The writer discusses possible pairings of consonants at the beginnings of English words. (A revision of the article that first appeared in ET79.)

THIS ARTICLE is about the pronunciation of intervocalic x in English. I started thinking about it when I realized that in French (a language I am having to improve in, as I now live in France) the x in exercice is pronounced ‘gz’, whereas in the English equivalent it is ‘ks’. In fact, in all French words beginning ‘ex + vowel’ the x is voiced (‘gz’). There are other similar contrasts with English – exécuter, exigence, exosphère. While it might be instructive to compare the pronunciation of intervocalic x among several, or many, connected, or unconnected, languages, that sounds like a long work and I think it is possible to make some sense sticking only to English, with just an occasional glance elsewhere.

A review of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) by Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum.

The writer discusses possible pairings of consonants at the beginnings of English words.

‘Proverbs and idioms are never used by people of education,’ Mrs Gaskell makes Molly Gibson's genteel stepmother say towards the end of Wives and Daughters (1866), in shocked response to Molly's description of the Squire's son as ‘the apple of his eye’. Nonetheless, proverbs abound in the pages of 19th-century literature (including Mrs Gaskell herself), providing a convenient way of identifying characters' attitudes and feelings concisely and colourfully.

The third in a series of true tales from a city university following on from ‘The jockey and his horse’ in ET75 (Jul 03) and ‘Shame’ in ET76 (Oct 03).