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How do you pronounce, "pleurisy"?

English Language & Usage Asked on July 14, 2021

According to Wiktionary, pleurisy is pronounced one of two ways:

a) /ˈplʊəɹɪsi/

b) /ˈpljʊəɹɪsi/

I don’t hear the /j/ sound when I say the word (in General American) – I hear it like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8V8u6ywxCM

Two questions:

  1. In General American, do you hear pleurisy with or without the /j/?
  2. If you do hear it as option a (/ˈplʊəɹɪsi/), does that mean the /ʊəɹ/ in pleurisy sounds the same as the /ʊɚ/ in the words "boor, spoor, moor, Moor, poor; boorish"?

2 Answers

I'll answer the first question. Most--if not all--American accents have lost the /j/ after certain coronal consonants so words like new, lewd, sue, stupid are pronounced without the /j/. As @herisson explained in this answer: ‘Words that historically contained /juː/ are typically spelled with u, ew or eu’. Pleurisy is spelt with eu and has /juː/ in some British accents; however, it's pronounced without the /j/ in most American accents.

Answered by Decapitated Soul on July 14, 2021

As pertains to the second question The Longman Pronunciation dictionary has this.

pleurisy 'plʊər əs i||'plʊr əs i

This means that in BrE jod is not normally used and that in Gen Am not only jod but as well the diphthong disappears. Therefore, what would be a (the) mainstream pronunciation in Gen Am is not as "boor, spoor,…".

Answered by LPH on July 14, 2021

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