaurus";
when I read the latter I heard something like "Jaxattosaurus", with a
short "a" as in "cat".

Yikes.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "He was not the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp / Or
         to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken, / To have
         his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, / And his limbs
         all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin" -- Monty Python and
         the Holy Grail.