14 July 2010

accepting/excepting

On Language Log of 14 July (here), Mark Liberman discussed the typo in this advertisement, where excepting rather than accepting occurs.
It is interesting to note that this is an error that would rarely occur in Singapore or other places where reduced vowels are often avoided in the unstressed first syllable of a polysyllabic word. It would only occur in the Englishes of places such as the USA or UK, where accepting and excepting are homophones for many speakers.

Sometimes avoidance of reduced vowels can enhance intelligibility.