yuge

Thompson   Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:41 am GMT
I've heard some Americans say things like "yuge" for "huge" etc. What particular region of the states do such pronunciations come from?
Guest   Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:48 am GMT
Are you sure that you're not just not catching the "h" sound?
Travis   Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:52 am GMT
No, it's actually true that there are North American English dialects for which historical /hj/ is pronounced as just [j] rather than the [Cj] that is present in most English dialects for such. I can't think of the particular dialects off the top of my head, though.
Lazar   Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:29 am GMT
Yeah, it's definitely common in the New York dialect. For example, Donald Trump and Larry David both exhibit this pronunciation.

<<rather than the [Cj] that is present in most English dialects for such.>>

I think you may be overgeneralizing. In my speech, at least, it's usually [hj] rather than [Cj].
Lazar   Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:35 am GMT
Actually I retract what I just wrote - now that I think about it, it seems that [Cj] is the primary realization in my speech.
Travis   Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:59 pm GMT
/hj/ seems to be a case where a very large portion of English-speakers are unaware of their own pronunciation, unlike with things like word-initial stops, whose aspiration is relatively well-known amongst English-speakers.
Guest   Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:18 pm GMT
Yeah. It's impossible to pronounce [hj] which is why we say [Cj].
Guest   Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:19 pm GMT
Likewise it's impossible to pronounce [hl], you have to say [l_0] and it's impossible to pronounce [hr\], you have to say [r\_0].
Guest   Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:08 pm GMT
>> Likewise it's impossible to pronounce [hl], you have to say [l_0] and it's impossible to pronounce [hr\], you have to say [r\_0]. <<

Is it truely impossible, or just difficult?
Skippy   Fri Jul 13, 2007 12:18 am GMT
Supposedly there are pockets of the South (like Houston) where they drop their h's before /yu/ but in my experience it's pretty much a northeastern thing.
Milton   Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:00 am GMT
Yuge (for Huge) and Youston (for Houston) is so NYC/NJ
Guest   Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:17 am GMT
(like Houston)

I've actually read that in Houston they drop the /h/ in place name itself, but keep it for other words like "hue", "huge", "human", "humongous" etc.
Jim   Sat Jul 14, 2007 6:35 am GMT
I'm from the South and I always pronounce /h/ before /ju/. It's possible that people from Houston might pronounce the name of their place without a /h/. I associate dropping of /h/ before /ju/ with New York.