Pullum nods
I am a fan of Language Log’s Geoffrey K. Pullum, especially when he uses linguistics to demolish grammatical superstitions (for example, Monday’s excellent analysis of which and that).
Today’s article discusses restrictions on word-initial consonant sequences in English. A fine article, but much more interesting if you know that it had an earlier form which used Edith Piaf’s “Je ne regrette rien” as an extreme example of elision of vowels in rapid speech:
Listening to Piaf's delivery reminded me that in the first line, after the word “Non”, she sings the title in as few as three syllables. I think rien counts as monosyllabic, though it could be bisyllabic (the melody line rather suggests that); but what is quite clear to me is that the part before rien is at most just two syllables, and possibly just one. The vowels of je and ne are completely gone (they are heard loud and strong as separate syllables when repeated to a different melodic phrase in the next line). And the third vowel is hardly clear. In other words, she sings je ne regrette as something very much like [ʒnʁgʁɛt], although the first two consonants are certainly soft and indistinct.
You can check this interpretation against the chanteuse herself.
Perhaps, as Pullum says later in the first version of his article, we could use this as a “teachable moment”? (About the risks of being led astray in interpretations of a language if one is not a native speaker.) Or maybe he would prefer the response at the end of the second version: “when I want your stupid observations I'll ask for them.”