小二的歌
what does “Squeezed-Out ”mean here?Thx As you will see in Exercise 1-21, Squeezed-Out Syllables, on page 18, some words appear to have three or more syllables, but all of them are not actually spoken. For example, business is not (bi/zi/ness), but rather (birz/ness). what does “Squeezed-Out ”mean here?Thx
Apr 21, 2015 6:01 PM
Answers · 14
2
If too many people are occupying a small space, then one of you may be "squeezed out" i.e. expelled through physical pressure. The exercise here uses the same verb - squeeze out - in the context of teaching the "schwa" - the weakened vowel sound which is uttered in place of a clear vowel sound.. E.g. in the word "illiterate", the first -e and the -a are not pronounced clearly but are weakened to a "schwa". It is as though these two vowels have been "squeezed out".
April 21, 2015
1
Are you sure the second one is not (biz/ness) instead of (birz/ness)?
April 21, 2015
Mmm, Hard to explain but I think it means it is almost 'extended' or said for longer. Business is pronounced like "Beers/ness", almost and really I think it means "bi/zi/ness" is wrong because you need to prolong or extend the 'i' in 'bi' to make it sound like beer/bir. I really hope this helps!
April 21, 2015
"Squeezed out" in this context means that the other syllables put such pressure on the syllable that it flew out of the word. They are being kind of funny about the phenomenon, but that is kind of what happens with the pronunciation of words over time. The syllables "biz" and "ness" are strong and over time pushed away the middle "i" syllable so that many people now pronounce the word like "bizness". Note: many people do pronounce the middle bit, but it sounds sort of like "bizeh-ness"
April 21, 2015
I think that "squeezed out syllables" is just a playful way of saying that in the example it seems like the syllable in the middle was pushed out by the other two syllables. Here are some ways that I would use the phrase: "The toothpaste was squeezed out from the tube." "The salesman squeezed out another five dollars from the customer."
April 21, 2015
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