Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 4 down vote favorite

The usual is a common reply to what will you order? or what are you up to?. It is often abbreviated, in Canada, to the first syllable of usual, as in the youzhe. How would you spell this abbreviation? Is there evidence of a standard or more common spelling?

share|improve this question
1  
"It is often abbraviated to the first syllable." - really? In what circles? – slim Dec 16 '11 at 16:56
@slim i live in Canada and lots of people say 'the youzhe' here. – ted.strauss Dec 16 '11 at 16:58
1  
i am genuinely surprised to learn that this such a regionally specific slang. it was worth asking the question just for that. new commenters, please mention where you're from and whether you've heard it before. – ted.strauss Dec 16 '11 at 17:19
1  
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a standard way of spelling the word-final /ʒ/ sound in English, since normally it only occurs word-internally (usual, pleasure, measure, etc). I've heard the youzhe plenty of times, as well as cazh (for "casual", as in keepin' it cazh or business cazh), which has the same problem. – alcas Dec 16 '11 at 17:43
2  
@alcas thanks for pointing out this important phonology issue in English, rarity of coda /ʒ/. One exception that comes to mind is beige. – ted.strauss Dec 16 '11 at 18:06
show 6 more comments

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Any way you want to.

It's gonna be slang in any case, and that gets spelled in lots of ways. If it becomes as common as gonna, it'll develop a normal "eye dialect" spelling.

You could argue for at least the following possible spellings, as communicating the syllable /yuʒ/: youzhe, youzh, yuzh, uzh, uzhe. They all have their problems, and only the ones that work will stick. So try'em all out. This is the way the language grows.

share|improve this answer
2  
To be pedantic, the language has already grown by the use of the first syllable of usually by itself. -Spelling-, which is not language, is evolving separately by people trying out different ways of writing that shortening of 'usually'. – Mitch Dec 16 '11 at 18:04
@mitch I beg to differ on your point "spelling, which is not language...". People SMS'ing lol to eachother has introduced a new spoken word 'lol'. So for better and oh yes for worse language evolves both ways: from speech to the orthography and from spelling to speech. – ted.strauss Dec 16 '11 at 18:51
1  
@ted.strauss: but you haven't contradicted me. You've used spelling and language as different things, since they affect each other. but the answerer was talking about spelling and called it language, and those are not the same thing. – Mitch Dec 16 '11 at 19:44
@mitch my point is that both speech and writing (spelling) are part of language, and have continuous affects on each other as the language evolves. So I consider the answerer's use of the word 'language' in this instance valid. For a detailed psychological model of language understanding that describes the influence of speech and writing on eachother and various aspects of comprehension, see Seidenberg & McClelland (1989) (p.4 shows a nice diagram of the model). – ted.strauss Dec 19 '11 at 20:25
@ted.strauss: I understand your point, and I disagree. JLs - "This is the way language grows" - if spelling is language, then sure lolspeak and 4133t are language (they are language-like but I don't consider them language). The rules of spelling are (usually) arbitrary and man-made, those of spoken language are (usually) not. You have to take into account spelling rules to do language understanding of electronic transcriptions, but the module that manages that (in the S&M model) are implemented in a very different manner to spoken language. – Mitch Dec 19 '11 at 20:41
show 2 more comments
up vote 2 down vote

I would argue against all John Lawler's suggestions. There is a pretty good argument for technical use of 'zh' by analogy to the relationship between s and z (i.e. s:z :: sh:zh where z and zh are voiced versions of s and sh, if I have the terminology right). But I think Lawler is coloured by his profession as a linguist. I don't think there is any standard English word spelled with 'zh' (is there?), so it would confuse many non-linguists. Add to that that all the options given look nothing like 'usual' and that it is clear that context isn't going to help people unfamiliar with the term. I think 'use' would be an obvious choice except for the collision with the common word 'use'. All that said, I don't have a better suggestion. ('uge' like 'luge', jokingly?)

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.