Degemination

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If you think about it, "home made" is pronounced the same way as "homade" would be if it was a word:

And maybe "homade" *is* a word?



42 Comments

  1. Michal Rosa said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 7:06 am

    Of course it is a word – if somebody used it, it is a word. Might not be an official or a recognized word but a word it is. What's more it's a very good word.

    [(myl) Well, "home made" or "homemade" has been a compound word for a long time. The OED cites several uses from the 16th century, e.g.

    1547   W. Salesbury Dict. Eng. & Welshe sig. Biii*,   Brethyn cartref, homemade clothe.
    1564   A. Bacon tr. J. Jewel Apol. Churche Eng. sig. P.iv,   We haue hadde ere nowe in Englande prouinciall Synods, and gouerned oure Churches by home made lawes.

    The question is whether the spelling "homade" — suggesting at least indifference to the compositional source — is a sign of a new development, or just a misspelling, typographical error, or shortening for convenience.]

  2. Graeme said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 7:54 am

    Slight risk it will be read as "ho made"

  3. S Frankel said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:01 am

    @Graeme. No risk at all. 100% certainty. "Ho made" was my first thought, reinforced visually by the first two letters of the next word and, especially, by the striking design element in "Axis."

  4. Jongseong Park said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:02 am

    In my idiolect, at least, "homemade" is never degeminated but is always pronounced /ˈhoʊmˈmeɪd/.

  5. Kevin Psonak said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:15 am

    I wonder if the owner of Axis Pizza, or anyone else there, has a connection to the Ozark Mountain Country, primarily in Arkansas and Missouri, but also spilling into Oklahoma and Kansas, since an "OED Online" full text search turns up:

    1959 C. Morrow Wilson "Bodacious Ozarks" xiii. 147 "A great deal of the charm and effectiveness of Ozark speech stays in its spontaneous similes: 'hotter'n homade hell,' 'cold as a froze up frog'..or 'hot as a firecracker.'" ("Ozark, adj. and n." OED Online. June 2016. Oxford University Press. Accessed August 01, 2016.)

    (I called Axis this morning to try to get more information, but the person who answered said that the owner is on vacation for two months.)

    The spelling, but apparently no example in context, also shows up at the "homemade" entry as a variant from the 16th century and from the 18th century on. In the 17th century "homade" was apparently on vacation too.

    "Forms: 15– homemade, 16 18– homade ('regional' and 'nonstandard')." ("homemade, adj. and n." OED Online. June 2016. Oxford University Press. Accessed August 01, 2016.)

  6. Joe Barker said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:17 am

    Another slight risk someone will read it and pronounce it with the vowels of "homage". (Thinking: fancy jar says "homade", must be French!)

  7. Stan Carey said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:29 am

    A search for homade pomade returns a few hits, as I hoped it might, including this Indonesian (I think) product.

  8. Riikka said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 9:09 am

    As a foreigner I parsed the word as a misspelled "homage"/"fromage"/"nomad" first and "ho made" second.

    I found a couple of companies (Homade Gifts from Missouri, Homade (made by immagination) in Hong Kong etc), and an urban dictionary result ("hoe made").

    I would say that it's not a word, it's two homonyms/homographs. I couldn't find any support for my "memorial cheese dish" theory.

  9. Ginger Yellow said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 9:31 am

    As a fancy pants European, my mind went to "homard", before I realised that a pizzeria would be unlikely to have lobster soup.

  10. ajay said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 11:10 am

    If you think about it, "home made" is pronounced the same way as "homade" would be if it was a word

    Not quite the same – I think there's a pause between the two m's, or anyway a much longer m, at least in my idiolect.

  11. Gregory Kusnick said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 11:14 am

    I'd say that "home made" sounds like "homade" if I don't think about it. If I think about it, it comes out with an elongated "m".

  12. Michael Watts said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 11:32 am

    I feel like if "homade" was a word, the vowel in the first syllable would be reduced, which it isn't in "homemade".

    [(myl) Nah — consider "romance", "program", "solo", etc.]

  13. Michael Watts said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 12:09 pm

    But romance, program, and solo all bear stress on their first syllable.

    [(myl) Actually MW gives 2nd-syllable stress as the first choice for "romance" — and in the phrase "homemade soup", the rhythm rule shifts the stress on homemade to the first syllable.]

  14. Nathalie said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 12:47 pm

    But but in romance the second syllable can also be stressed as evidenced by.. um.. Lady Gaga.

  15. Jongseong Park said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 12:58 pm

    For "homemade", the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives ˌhəʊm ˈmeɪd or ˈhəʊm ˌmeɪd as the British English pronunciation and ˈhoʊm meɪd or ˈhoʊm eɪd as the American English pronunciation. In other words, for American English, it allows for the possibility of degemination as if spelled "homade".

    Merriam-Webster gives \ˈhō(m)-ˈmād\, again indicating that degemination is a possibility in American English.

    The Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary doesn't recognize this possibility, giving ˌhəʊmˈmeɪd for British English and ˌhoʊmˈmeɪd for American English, with stress shift in combinations like ˌhomemade ˈjam.

  16. Zeppelin said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 1:38 pm

    I did my first double take at the idea that someone would call their pizza place "Axis". I may have played too many video games, but the first association I had were the "Axis powers" of the Second World War.
    The stark red-and-black logo doesn't help either, I spent a few moments trying to figure out if there's a swastika hidden in the design…

    [(myl) Axis Pizza is in the same building (and somehow affiliated with) the Axis Apartments, a name that was presumably chosen by some real estate PR person when they bought out the Divine Tracy Hotel.]

  17. EndlessWaves said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 1:56 pm

    To me 'ade' in food situations has a strong link with drinks. Lemonade, Limeade, Cherryade, Lucozade etc.

    Maybe it's because I grew up during a time of lots of strange new foods (prawn cocktails etc.), but soup based on some sort of sugary drink definitely popped into my head when I was trying to parse the sign.

    The lack of recipes online for soups based on better known -ades suggests it's probably not a successful combination.

  18. Michael Watts said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 2:16 pm

    Huh. To me, lemonade and limeade are standard, and I've heard "orangeade", but I'd expect a sweet cherry-based drink to be called "cherry juice", not "cherryade".

    We have lemonade instead of lemon juice because while lemon juice exists, it is undrinkable. (Though that analysis breaks down for orangeade.)

  19. J.W. Brewer said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 3:12 pm

    My high school's yearbook was called (may still be; couldn't find out one way or another in a moment's googling) the Axis. I don't think anyone in the early '80's thought the word was skunked regardless of context by WW2-villain overtones. Indeed, given that the name was probably devised when the school first opened (circa '69 or '70) a more plausible association might have been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis%3A_Bold_as_Love.

  20. djw said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 3:22 pm

    Six+ decades in central Texas, and "home-ade" is my default ("home made" only if I'm being very careful), so "homade" looks to me like what I say. And since I grew up in a family that enjoys crafts, I have lots of "homade" stuff and I've given lots of "homade" gifts.

    I agree with Michael Rosa that it's a word (and I like Kevin Psonak's review of it), but it's just not used very much and probably falls near "irregardless" on the acceptability scale.

  21. Graeme said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 5:08 pm

    'Slight risk' my 'slight risk' was litotes.

    Though I wonder, outside US English, if 'ho..' is less likely to be pronounced 'hoe'. Till recently 'ho' wasn't slang for prostitute. So 'homade' to an ingenuous Australian would be pronounced so the first syllable rhymed with 'hot'

  22. Chris C. said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 5:36 pm

    We are possibly dealing with an aficionado of B. Kliban: http://comicsidontunderstand.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/cidu-klib130626.gif

    If so, this is an ironic way to market soups that in fact arrive at the pizzeria courtesy of Sysco or a similar restaurant supplier.

  23. David Morris said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:02 pm

    Fruit-based drinks are popular in cafes in South Korea. 'Lemonade' is usually spelled thus, but the other flavours are more likely to be spelled eg 'Orange Ade'. The drinks board in cafes may have a section called 'Ades'. Even that it's summer and I'm often in the need for a cold drink, I probably shouldn't ask the sales assistant 'Do you have ades?'. (There is a semi-craze on mixing flavours. These are known by abbreviations of the constituent fruits, eg strawberry (딸기) and banana (바나나) becomes 딸바아이드.

    To me, lemonade is what is called cider here (and, I believe, in North American English), and cider is by default apple cider (carbonated apple, alcoholic or not). Carbonated lemon is 'lemon squash'. I don't have a word for what is called 'lemonade' here. It's not 'lemon juice' (which is 'straight'). 'Lemon drink' is the closest I can go. Certainly 'lemonade' and 'lemon ade' are two different drinks, whatever the second is.

  24. David Morris said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:02 pm

    And this pizza shop looks evil!

  25. Arthur Baker said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:24 pm

    If you say "homade" in Australia, people will hear "Home Aid", a person who assists an elderly, sick or disabled person by doing household tasks in their home (so that they don't need to be institutionalised).

    But I guess it depends on the context.

  26. Chris C. said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:27 pm

    @David Morris — In North America, "cider" usually means pressed unfiltered apple juice. It's never carbonated except for one fairly well-known brand of "sparkling cider" marketed as a non-alcoholic alternative to sparkling wine.

    "Hard cider" in the US would be cider as in the UK.

    Lemonade in NA is a drink made from water, lemon juice, and sugar, and has no resemblance to any variety of cider.

  27. Rubrick said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:43 pm

    I'm going to be selling my homade pomade on Etsy soon.

  28. Michael Watts said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 6:44 pm

    To me, as a North American:

    "Apple juice" comes in a clear yellow variety and an opaque brown variety.

    "Cider" is apple juice cooked with spices.

    Martinelli's Sparkling Cider is carbonated apple juice (the clear yellow kind).

    I can't claim any particular knowledge of "hard cider", but "hard" would make it alcoholic. I would assume a base of apple juice or apple cider.

    "Lemonade" is sweetened lemon juice, which a human can drink.

    "Lemon juice" is unsweetened (and undrinkable), and is a cooking ingredient.

  29. Ray said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 7:16 pm

    I bet it's a misspelling/typo. the guys that work at that place have accents, and some are bilingual (maybe english+spanish and english+greek). also, their pizza is really good!

    my feeling all along was that they named the building "axis" because it's located on the borderline between penn and drexel (and equally draw customers/renters from each…)

  30. Zeppelin said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 7:40 pm

    In German, "Limonade" is the blanket term for sparkly fruit-based soft drinks. So there's Zitronenlimonade (lemon lemonade), Orangenlimonade, Erdbeerlimonade…it's a legal category as well — apparently Cola is technically also a Limonade. I remember it took me quite a while to figure out that in English, "lemonade" only refers to beverages actually made with lemons…

  31. J.W. Brewer said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 8:54 pm

    Not sure whether the Japanese ラムネ is really from English "lemonade" versus German "Limonade," although it could be the former influenced by the broader semantic scope of the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramune

  32. David Morris said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 9:53 pm

    I should have done the field research before I commented! The cafe I was thinking of sells 딸바쥬스 (ddal-ba-jyu-seu, strawberry/banana juice) and 망바쥬스 (mang-ba-jyu-seu, mango/banana juice) as well as 레몬에이드 (ri-mon-e-i-deu, lemonade), 체리에이드 (che-ri-e-i-deu) and 라즈베리에이드 (ra-jeu-be-ri-e-i-deu, ?raspberryade).

    The coffee shop around the corner has a range of CCINOs. This is obviously taken from 'cappuccino' but is an awkward transliteration from the hangeul, which uses 치노, which would usually be transliterated 'chino'.

    Or the pizza shop might be awesome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Axis_of_Awesome).

  33. David Morris said,

    August 1, 2016 @ 9:56 pm

    Forgot: despite the name CCINO suggesting a hot drink, the products in question are soft-serve ice-cream with flavoured toppings.

  34. Jongseong Park said,

    August 2, 2016 @ 5:06 am

    @David Morris:

    The CCINOs in question are obviously "cappuccino" with the first couple of syllables chopped off, just like you get 치노 chino from 카푸치노 kapuchino ("cappuccino"). Note that Korean ignores geminate non-nasal consonants in transcriptions from Italian, so there is probably not enough phonological awareness of Italian to realize that the last two syllables of cappuccino [kap.put.ˈʧiː.no] would really correspond to CINO.

    The standard spelling for "lemonade" in Korean is 레모네이드 remoneideu. 레몬에이드 remoneideu, which is pronounced exactly the same but graphically divides the syllabic differently, corresponding to 레몬 remon + 에이드 eideu, is the registered trademark for a local lemonade product. Lots of people use the latter spelling for the generic beverage. A sort of reverse situation occurs for the roly-poly toy, which in standard spelling is 오뚝이 ottugi—people are familiar with the food brand name 오뚜기 ottugi (which uses the name "Ottogi Co, Ltd." in English), so often use this spelling for the toy as well.

    This goes back to the principles used in Korean spelling. 오뚝이 ottugi is 오뚝 ottuk (mimetic word for "upright") + -이 -i, where the suffix -이 is kept graphically separate. But it is difficult for laypeople to follow why for instance the 1990s neologism 도우미 doumi ("assistant") is not spelled 도움이, since it could be analyzed as 도움 doum ("help") + -이 -i. I remember seeing a defence of the spelling 도우미 doumi, but it struck me as a post hoc rationalization.

    Vowel-initial suffixes in loanwords are less likely to be treated as separate components in Korean spelling, but you do see such cases as -올 ol in names of alcohols as in 에탄올 etanol ("ethanol") or 부탄올 butanol ("butanol") instead of *에타놀 etanol or *부타놀 butanol. This is in fact why you have the puzzling form 알코올 alkool in Korean for "alcohol" instead of the expected 알콜 alkol or 알코홀 alkohol—to make sure that the last syllable is -올 ol.

    But this is a pretty rare case, and given that 레모네이드 remoneideu is the standard spelling for "lemonade", -에이드 eideu for "-ade" doesn't make the cut, at least officially. However, 에이드 eidue ("ade") is recognized as a word in its own right, so something like 라즈베리 에이드 rajeuberi eideu ("raspberry ade") is perfectly fine in standard Korean (note the space between the words). One more nitpick—주스 juseu is the standard spelling for "juice", not 쥬스 jyuseu.

    I approve the Axis of Awesome reference, by the way.

  35. Alon Lischinsky said,

    August 2, 2016 @ 6:53 am

    FWIW, GloWBE has three instances of homade with exactly this sense (modifying jams, snacks and brews). They come one each from the US, Canada and Australia, pace Arthur Baker.

  36. David Morris said,

    August 2, 2016 @ 8:28 am

    @Jongseong: Thanks for all that. To make sure I got my second post exactly right, after misremembering for the first one, I took a photo of one cafe's sign. That definitely has 쥬스 and 레몬에이드. Later in the afternoon I saw another cafe with 주스.

    A search online shows about 15 millions results for 주스 and about 9 million for 쥬스, so the latter seems to be well established. On the other hand, when I searched for 레모네이드, it asked me 'Do you mean 레몬에이드?'. The actual search results for each spelling show a mixture of the two spellings, so without actually counting, I couldn't suggest which is the more common.

    I'd always wondered what 'Ottugi' meant. Some of their packets have eg 'Ottugi pancake mix', as if 'ottugi' means eg 'wholemeal' or 'organic', as well as the word appearing on the logo.

  37. Jongseong Park said,

    August 2, 2016 @ 9:24 am

    There is no shortage of instances where the nonstandard spelling is very widely used in Korean. You see it all the time in store signs or restaurant menus, for example. At least for loanwords like 주스 juseu ("juice"), a big part of the reason is that the current spelling rules for loanwords (including the rule that ㅑ ya, ㅕ yeo, ㅛ yo, etc. would not be used after ㅈ j or ㅊ ch and be replaced by ㅏ a, ㅓ eo, ㅗ o, etc.) were only established in 1986. Many Koreans active in society today were educated before the current standardized spelling rules. This is complicated by the fact that even after the 1986 reform, *쥬스 jyuseu and other nonstandard forms continued to be used in older trademarks, so even those who grew up under the new spelling continued to see the older spelling everywhere.

    Other loanwords where nonstandard forms or spellings are still prevalent include *텔레비젼 tellebijyeon for 텔레비전 tellebijeon ("television"), *로보트 roboteu for 로봇 robot ("robot"), and *맛사지 matsaji for 마사지 masaji ("massage"). It's not just loanwords—if you took the menu in any random Korean restaurant, chances are that there would be words that are not spelled according to what is taught in schools. Next time, take a look at how many restaurants say *찌게 jjige instead of the standard 찌개 jjigae for the Korean stew dish, for instance. Or how many signs proclaim that things are *꽁짜 kkongjja instead of 공짜 gongjja ("free"). Given how relatively recently Korean spelling was standardized in its current form, it shouldn't be surprising that such nonstandard forms still proliferate, though I often wish Korean speakers would put in at least a tenth of the effort to spell things correctly in Korean as they do in English.

    Apparently, Google used to say "Did you mean fuschia?" when one searched for "fuchsia".

  38. Alexander said,

    August 2, 2016 @ 3:24 pm

    My fingers just typed "backround" instead of "background", and it got me wondering how many other words are susceptible to this…

  39. Jongseong Park said,

    August 3, 2016 @ 8:54 am

    @Alexander: "upringing" instead of "upbringing" maybe?

  40. Rodger C said,

    August 3, 2016 @ 11:26 am

    Myself, I say "uʡpringing."

  41. Chas Belov said,

    August 5, 2016 @ 1:32 am

    I've long said "homade" /ˈhoʊmeɪd/ for /ˈhoʊmˈmeɪd/.

  42. Ran Ari-Gur said,

    August 14, 2016 @ 11:36 pm

    To the commenters who say that you pronounce "homemade" with a geminate (long/double) /m/ sound: does that still apply in a phrase like "homemade hot soups" (the original example)?

    I ask because for me, "homemade" does have a geminate /m/ on its own, or in predicative position (as in "all the soups are homemade"); but it does not have a geminate /m/ in attributive position before the noun (as in "homemade hot soups").

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