Tuesday 25 February 2014

Chavs throwing trees... or chillies?

I misheard someone say the other day that they'd seen some chavs (=charvas) throwing trees, rather than chillies. Tree and chilli are not very similar words, but there is a reason for this mishearing: the consonant cluster /tr/ is very often palatalised and pronounced with an affricate: /tʃr/ (='chr') That's actually quite hard to say, so the /r/ can be reduced, leaving the 'ch' sound.

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