This was a good topic until it got derailed last time. So I'm going to start a new one in hopes that we can continue sensibly.
Please keep strictly to the topic this time!
How a word sounds and how one thinks it should be spelled seems to vary by dialect and accent. For example, if I were to say to you "caht", some folks would believe it is "cat", while here, by the Great Lakes, it's actually "cot".
Quote from: webny99 on October 31, 2017, 02:04:31 AM
Please keep strictly to the topic this time!
I do. It's just roadgeekteen who keeps derailing all these. I think he should have been banned by now. I was thinking of bumping the town name pronounciation thread to replace this, as I have some material: For example, the Austrian village is pronounced 'foo-king', not 'fuh-king', and Zaragoza (Spain) is stressed on all syllabes :sombrero:.
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on October 31, 2017, 10:41:47 AM
Quote from: webny99 on October 31, 2017, 02:04:31 AM
Please keep strictly to the topic this time!
I do. It's just roadgeekteen who keeps derailing all these. I think he should have been banned by now. I was thinking of bumping the town name pronounciation thread to replace this, as I have some material: For example, the Austrian village is pronounced 'foo-king', not 'fuh-king', and Zaragoza (Spain) is stressed on all syllabes :sombrero:.
Roadgeekteen is not the only one to derail threads. Any discussion about
forbidden place name was not started by Roadgeekteen, and the buffalo/bison discussion wasn't him, either.
I don't know how old I was when I finally realized Penelope had 4 syllables, not 3. (Pen - e - lope)
Since these kind of got lost in the fiasco that ended the last thread, I'll repost these here:
Comfortable. It is not pronounced comfter-ble. It's comfort-a-ble
Escape. You don't ex-scape from prison
Berlin in New England: It's BER-lin, not ber-LIN
New Haven. It's not NEWhaven. It's new HA-ven (even Jim Morrison got it right in Peace Frog)
Jewelry. It's not jewel-ah-ree. Only two syllables (my great aunt always corrected people till her dying day)
Meriden: It's not the same as the city in Mississippi or the 0 degree longitude prime line.
Cheshire: It's not Chee-shire. It's Chesh-err
Hampden: In MA, the "p" is silent. Sounds just like the town in CT
Avon: It's like the cosmetic company; not like the first four letters of "avenue". Speaking of that word, is it "aven-oo" or "aven-yoo"
Quarter: My mom always rhymes it with water. New England thing I guess
Saturday: My grandmother always made it sound like it was a day named after a soon to be defunct retailer (Sear-dee)
Agawam: I almost cringed when a news reporter not familiar with the area called it Ah-GAH-wam.
Schaghticoke: It's pronounced SCAT-i-coke.
Tortilla: For some reason, in Waterbury, CT, it's pronounced tor-TEE-la.
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on November 01, 2017, 01:33:47 AM
Comfortable. It is not pronounced comfter-ble. It's comfort-a-ble
I have to disagree with the bolded sentence.
From Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/comfortable (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/comfortable)
QuotePronunciation
(General American, Canada)
enPR: kŭmf'təbl, kŭmf'tərbl, kŭm'fətəbl, kŭm'fərtəbl
IPA: /ˈkʌmft.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmft.ɚb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.əɾ.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.ɚɾ.əb.əl/
(Received Pronunciation)
enPR: kŭmf'təbl, kŭm'fətəbl
IPA: /ˈkʌmft.əb.əl/, /ˈkʌmf.ət.əb.əl/
Basically, it lists the 3-syllable versions first, meaning they are either just as common or even more common than the 4-syllable version. So "comfort-a-ble" isn't wrong, but neither is "comf-ter-ble". I know in my area, the 3-syllable pronunciation is more common.
I've only heard foreigners say "comfort-a-bull".
My second-born son was arguing with us in the car yesterday afternoon about the word Wednesday. They were pronouncing days of the week backwards for fun in the car (life with boys), and he came up with Yad-new. I told him it would actually be Yad-sen-dew, and he got a little upset that I was putting in an extra syllable that didn't belong there. He said in a frustrated voice, "Wednesday: W-E-N-S-D-A-Y: Wednesday."
So apparently, Bergen, NY is pronounced.... Burgeon?
I can't believe I've never heard it in spoken conversation until this weekend, but it really blows me away that it's not Berg-en, like it sounds. Seriously, the possibility of an alternative pronunciation never even occurred to me, and likely never would have had it not come into spoken conversation by pure happen-chance yesterday.
Until not long ago, I thought the word "available" was spelt "avalaible" instead. IDK why I thought the correct spelling was wrong.
Who here pronounces "maintenance" with the first N silent?
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2020, 01:27:28 PM
Who here pronounces "maintenance" with the first N silent?
I guess I sort of do, but it's actually pretty hard to distinguish whether then N is silent or not.
Quote from: webny99 on September 06, 2020, 11:45:05 AM
So apparently, Bergen, NY is pronounced.... Burgeon?
I can't believe I've never heard it in spoken conversation until this weekend, but it really blows me away that it's not Berg-en, like it sounds. Seriously, the possibility of an alternative pronunciation never even occurred to me, and likely never would have had it not come into spoken conversation by pure happen-chance yesterday.
Presumably named after Bergen, Norway, which I believe is pronounced "bear-gen" like you're trying to make a stupid pun about getting a bear for a bargain.
I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.
The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy". My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.
Similarly, many people say they are going to the "Li-berry" instead of the "Li-brary". I actually remember a TV commercial from the early 70's that called that one out!
Quote from: lepidopteran on September 06, 2020, 04:25:49 PM
The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy". My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.
Similarly, many people say they are going to the "Li-berry" instead of the "Li-brary". I actually remember a TV commercial from the early 70's that called that one out!
The latter was in part popularized by the Fonz pronouncing it that way on an episode of
Happy Days in which he was talking about having gotten his li-berry card.
I used to always (and still sometimes do) misspell Kosciusko as Kosciosko. Never had an issue with Tishomingo, Yalobusha, Itawamba, Pelahatchie, Oktibbeha, and Tallahatchie. Thing is I live thirty minutes from Kosciusko County in Indiana.
"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 07, 2020, 08:03:11 AM
"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.
It's quite annoying, but hearing people say "koseeoosko" is very common, even in the Saratoga/Albany area, despite the fact that Kosciusko did some of his most notable work for the Saratoga battle.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2020, 01:59:44 PM
I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.
Wow, that's scary accurate. My vocabulary is more expansive than average because I do a lot of reading, and that exact thing happens to me quite frequently.
Quote from: webny99 on September 08, 2020, 08:49:59 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 06, 2020, 01:59:44 PM
I have this problem with too many words to try to think of them. I enjoy having a wide vocabulary to draw from, since that makes more likely I'll be able to say exactly what I want to say. So when I run across new words I always look them up and commit them to memory for later usage. Problem is, the vast majority of time I run into them in print (since I don't consume much video media, and most people I talk to don't share my love of unfamiliar words). So I have this word in mind, never heard it said aloud...and then I end up in a conversation where that word is the exact word I need. So I have to make a guess at it, and everyone goes "huh?" and I have to admit I have no idea if I'm pronouncing it right. I'll offer a spelling and sometimes someone else will know how to say it.
Wow, that's scary accurate. My vocabulary is more expansive than average because I do a lot of reading, and that exact thing happens to me quite frequently.
Heh, you're reminding me of a time when I was growing up, I think in junior high school, and one of the other guys in my English class used the word "epitome," which he pronounced with a long "o" and a silent "e" on the end (as in, think of the word "tome" in referring to a large book, and then add "epi-" to the start of it). The teacher corrected him. I was so glad he was the one to say it, and get corrected, because I would have sounded it out the same way at that age!
There's a few words I constantly misspell on keyboards but always know how to spell if I write or speak out the letters. For some reason, I'll almost constantly type I-before-O in words like "foil" or "point". Then there's things like "from" and "form"; there's a 50/50 chance of me typing the wrong one, even though that's a tough one to misuse.
I think it took me about 30 years to read aloud the word "reconnaissance", when it's spelled out; even though I'd heard the word since I was about 12. There's still a few words I'll trip over if asked to say or spell..."reservoir" stands out as another. I know there's at least twenty more which I don't use often enough to recall right now.
Then there's that weird handful of words that I've never heard anyone use, though they seem to appear often enough in print or text. I've never heard anyone say "tome", "brobdingnagian", or "hubby" for example.
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 07, 2020, 08:03:11 AM
"Kosciosko" reflects a common mispronunciation, not just a misspelling.
I heard it daily at work over the summer. Honestly its probably the correct way to say it in NE Indiana since I've never heard the proper pronunciation.
It's the opposite of Rio Grande, OH, where most out of towners say the traditional (and correct everywhere else) Ree-o Gron-day instead of Rye-Oh Grand. It confused me when I was little because we stopped there frequently for food, and it was around the time we were learning rivers in school. My brain was backwards the week after that trip.
Quote from: formulanone on September 08, 2020, 10:13:44 AM
There's a few words I constantly misspell on keyboards but always know how to spell if I write or speak out the letters. For some reason, I'll almost constantly type I-before-O in words like "foil" or "point".
Yes, I have a few of these too. "Shield" and "foreign" seem to get me every time no matter how often I've used them.
When I was growing up, there was a girl who lived a few blocks away named Penelope. I'd never seen her name spelled out. When I read it in a book, I thought it was pronounced Penny-lope. It took a while to find that the neighbor girl's name and the book character's name were the same thing.
Re: typing - I often write SQL queries with "GROUP BY" in them - about 50/50 my fingers will put the p before the u.
Quote from: GaryV on September 08, 2020, 12:11:49 PM
When I was growing up, there was a girl who lived a few blocks away named Penelope. I'd never seen her name spelled out. When I read it in a book, I thought it was pronounced Penny-lope. It took a while to find that the neighbor girl's name and the book character's name were the same thing.
Similar situation here, except the person I knew named Penelope was always called Penny, so I was embarrassingly old when I discovered it's not penny-lope (or pen-eh-lope, as I would have pronounced it).
The one that will forever stick out to me is "dissuade," which is the opposite of "persuade." I'd never heard the word before when I got it in a regional eighth grade spelling bee. I got it wrong when I was one of the last three or four in the contest and missed out on a chance to participate in the state contest. I don't remember how I spelled it, probably "dissuede" as in "blue suede shoes."
Quote from: lepidopteran on September 06, 2020, 04:25:49 PM
The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy". My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.
Unfortunately, Don McLean pronounced it Feb-yoo-ary when he recorded "American Pie". I always pronounce it correctly when I sing along!
Quote from: frankenroad on September 09, 2020, 12:11:10 PM
Quote from: lepidopteran on September 06, 2020, 04:25:49 PM
The month of February is often pronounced "Feb-yu-airy" as opposed to "Feb-bru-airy". My 2nd-Grade spelling teacher caught us on that one.
Unfortunately, Don McLean pronounced it Feb-yoo-ary when he recorded "American Pie". I always pronounce it correctly when I sing along!
For what it's worth, I have never heard anyone actually pronounce the R. Or if they have, it's been so subtle that I didn't notice.
Quote from: US 89 on September 09, 2020, 01:38:51 PM
For what it's worth, I have never heard anyone actually pronounce the R. Or if they have, it's been so subtle that I didn't notice.
Some of my elementary school teachers made a point of emphasizing the "roo" when the class read off the names of the months in unison, and I always pronounce the R.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2020, 01:27:28 PM
Who here pronounces "maintenance" with the first N silent?
I pronounce it as MAINT'NANCE. So it's the
e I don't pronounce, not the
n.
Quote from: kphoger on September 09, 2020, 03:27:39 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on September 06, 2020, 01:27:28 PM
Who here pronounces "maintenance" with the first N silent?
I pronounce it as MAINT'NANCE. So it's the e I don't pronounce, not the n.
Which goes back to the point I made above: "Maint'nance", as you described, is very difficult to tell apart from "mate'n'ance", especially based on sound alone.
Quote from: webny99 on September 06, 2020, 01:45:14 PM
I guess I sort of do, but it's actually pretty hard to distinguish whether then N is silent or not.
I cannot for the life of me pronounce "conscientiously," and can barely spell the damn thing. The two "sh" sounds trip me up.
Quote from: STLmapboy on September 09, 2020, 10:37:41 PM
I cannot for the life of me pronounce "conscientiously," and can barely spell the damn thing. The two "sh" sounds trip me up.
I suppose it's not correct, but I pronounce those both as "ch" sounds.
ETA: It's not incorrect, at least according to the OED: /ˌkɑn(t)ʃiˈɛn(t)ʃəs/.
^^^^
I have never been able to decipher those modern phonetic symbols, although in that example obviously I can tell what it is because the actual word is shown. When I was a little kid, our textbooks used a different system that looked closer to normal English, but I have no idea what it was called. (The spelling books were the series that referred to certain words with nonstandard spellings as "snurk words," if anyone else remembers those.)
I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie. That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.
Quote from: kphoger on September 10, 2020, 11:08:29 AM
I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie. That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.
I would win that bet, but then, I won the school spelling bee in sixth grade. I recall someone in high school insisting that word is spelled "comradery."
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 10, 2020, 11:32:17 AM
I would win that bet, but then, I won the school spelling bee in sixth grade. I recall someone in high school insisting that word is spelled "comradery."
I narrowly got second place in the school spelling bee around that time. The reason I didn't win is that the judges misunderstood how I spelled the word, then the other remaining competitor got her chance, she spelled it exactly the same way I did, and she won. I also participated in spelling bees as an adult while living in the Chicago area, representing the company I worked for at the time. (By the way, the folks from the Chicago Tribune could kick some serious butt at spelling.) But even I have to look up 'camaraderie' every time. At least, I did before this post. Now I think I can remember it, just from typing so many times today.
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 10, 2020, 07:47:01 AM
I have never been able to decipher those modern phonetic symbols, although in that example obviously I can tell what it is because the actual word is shown. When I was a little kid, our textbooks used a different system that looked closer to normal English, but I have no idea what it was called. (The spelling books were the series that referred to certain words with nonstandard spellings as "snurk words," if anyone else remembers those.)
Those "modern" phonetic symbols are the International Phonetic Alphabet. They were cooked up by linguists to create a single unified way of representing pronunciations in any language, which can be important because, say, the sound IPA represents as "t͡ʃ" is spelled "ch" in English and "x" in Basque.
It's less than ideal for English speakers, since the IPA characters sometimes correspond to familiar English pronunciations, sometimes don't, and sometimes use odd glyphs like ɚ that you just have to have had someone who knows pronounce for you at some point, or remember seeing in the IPA representation of a word you already know, to be able to interpret.
I think IPA was meant to mainly be a linguist's tool, but Wikipedia started using it for all of their pronunciations (which makes sense, as Wikipedia covers lots of topics from countries where English is not spoken), and so IPA proliferated.
I never really found the traditional English pronunciation guides to be too terribly useful either–I can never remember what ə means–and prefer the ad-hoc practice of spelling out words as syllables, like con-she-ent-chus-ly.
Quote from: kphoger on September 10, 2020, 11:08:29 AM
I used to know a guy who made bar bets that the other guys at the bar couldn't correctly spell the word camaraderie. That's a good bet, because it sounds like it should be decently easy to spell, then halfway through you realize you don't actually know.
Things like
camaraderie don't really get me, spellingwise. What does get me is things like:
abdom
en vs. abdom
inal
strat
egy vs. strat
agem
fo
ur vs. forty
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 10, 2020, 01:52:05 PM
....
I never really found the traditional English pronunciation guides to be too terribly useful either–I can never remember what ə means–and prefer the ad-hoc practice of spelling out words as syllables, like con-she-ent-chus-ly.
That symbol I remember–it's the schwa sound, denoting certain unstressed vowels pronounced similarly to the first and last letters in the word "America." Growing up, I had a friend who liked the way the word "schwa" sounded, so that's why I recall that one in particular.
Regarding spelling out syllables, this isn't quite the same thing, but I tend to use the NATO "alphabet" if I'm spelling a word over the phone. I don't have a military background (my father served but was discharged when I was 1 or 2 years old), but I made an effort to learn that. It's surprising how many people get confused if you use that instead of saying "a 'b' as in 'boy' " or "a 't' as in 'Tom.' " (I sometimes spell out the digits for numbers, too–when I set a timer on my Apple Watch, usually to tell myself when the laundry will be done, I say "five-zero" because indeed Siri will misconstrue "fifty" as "fifteen.")
Some words frustrate me to no end because I've written/typed them thousands of times and still get them wrong.
Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.
Exercise has been a word I have never been able to spell properly. I keep wanting to spell it "excersise" or something.
Quote from: webny99 on September 23, 2020, 09:46:33 PM
Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.
Probably because those are stupidly spelled to begin with. Instead of having to have an awkward rule like "I before E except after C!" we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense. (Why the hell is there a silent P in "receipt", anyway?)
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 02:04:13 PM
Quote from: webny99 on September 23, 2020, 09:46:33 PM
Receive(d) is the absolute worst and receipt is a close runner up.
Probably because those are stupidly spelled to begin with. Instead of having to have an awkward rule like "I before E except after C!" we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense. (Why the hell is there a silent P in "receipt", anyway?)
Middle English Creole Hypothesis.
Hysterical raisins, got it. Why are we too stubborn to get rid of it?
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:11:20 PM
Hysterical raisins, got it. Why are we too stubborn to get rid of it?
You're talking about a country that still thinks the metric system is radical.
True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:36:24 PM
True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.
Did I click on the "Minor things that bother you" topic by mistake?
Quote from: SEWIGuy on September 24, 2020, 04:42:21 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:36:24 PM
True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary. Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.
Did I click on the "Minor things that bother you" topic by mistake?
Is people talking about things that bother them in threads that aren't "Minor things that bother you" a minor thing that bothers you? :P
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 02:04:13 PM
we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense.
Don't "res
eeve" and "res
eet" also have two consecutive vowels?
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:36:24 PM
True, but Noah Webster was able to enact a spelling reform by just...not including Us in words in his dictionary.
Kind of yes, but kind of no. The removal of u's in words like
colour and
favour and so on was a process well underway in English (both American and British) when Webster made his dictionary. Not even the British, for example, use the spellings
governour and
inferiour any more.
As for why spelling reform hasn't been pushed more, there are several reasons.
1. Things will get harder before they get easier since the new spellings will not be intuitive for people who already know how to read.
2. The "hysterical raisins" as you call them are useful, if not necessarily infallible, for determining the meaning of a word.
3. Knowing how to spell serves as a marker of education and social class.
Now, none of this, of course, relates to the wisdom, or lack thereof, of spelling reform, but only to the relative permanence of the existing system.
German reformed in 1996. Modern spelling reforms still exist.
Quote from: 1 on September 24, 2020, 06:50:58 PM
German reformed in 1996. Modern spelling reforms still exist.
Of course. There was a similar reform in French. It is telling though that neither of these reforms was adopted without controversy. Moreover, some of the more extreme aspects of these changes were rolled back, and even then, adherence to the new spelling is still not universal. To this day, many people, schools, and publishers ignore the changes altogether.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:36:24 PM
Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.
...more likely to be some app called:
reCptPost all of yr xxxpnzes inta reCpt and we'll handl the aDminiRation and payout$ for U!
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on September 24, 2020, 06:45:55 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 02:04:13 PM
we should really be questioning why we're having two consecutive vowels to begin with. "Reseeve" and "reseet" would make more sense.
Don't "reseeve" and "reseet" also have two consecutive vowels?
Think it's safe to say he meant two
different consecutive vowels.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on September 24, 2020, 07:05:25 PM
Of course. There was a similar reform in French. It is telling though that neither of these reforms was adopted without controversy. Moreover, some of the more extreme aspects of these changes were rolled back, and even then, adherence to the new spelling is still not universal. To this day, many people, schools, and publishers ignore the changes altogether.
There was a minor reform of Spanish in 2010 which mainly affected acutes, but also proposed unifying the names of W and Y into those used in America (
Doble U, literally "double U", and
ye respectively). In Spain these are called
V doble (literally "double V", since it looks like that) and
I griega (literally "Greek I", since it resembles an upsilon), and the new names didn't catch well, so they reverted that.
Again, I think the idea that the United States would welcome and adhere to some overhaul of the English language is fooling themselves.
Case in point...the metric system.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on September 25, 2020, 08:47:27 AM
Again, I think the idea that the United States would welcome and adhere to some overhaul of the English language is fooling themselves.
Case in point...the metric system.
There have been some attempts at adjusting spelling before. I read an article once that talked about how Theodore Roosevelt was big on a "simplified spelling" movement that would have, for example, changed words that end in an "-ed" to end with a "-t" ("dropt" or "chopt" or "flopt," for instance) and that end in a "-cks" sound to end with "-x" ("rox," "sox," "blox"). I think there was more to it and I'm sure a Google search could find further information, but I don't recall the rest.
Quote from: formulanone on September 24, 2020, 07:15:36 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 24, 2020, 04:36:24 PM
Maybe capitalism is the answer here, and we just need some big corporation to start handing out reseets instead of receipts and we'll finally get it fixed.
...more likely to be some app called: reCpt
Post all of yr xxxpnzes inta reCpt and we'll handl the aDminiRation and payout$ for U!
I had a stroke trying to read that.
Quote from: CNGL-Leudimin on September 25, 2020, 04:13:11 AM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on September 24, 2020, 07:05:25 PM
Of course. There was a similar reform in French. It is telling though that neither of these reforms was adopted without controversy. Moreover, some of the more extreme aspects of these changes were rolled back, and even then, adherence to the new spelling is still not universal. To this day, many people, schools, and publishers ignore the changes altogether.
There was a minor reform of Spanish in 2010 which mainly affected acutes, but also proposed unifying the names of W and Y into those used in America (Doble U, literally "double U", and ye respectively). In Spain these are called V doble (literally "double V", since it looks like that) and I griega (literally "Greek I", since it resembles an upsilon), and the new names didn't catch well, so they reverted that.
French uses the same derivation to get the names for W and Y.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on September 25, 2020, 08:47:27 AM
Again, I think the idea that the United States would welcome and adhere to some overhaul of the English language is fooling themselves.
Case in point...the metric system.
Keep in mind also that the US is far from the only major country that speaks English - you've got the UK, Canada, Australia, and several other smaller countries. This is probably not a US problem - I can't see the UK taking part in a major spelling reform, either.
I don't think we will ever see a true English spelling reform (at least in our lifetimes). With other European languages like French or German or Spanish, there is a single governing body that decides how that language is spelled. English doesn't have that (and if even it did, there's no way there would be just one), so any spelling reform that does happen can't really come from above. It has to be of the "just see what catches on" type.
I could see a situation where California mandated a spelling reform and taught it to all of their students. Elsewhere, it'd be ridiculed, but when those students started taking over at all the tech firms and media companies, everyone would be exposed to it to the point that old American English just looked wrong.
Then again...serÃa más fácil si usáramos un idioma que no tuviera una ortografÃa idiota.
Quote from: Scott5114 on September 25, 2020, 05:47:15 PM
Then again...serÃa más fácil si usáramos un idioma que no tuviera una ortografÃa idiota.
Eh, Spanish has its limits too, what with the b's and v's that are pronounced the same and the h's that appear for no essential reason, in addition to the c's and g's that change pronunciation based on the letter after and u's that are pronounced or not depending on the letter before.
So, if we're going to go with a new language just based on the fidelity of its orthography to its pronunciation, we gotta think outside the box and go with Esperanto or maybe Lojban.
Spanish, however, has the advantage that you'll always know the pronunciation of a word from the spelling. And except for the lack of difference between B/V and the silent H, the opposite is also true. This thread exists because neither of those statements are true for English.
Denouement
https://youtu.be/ap9g2vR32Vg?t=114 (https://youtu.be/ap9g2vR32Vg?t=114)
Quote from: US 89 on September 25, 2020, 06:38:21 PM
Spanish, however, has the advantage that you'll always know the pronunciation of a word from the spelling.
Well, it's not quite always. There's little things here and there, like Texas and México, although you will also see Tejas and Méjico. Also, apparently, there are words with a pronounced h, such as hámster. You could call these loan words, and you would be right, but they still go against the general rules.
Quote from: US 89 on September 25, 2020, 06:38:21 PM
And except for the lack of difference between B/V and the silent H, the opposite is also true.
This isn't quite true either. You can't tell between je and ge, and other similar combinations, and depending on where you are, ll is indistinguishable from i or y, etc., etc.
Just for the record, I agree with your overall point, but just to reiterate my own: if we're going to change the language of the country — a huge undertaking to say the least — to avoid inconsistencies in spelling, we might as well pick a language that avoids any inconsistencies at all.
Regarding Texas and Mexico also being spelt Tejas and Méjico, the former reflect that in the past the J was written X instead (thus making that letter way more common that it is now). Anyway, my favorite place name is the Mexican state of Uajaca. Oops, it's spelt Oaxaca, but its pronounciation approximates what I've written.
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 25, 2020, 09:15:16 AM
There have been some attempts at adjusting spelling before. I read an article once that talked about how Theodore Roosevelt was big on a "simplified spelling" movement...
Is this why on some circa-1900s maps you'll find Pittsburgh spelled as "Pittsburg"?
Quote from: lepidopteran on September 27, 2020, 12:08:34 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on September 25, 2020, 09:15:16 AM
There have been some attempts at adjusting spelling before. I read an article once that talked about how Theodore Roosevelt was big on a "simplified spelling" movement...
Is this why on some circa-1900s maps you'll find Pittsburgh spelled as "Pittsburg"?
Maybe. The spelling without the h appears to have been a principle adopted by the Board on Geographic Names in about 1890 as part of its mandate to create a unified system of names throughout the country. The list of principles (https://books.google.com/books?id=JE-AAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA8#v=onepage&q&f=false) is as follows:
(https://i.imgur.com/XP3AJyT.png)
So it should be "Newyork", "Losangeles" and "Sanfrancisco"? And just "Oklahoma" and "Kansas" (no "City")?
Quote from: GaryV on September 27, 2020, 07:03:06 AM
So it should be "Newyork", "Losangeles" and "Sanfrancisco"? And just "Oklahoma" and "Kansas" (no "City")?
Clearly, the board got drunk with power and needed to be overthrown. :-D
This is slightly different than the thread's original premise, but when I was younger I used to think the phrase "might as well" was "minus-while". I had a good laugh at myself when I figured out what people had really been saying all along, but in most contexts, "minus-while" actually makes a lot of sense! :biggrin:
Quote from: webny99 on September 08, 2020, 12:09:16 PM
Quote from: formulanone on September 08, 2020, 10:13:44 AM
There's a few words I constantly misspell on keyboards but always know how to spell if I write or speak out the letters. For some reason, I'll almost constantly type I-before-O in words like "foil" or "point".
Yes, I have a few of these too. "Shield" and "foreign" seem to get me every time no matter how often I've used them.
I just looked this again; I usually type the "I" key with my middle finger and the "O" winds up getting tapped with my ring finger.
The difference between the lengths of those two fingers interferes with those typing reaction times, which is the excuse I'm going with.
Quote from: webny99 on November 11, 2021, 08:40:13 AM
This is slightly different than the thread's original premise, but when I was younger I used to think the phrase "might as well" was "minus-while". I had a good laugh at myself when I figured out what people had really been saying all along, but in most contexts, "minus-while" actually makes a lot of sense! :biggrin:
As a kid, I thought it was "my as well", which doesn't make sense either :).
I didn't learn how to pronounce "albeit" until high school. I only saw it written down, and I thought it'd be pronounced
all-BITE.
Quote from: webny99 on November 11, 2021, 08:40:13 AM
This is slightly different than the thread's original premise, but when I was younger I used to think the phrase "might as well" was "minus-while". I had a good laugh at myself when I figured out what people had really been saying all along, but in most contexts, "minus-while" actually makes a lot of sense! :biggrin:
There are certain people who think "should have" and its contraction "should've" are supposed to be spelled "should of" (which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever if you think about it for even a few seconds).
maintenance (for a while i kept spelling it maintainence)
louisville, co != louisville, ky
saguache = 'sa-watch' (i think)
gloucester != 'glou-cester' but 'glaw-ster'
worcester != 'wor-cester' but 'wooster'
Quote from: jp the roadgeek on November 01, 2017, 01:33:47 AM
Jewelry. It's not jewel-ah-ree. Only two syllables (my great aunt always corrected people till her dying day)
Correct, but the British and presumably others use "jewellery," the stuff that jewelers produce, instead of "jewelry," jewels and their accouterments. The mispronunciation is likely a relic of that.
Plus, jew-el-ry has three syllables.