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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 289 responses total. |
anderyn
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response 70 of 289:
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Oct 22 19:28 UTC 2002 |
Nope, I never got that Ginger was strictly a cat's name, either. (Mittens,
on the other hand, or Socks. THOSE are strictly cat names. Well, maybe dog
names, too.) It's not a common female name, but who am I to talk? I'm *Twila*,
and I named my daughter *Rhiannon*... So I am used to a certain amount of
non-mainstream in my female names. What really bugs me is the whole raft of
non-standardly spelled and/or formerly male names that are very common
nowadays for girls. Ginger would seem old-fashioned in contrast. And quite
refreshing.
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mynxcat
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response 71 of 289:
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Oct 22 19:30 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 72 of 289:
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Oct 22 21:49 UTC 2002 |
No, you misunderstood what I meant: As a literate people, we often *see*
words rather than *hear* them. So you say 'supna', we see/hear 'sapna',
and so we say 'sapna'. (It's really neat watching someone who is already
a fluent speaker learn to read. The phenomenon is not quite so obvious
in someone who's reading is at the same level as her spoken language.
It becomes obvious again when someone is reading well above her spoken
language skills.)
For example, I have to *work* at it to pronounce "draught" (/draft/)
correctly.
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jmsaul
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response 73 of 289:
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Oct 22 22:13 UTC 2002 |
That said, I think there *is* a word in English somewhere in which the "a"
is prounounced "uh". It's close in "fireman".
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gull
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response 74 of 289:
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Oct 22 22:16 UTC 2002 |
My last name, Brodbeck, is pronounced witha long o. I've given up on
trying to correct people on this because most people, no matter how many
times I tell them, insist on pronouncing it with a short 'o'. My advice
to mynxcat is to get used to it, because you'll never get people to
remember. It goes in one ear and out the other, because it's never a
priority for them unless you're a good friend.
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gelinas
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response 75 of 289:
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Oct 22 22:26 UTC 2002 |
Yes, and the correct pronunciation of the initial consonant cluster in
"zwei" is in the colloquial pronunciation of "It's violet". Doesn't mean
we English-speakers/readers will get it right. ;)
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mynxcat
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response 76 of 289:
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Oct 22 23:09 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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rcurl
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response 77 of 289:
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Oct 22 23:59 UTC 2002 |
Re #73: what about words like what and about?
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mynxcat
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response 78 of 289:
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Oct 23 00:03 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 79 of 289:
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Oct 23 00:23 UTC 2002 |
Thank you, Rane! I knew there were some really common ones, I was just
blanking on them. Those both qualify, and they're better than "fireman"
or "corpsman".
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mynxcat
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response 80 of 289:
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Oct 23 00:29 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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richard
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response 81 of 289:
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Oct 23 00:57 UTC 2002 |
movies! this is the movies item! hasn't anybody seen any movies
recently?
I saw PUNCH DRUNK over the weekend. I thought it was pretty good although
I'm not the world'sb iggest adam sandler fan.
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mynxcat
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response 82 of 289:
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Oct 23 01:03 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 83 of 289:
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Oct 23 01:15 UTC 2002 |
"what" is pronounced, roughly /wut/. "about" starts with a schwa, which
sound like /u/.
I just learned that Annette O'Toole played Lana Lang in _Superman III_, which
I don't reemember seeing, so I can't review it.
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mynxcat
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response 84 of 289:
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Oct 23 01:22 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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lelande
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response 85 of 289:
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Oct 23 01:39 UTC 2002 |
in phonetics there are two schwas, the /@/ we're used to seeing which is an
/uh/ in unstressed syllables; and the stressed schwa is called caret, /^/
(except bigger... an upside-down 'v'). i'm guessing Sapna's name is stressed
on the first syllable, making it caret.
there are, of course, no standard pronounciations. at best there are most
common pronounciations. i pronounce "what" /w^t/, most of the time, although
sometimes i front my tongue a little and say something between /w3t/ ("wet")
and /wIt/ ("wit").
the interesting thing to know about the two schwas is that they are produced
by non-extreme positioning of the tongue in the mouth at the time of
production. they're the vowels that just hang out in the middle of everything.
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jmsaul
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response 86 of 289:
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Oct 23 02:55 UTC 2002 |
Re #84: Not in American English, it isn't. It's pronounced "Whut".
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mynxcat
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response 87 of 289:
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Oct 23 03:04 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 88 of 289:
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Oct 23 03:25 UTC 2002 |
Probably not. My Webster's unabridged has "wha(umlaut)t" /hwot/. However,
if you can find some re-runs of "Welcome Back, Kotter", just wait for
Barbarino to be asked a question.
More easily, listen to the folks around you, carefully. You'll see that the
pronouncication of the word varies by its use in a sentence; the same speaker
will pronounce it several different ways, maybe even in the same sentence.
I think it largely depends upon where and how the stress falls.
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polytarp
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response 89 of 289:
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Oct 23 03:30 UTC 2002 |
Just listen to leland.\
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rcurl
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response 90 of 289:
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Oct 23 05:17 UTC 2002 |
Since what and about qualify...there's a million of them: a (the article),
adopt, adept, address, afraid, against, ahoy, etc
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mdw
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response 91 of 289:
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Oct 23 05:24 UTC 2002 |
France has the french language academy, which has legal force to decree
what words are part of the french language, and (presumably) how to
pronounce and spell them. Most other countries do not go to this length
to enforce language purity, but there are quite a few that do in fact
act on an official basis to define a standardized alphabet and spelling,
- which they revise on a regular basis. That's why spanish, russian,
etc., all have phonetic spelling.
English is of course the world's big exception. There is no English
language academy, and the last time anybody bothered to make spelling
phonetic was sometime back in the middle ages, at least one vowel shift
away from modern english. The people who originally figured out how to
spell fight, bite, feet, meat, etc., would probably be horrified to find
out how we pronouce English today.
Although there is no formal "langauge" academy for English, there is a
standard of sorts, which is usually set by the broadcasting industry.
The BBC, for instance, has strict standards on how its radio and TV
announcers are supposed to pronouce words, and those standards are
deliberately set to be as intelligible as possible to as many brits as
possible, so is a sort of artificial amalgam of all the different
dialects averaging all the differences between them, probably while also
trying to preserve those differences that mark different but easily
confused words. In America, we also have such a broadcast standard,
which is in fact based on the language spoke in Ohio - the "linguistic"
center of the USA. Since we (in Michigan) don't live far from Ohio,
people on American TV usually don't have a noticeable accent (to us).
Broadcast TV and radio tends to level accent - so people in GB and the
USA are losing regional differences and sounding more like "the
standard". If you attend a university with a good
broadcasting/communications/acting/journalism/public-speaking or similar
department, there's a good chance there is in fact some sort of program
or course to teach you how to speak "standard" english without an
accent.
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rcurl
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response 92 of 289:
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Oct 23 05:35 UTC 2002 |
The Dutch adopted (I believe) Rotterdam Dutch as their national standard.
As a result many Dutch speak two Dutch languages - the official dialect
and their local dialect. (I met an Israeli who came to the Netherlands
speaking no Dutch but in six months was speaking both Dutch and Brabants
fluently....but that's another subject.)
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russ
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response 93 of 289:
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Oct 23 09:41 UTC 2002 |
(This is terribly amusing to find this in the *movie* item. Is there
a "pointless bickering" item? Should there be?)
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jmsaul
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response 94 of 289:
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Oct 23 11:01 UTC 2002 |
Re #88: I've never heard an American speaker say "whot".
Re #93: Oh my god! Drift!
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