Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
PRONUNCIATION OF NOUNS ENDING IN -AGE
These originally French words reflect in their pronunciation some indications of their relative frequency of use and their relative length of time in English: those with a final consonant j sound in an unstressed final syllable (courage, carriage, cleavage, steerage, sewage, windage) have been relatively long in this language and have relatively high frequency of use; those with a final consonant zh sound in a final syllable still stressed in the heavier French manner (barrage, mirage, badinage) have been in English relatively briefly and have not had very heavy use; and words such as garage exhibit both patterns of pronunciation (guh-RAHJ and guh-RAHZH), plus the British variant pronunciation GER-ij (rhymes with carriage), all three of which suggest the word’s relatively short time in English but its relatively high frequency of use.
