Kawasaki Concours Forum
Mish mash => Open Forum => Topic started by: VirginiaJim on September 07, 2020, 10:37:17 AM
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Uranus - when I was in school we pronounced it your anus.
Neanderthals - knee ander thals. Now it's knee ander talls.
Positivity - never even heard of that one until recently. Thought it wasn't a word at all and just a bunch of idiots came out with that one...guess I was wrong. It is a word.
Any more you guys can come up with?
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It is still 'your anus' at my house, otherwise the joke does not make sense. 'How is toilet paper like the starship Enterprise? Both of them circle Uranus looking for Klingons.
The 'h' in many German words is not pronounced in German but often is when Anglicized and spoken by native English speakers. So Neanderthal was always pronounced 'Neandertal' in its native language but not so much here in the US. Also, sometimes the 'h' is not even present in the word 'tal' which in German means 'valley'. When used in a proper name, such as 'Nathalie', the 'h' is always silent.
In the olden' days a teaching book was called a 'prime- er'. Sophisticates today often call it a 'prim- er' but that does not make any sense to me. Also, no clue how that stuff that goes under paint is pronounced these days.... except at my house where it is still 'prime- er'.
Some people are calling 'kai- 'O'- tees' (coyotes) 'Kai- oats' these days but again, that cannot be correct as it does not rhyme with Wile- e and would thusly ruin many, many amusing cartoons.
Brian (pronounced 'Bri- Ann', emphasis on the first symbol)
P.S. this is a great thread for filling in time while smoking meat..... where 'meat' is pronounced like 'meet'.
Uranus - when I was in school we pronounced it your anus.
Neanderthals - knee ander thals. Now it's knee ander talls.
Positivity - never even heard of that one until recently. Thought it wasn't a word at all and just a bunch of idiots came out with that one...guess I was wrong. It is a word.
Any more you guys can come up with?
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I don't mind different pronunciations of various words, as long as it is still the correct word (and used with the correct tense and pluralism). "You say potato" and such. What irritates me is the complete improper use of grammar by people who should know better. I read a posting this morning which prominently featured the word "irregardless." English really is a crazy language, though.
https://www.thetoptens.com/annoying-grammar-mistakes/ (https://www.thetoptens.com/annoying-grammar-mistakes/)
Oh, I do love this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc)
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Just to throw another pronunciation iron in the fire, regional mispronunciations that make one word sound like another seem to bother me.
Originally from Chicago, I was under the the incorrect impression that I spoke "normally" or without an accent. Moving to Texas I quickly found out that I "talked funny". I can't detect it when I speak, but if I hear a recording of myself speaking it is very noticeable. I often cringe when hearing a recording of myself. Chicagoans as a rule have a distinct whine in their long i sounds. I occasionally still visit there, and when in a grocery store I'll hear some price hawking over the p.a. system "....Ten pound bag only nine ninety nine" sounds more like "Teyn pound baahyyg only niyne niynty niyne". When I first moved to Texas I found out that the thing on top of the house called a "roof" was not supposed to be called a "ruf", almost everyone from Chicago says ruf for roof. Bunch of dogs we are. I say all this to be clear that I understand that my speaking and writing could use improvement. That's my disclaimer and I'm sticking to it (at least until I'm corrected ??? ).
However when regional accents make one word sound like another then something must be said. It's not just an accent, it's mispronounced words. In Texas many say "ink pen" instead of just "pen". The reason (I think) is because they typically pronounce "pen" like "pin". So instead of pronouncing "pen" correctly, the word ink is installed in front so that "ink pin" is distinguishable from "pin". There was a Senator from Texas that constantly said "won't" when he meant "want". i.e.: "Amircans [sic] won't a safe country to live in, and they won't it now." Listening to him being interviewed on TV, it was difficult to believe he was a University Professor before he entered politics. Having watched some NASCAR over the weekend, I think it's safe to say that those from the southeast part of the country think that "on" is pronounced the same as "own". i.e.: "Win [sic] he gets back own the track, you're gonna see what those new tars [sic] can do for his lap times." For some reason it only bothers me when the mispronunciation sounds like a legitimate but different word. When it sounds like a made up word or a common mispronunciation, it doesn't bother me at all. i.e.: George Bush Jr. saying "nucular" instead of "nuclear" . I was no fan of his, but several other presidents have mispronounced that word as well.
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Regional uses of language could take a lifetime and more to study. Funny thing but 'from a distance', they kinda' all sound the same but when a person gets the opportunity to hear two people from different parts of the same region it becomes blindingly clear that accents are actually very local. I am from southern New England and have the normal (for this area) fast, clipped speech without any 'R's 'cause ya' just don't need them and never did. Lots of southerners use our 'R's as extras so it evens out. But while I am usually tagged as being from 'Boston', Bostonian's sound funny to me. Having Chuck introduce himself is amusing 'cause there are an additional 30 or 40 'u's in the middle and it takes a while to say :-)
Sometimes ya' just need context: for example, bobbah could be the guy who cuts your hair or the thing on your fishing line that lets you know when a fish bites.... So for example "Hey, my bobbah is moving" almost certainly means the fishing kind 'cause almost all of our hair cutting bobbahs usually move.
I have really come to appreciate the particular speech patterns of southern Louisiana and some (maybe all?) areas of Tenn. as well. Very gentle, smooth and rhythmic speech
'Ruff', the thing over the house is a dead give-away for a north- central speaker, seemingly centered on Wisconsin or nearby.
I really think that at the end of the day, virtually no region of the US has 'neutral' English speakers and people who work in broadcasting and similar are schooled, sometimes for years, to beat their bad English into something we believe is neutral.
There is a member of COG, and I will not mention Terry's name, who has the most authentic Brooklyn accent you have ever heard. Fantastic to hear him tell a joke.... sometimes, even when he is not joking. He used to work but is now "Reee- toiiiiiiii- ed".
One that got me is what we call soda- some areas call it pop, and some call it soda- pop. But I just found out that there is a swath of the southern US where they call all soda 'Coke' and then ask what kind of 'Coke' you want, such as root beer. Really odd to my ears, 'I'll have a root beer Coke' just does not compute.
And of course the classic: Aunt vs. Aunt. Growing up, a family friend would always ask, whenever someone mentioned an 'Ant', which one, black or red?
Brian
Just to throw another pronunciation iron in the fire, regional mispronunciations that make one word sound like another seem to bother me.
<snip>
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How about insurance? Northern vs southern pronunciations.
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How about insurance? Northern vs southern pronunciations.
in-SUR-ance is the only way I have heard it pronounced here in my circles. But I suspect you are referring to the syllable emphasis of "IN-sure-ance", right? Similar to "po-LICE" vs. "PO-lice"? If so, that seems to be more of a Black thing than regional. An example of a non-syllabic transformation, which is far more mysterious, being "ask" becoming "axe."
Another interesting pronunciation that seems to be less regional is the double t drop. "kitten" becomes "ki-en." Reminds me of particular British accents. Yet another very wide-spread American thing is the t to d (or "lazy d"), best heard in "water" becoming "wahder." I can't help using that, myself. When I force myself to say it properly in conversation, I suddenly sound a little British.
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I suppose it is not your fault that you all speak strangely, but you really should be trying much harder to speak the Queens English correctly. :rotflmao:
For me they are pronounced Yew-rain-us, Re-tie-erred, In-sure-an-sss, Po-lee-sss, War-ter, Bri-nn (silent a), and Knee-ander-taal (it's a valley east of Düsseldorf, Germany) Ant vs Aunt is a north vs south England thing, In the north they say Gl-ass where as the south say Glaa-sss, ba-th vs baa-th, short a vs long aa, Ant vs Aaant. ::)
Much of the US accent comes from Dutch, German and Scandinavian dialects. If you'd ever heard someone from Haarlem in the Netherlands speaking English, it's so very close to "middle" American it's uncanny. There are however lots of other influences from the various regional dialects of UK English to Chinese to various African languages, Spanish, French, Slavic languages and every other language on the planet. ;D
In my experience the American accents are much more homogeneous than here. Yes there are variations, and some are pretty extreme, but they happen over MUCH greater distances. The same applies to the pronunciation of words across dialects.
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snip...
Uranus - when I was in school we pronounced it your anus.
It is still 'your anus' at my house, otherwise the joke does not make sense. 'How is toilet paper like the starship Enterprise? Both of them circle Uranus looking for Klingons.
And how else are we going to get a laugh out of this?
https://www.uranusmissouri.com/ (https://www.uranusmissouri.com/)
Yep, your anus Missouri!
https://www.uranusmissouri.com/attractions/escape-uranus/ (https://www.uranusmissouri.com/attractions/escape-uranus/)
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Agreed- you (English people) seem to have much more severe as well as much shorter distances between your various accents. That said, to my American ear there is usually only 'regular Limey' and 'odd Limey'. :-) There have been a very few English people speak just 'unusually' enough to catch my attention, one is the actress Jodie Whittaker who draws out or flattens certain sounds in a very distinctive way.
I had two English professors who seemed like they spoke 'regular English English' but if I happen to have them back- to- back, I could easily tell two different accents. The one who had the more unusual accent also used unusual (to me) terms, such as "2 upon pi" and so forth. Not wrong or even hard to follow, just terms that no American or even 'Regular English' people used.
One of the things that has impressed me greatly regarding some folks from the British Isles has been that some can produce an uncanny neutral American accent. Damien Lewis (English) and Laura Fraser (Scottish) are both impossible to identify as anything other than having a perfect American accent. There are actually quite a few of those folks. Now I understand they have dialect coaches and so forth but still, admirable and impressive diction.
What makes the English (American) - English (England) conversion tough is more of the social differences than the actual language. Things such as 'spit the dummy' just make no sense until explained to an American because the word 'dummy' means something entirely different. Some very common words are very different- I think the English use of the word 'mean' trips up most Americans because we simply do not use that word to mean 'cheap'.
The only native English speaker I found I simply could not converse with was an older woman from Scotland. No matter how slowly she spoke, I could not follow enough of her words to make sense of what she was saying- this was a long time ago, and she seemed to understand me fine.
Back to the point of this thread: I had a great- uncle who used terms that are no longer used but seem to be common in England. Terms like 'hire a car' meaning to rent a car, are just not used and probably not understood by Americans today. He was ancient when I was born and definitely used the language differently due to the age he grew up in, which makes me think that at least in some ways American English and British English have moved further apart a lot more recently than the late 1700's. On the other side of the coin, some decidedly English words are making their way into American English due to the 'Net: 'whilst' is not even a word in American English though it is more and more commonly used by Americans.
Finally, there are distinct ways our two cultures use the language- no American would ever say 'Take him to hospital' or 'When I was at university'; we would always use 'the' or 'a' hospital and university.
Brian (when my English grandmother found out my name, she asked my mother if that name was "Irish" enough for her.... she was not pleased :-) )
<snip>
In my experience the American accents are much more homogeneous than here. Yes there are variations, and some are pretty extreme, but they happen over MUCH greater distances. The same applies to the pronunciation of words across dialects.
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I suppose it is not your fault that you all speak strangely, but you really should be trying much harder to speak the Queens English correctly. :rotflmao:
Nah, we ain't got no Queen, so we is gonna speak 'merican, not British!! ;)
The funniest thing I ever read was that the modern, upper-class British accent was pretty much contrived and that the accent used to sound more like mid-west American. I wish I could scrounge up that article now...
The other funny thing is that Americans sound American when singing or talking. Yet most British singers also sound American when singing (actual singing, not talk-singing or rapping or such).
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The only native English speaker I found I simply could not converse with was an older woman from Scotland. No matter how slowly she spoke, I could not follow enough of her words to make sense of what she was saying- this was a long time ago, and she seemed to understand me fine.
I have to admit there was some movie or Netflix thing I was watching a few years ago, I can't recall what it was, that contained all Irish actors and try as I might, I simply could not understand it. I actually had to turn on sub-titles. It was, as you pointed out, partially about the idioms chosen that were completely unfamiliar to me, but it also just very difficult to follow. The subtitles didn't help much with the idioms- for that, I would have needed a full "translation." But, otherwise, I could catch enough with the subtitles to mostly follow the story. It was painful, however.
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I have to admit there was some movie or Netflix thing I was watching a few years ago, I can't recall what it was, that contained all Irish actors and try as I might, I simply could not understand it. I actually had to turn on sub-titles. It was, as you pointed out, partially about the idioms chosen that were completely unfamiliar to me, but it also just very difficult to follow. The subtitles didn't help much with the idioms- for that, I would have needed a full "translation." But, otherwise, I could catch enough with the subtitles to mostly follow the story. It was painful, however.
'Snatch'
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'Snatch'
No, not that. It was something about the IRA. My memory is always fuzzy, but it was also a mediocre film, so I remember it even less.
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ON topic, sorta'.
I worked for a German company and found that native German speakers universally pronounced the word 'iron' as 'I- ron' rather than 'I- urn' as it is, probably incorrectly, pronounced. Sure is spelled that way. Makes me wonder if we native English speakers ever pronounced it 'I- ron'?
There was a German national visiting the US arm of the co. and he was watching one of the engineers quite carefully for a few days, on and off. Then one day the German walked up to the engineer and said in extremely slow and precise English: "Do you speak English?". Which was kinda' funny 'cause that engineer was originally from Texas so...... no, he did not speak English so much.
:yikes: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:
As the story goes, when Quentin Tarantino was casting Inglourious Basterds, he wanted to cast Diane Kruger but wanted to have a native German speaker talk with her to make sure she could really speak fluent German. That is kinda' funny 'cause Diane Kruger was born and raised in Germany- her American English is virtually perfect. When in Germany, during a casual conversation a German ask me if I knew of the German actor Rutger Hauer. I responded yes, of course, but he is not German, he is Dutch. Some Germans did not believe it because he spoke German with no Dutch (or any other) accent. I said that he also spoke English, colloquial English, with no accent either, making him fluent and accent-less in at least three languages. He had a very slight accent in English when he was young but by middle age had worked his way through it.
Brian
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Aluminum and aluminium
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What irritates me is the complete improper use of grammar by people who should know better.
And just now marks the THIRD time in four days I have heard a smart person misuse the word "there's" in a video. This time, a PhD that I greatly admire said "What I do is I say what I think; and there's consequences to that." <shutter> There ARE consequences to that, it makes me cringe!
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The funniest thing I ever read was that the modern, upper-class British accent was pretty much contrived and that the accent used to sound more like mid-west American. I wish I could scrounge up that article now...
The other funny thing is that Americans sound American when singing or talking. Yet most British singers also sound American when singing (actual singing, not talk-singing or rapping or such).
The article you may be referring to is
http://www.britishaccent.co.uk/news/2013/06/how-did-the-british-accent-evolve/ (http://www.britishaccent.co.uk/news/2013/06/how-did-the-british-accent-evolve/)
although that article seems to completely ignore the fact that the Celts & Gauls were already living in England way before the Jutes, Angles & Saxons came here and completely ignores the effects that the Norman invasion had with it's imposition of the French language for up to 300 years and the Viking invasions that considerably changed the northern accents in the UK. Yes, it's very likely that the UK and USA had similar accents in the 1700s but both have shifted substantially since then.
"Posh English" is what is spoken by the Queen, Boris Johnson, Hugh Grant, etc. so that is probably what you refer to as "upper-class". It is one of 2 accents in the UK that are not regional.
The other non-regional, that I refer to as middle English, is officially known as RP or Received Pronunciation (sometimes also referred to as BBC English) and is pronounced according to the phonetics shown in British English Dictionaries. I mostly speak RP with hints of Essex and many other accents mixed in, including accents from other languages. This is due to moving every few years from birth up to age 25 when I moved to Essex.
Very few people in the UK speak RP. Most have regional accents based on where they were born and/or where they now live.
I also speak fluent French with a middle French accent with hints of Brussels and Provence, German with a "nowhere" accent, Dutch (mostly ABN with a hint of Vlaams), and Swedish with a Halland (south-west Sweden) accent.
When Brits sing we often sound American due to being influenced by US music, especially Blues & Rock'n Roll.
But there are also many that don't such as Hawkwind, Peter Gabriel (with Genesis & solo), Fish (with Marillion & solo), Kate Bush, Blur, Sex Pistols, The Clash, etc.
Many of those who sing with British accents never make it in the US, as y'all prefer singers that sound like y'all. ;D
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Aluminum and aluminium
Yes ;D
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/aluminum-vs-aluminium (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/aluminum-vs-aluminium)
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Aluminum and aluminium
The name of the element is alumium. I believe that the usage of aluminum came from ALCOA, the Aluminum Company of America). The brand name overcame the element's correct name, like Frigidare (refrigerator), Xerox (photocopier) and Kleenex (tissue).
One of my university profs insisted that if we used aluminum, we should also use germanum, strontum, etc.
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Did a search on Alumium and it said it was obsolete and on the Periodic table it shows as Aluminum, not Alumium. Yeah, back when I was a whipper snapper it was Alumium (early 1800s when it was discovered). Another morphed word/pronunciation. The pronunciation and spelling morphed shortly after the element was discovered. Not a new thing at all.
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Funny but we all seem to remember it differently. My version ;D goes like this: It started out as aluminum in England but someone (not the elements' discoverer) wanted it to be named in a way that paralleled other elements names and threw in that extra syllable. The US was already split off from Britain by that time and simply went along with the original, aluminum.
It is named for the oxide that is the source of the metal, alumina, as preferred by the German who sorta' discovered it (actually isolated the elemental metal aluminum).
Either way, I always thought the stuff was the same but the price must go up when it is called aluminium. Besides, lots of people I know call it 'alumimum', in the same way they call asphalt 'ashphalt'.
The name of the element is alumium. I believe that the usage of aluminum came from ALCOA, the Aluminum Company of America). The brand name overcame the element's correct name, like Frigidare (refrigerator), Xerox (photocopier) and Kleenex (tissue).
One of my university profs insisted that if we used aluminum, we should also use germanum, strontum, etc.
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Dare we even consider catsup vs ketchup?
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Johnny Carson frequently comes up as an American with no accent (by USA standards) and has been used as an example of region-less American English. He was from
Nebraska but I suspect he had some accent at some point and worked on it. This map supposedly shows where general American English is used.
(http://dialectblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/General_American-300x255.png)
http://dialectblog.com/2011/08/01/general-american-english/ (http://dialectblog.com/2011/08/01/general-american-english/)
This English vs English discussion made me think of the practical joke played on Johnny Carson in England where he was invited to a cocktail party and all the Brits at the party
were actors speaking gibberish. Johnny stood there nodding and smiling pretending to understand what they were saying.
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I have often heard of different areas of certain countries as having 'no accent', such as Hanover, Germany, and several places in the northern - mid-west US. But after actually speaking with people from these 'no accent' places in the US, I have found they do have a regional accent as well as some local quirks (the 'ruff' thing and similar). So as I said, I suspect that most people in the public eye, such as newscasters and many entertainers, have perfected a perfectly neutral speech pattern that really does not exist outside a dialog coach's place of business :-)
Charlize Theron once said that she adopted the speech pattern she now uses (perfect, neutral American) because it was just too difficult to go back and forth with her speech pattern. Many Americans would probably be astounded to know that she is actually South African and used to speak with a very distinct regional accent. Also, her first language is not English but Afrikaans, an evolution of Dutch, which is of course is itself and off- shoot of German, as is English. Which I speak fluently and without any accent...... yeah, that's the ticket.
For whatever it is worth: I think regional accents and idioms are both interesting and of some value. I enjoy listening to people with regional accents and find some of these accents quite nice- the rhythmic speech of many areas of the south, for example. I have listened to Shelby Foote speak (with his Mississippi delta accent) speak for hours and thoroughly enjoyed it, both the accent and his stories. I also greatly enjoy listening to Jerry Miculek with his Cajun (southern Louisiana- it is unique even to most Americans) accent and general speech pattern. I actually like the accents used in both the movie and TV series Fargo, which is apparently a typical speech pattern of Nordic (specifically Scandinavian) peoples who have settled in the north- central- west area of the US. I think we should embrace our regional characteristics rather than try to diminish them- they bring interesting aspects to a 'melting pot' society; after all, where else could Olive Garden (that genuine / fake Italian style eatery) thrive but in a place where lots of Americans think they are eating genuine ethnic foods? I particularly like their fake fettuccine, which I find excellent and have learned to duplicate at home (real Fettuccine has no cream in it but that makes a slimy, thin mess IMO).
Brian ( I don't caaah about fittin' in with anyone's expectations about how I should speak)
Dare we even consider catsup vs ketchup?
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Johnny Carson frequently comes up as an American with no accent (by USA standards) and has been used as an example of region-less American English. He was from
Nebraska but I suspect he had some accent at some point and worked on it. This map supposedly shows where general American English is used.
(http://dialectblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/General_American-300x255.png)
http://dialectblog.com/2011/08/01/general-american-english/ (http://dialectblog.com/2011/08/01/general-american-english/)
This English vs English discussion made me think of the practical joke played on Johnny Carson in England where he was invited to a cocktail party and all the Brits at the party
were actors speaking gibberish. Johnny stood there nodding and smiling pretending to understand what they were saying.
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And just now marks the THIRD time in four days I have heard a smart person misuse the word "there's" in a video. This time, a PhD that I greatly admire said "What I do is I say what I think; and thar's consequences to that." <shutter> There ARE consequences to that, it makes me cringe!
fify
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Did a search on Alumium and it said it was obsolete and on the Periodic table it shows as Aluminum, not Alumium. . . .
Intriguing. Wikipedia's article on the periodic table
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#Metals,_metalloids_and_nonmetals
includes aluminium but not aluminum.
(It's raining and cool here in Ottawa, hence the interest in the arcane)
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Intriguing. Wikipedia's article on the periodic table
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#Metals,_metalloids_and_nonmetals
includes aluminium but not aluminum.
But the article on aluminum, itself, goes into good detail about the two spellings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum
The summary being:
British chemist Humphry Davy[...] is credited as the person who named the element.
A January 1811 summary of one of Davy's lectures at the Royal Society proposed the name aluminium —this is the earliest known published writing to use either of the modern spellings. However, the following year, Davy published a chemistry textbook in which he settled on the spelling aluminum. Both spellings have coexisted since; however, their usage has split by region: aluminum is in use in the United States and Canada while aluminium is in use elsewhere.
But there is much more info there, too.
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Personally I prefer Aluminium over the US pronunciation but I'm somewhat biased..
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Gillian Anderson is another one. She lived in London from 2-11 years old and can now switch between RP English and a Mid-Western US accent.
I always love watching Americans faces when they see her in UK interviews such as this appearance on Top Gear.
You are so used to her as Dana Scully in The X-Files. :rotflmao:
https://vimeo.com/170476341 (https://vimeo.com/170476341)
Like Brian, I also love most regional accents and dialects and languages.
They are all worth hearing and understanding and make us all unique in our ways of communicating with others.
There are a few that I don't like though, especially the Birmingham(UK) ""Brummie" accent and Valleyspeak and some accents/dialects can make some people extremely hard to understand. I have a particular problem with some Indian accents when they speak English. For some reason I just can't process the sounds into words which means I'm only getting half of what they are saying. :-[
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Jeez (Geeze...Cheez......Luweez) don't get me started. I have almost given up trying to watch the local news on TV. In Washington State we have a lot of places and things that were originally named by the Native Americans before the Europeans stole everything from them and bastardized it all. It seems that lately we have a lot of recently transplanted people who come from other regions and don't take the time to learn local pronunciations.
We have a city, Yakima, that used to be called Yak-i-maw. Now the new(s) people have taken to calling it Yak-im-u.
Our state capitol is in O-lym-pee-a, now called U-lim-pee-uh.
It seems that for every word that starts with a vowel, the first sound has morphed into a generic "Uhh" sound. Uh-mergency, uh-rested, etc.
And I am sick to death of hearing people use the word "impact" when they really mean "effect".
Up here we designate our highways as "I-5" or "405". Transplanted folks (especially Kaliphorneeyans) give themselves away by saying "THE I-5" and "THE 405".
Our native bivalve is the geoduck, real name pronounced Gwee-duk", but Anglicized as "Gooey-duck".
And everyone under the age of thirty composes their sentences of endless streams of "Umm...like....ya know....." with little use of words that actually convey information.
Another major peeve I have is with people who say things like "me and my girlfriend seen this car wreck" instead of "my girlfriend and I saw a car wreck", because they weren't taught how to properly compose a compound sentence.
It has been a few years since I attended what used to be called "grammar school" (I'm 65 years old), but it sure seems as if they no longer teach actual English grammar and pronunciation.
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And one more thing, speaking of the proper names for elements, here's one you may not have heard of:
New Element Discovered
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet
known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron,
25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy
neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which
are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be
detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into
contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would
normally take less than a second, to take from four days to four years
to complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years; it does not decay,
but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the
assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact,
Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each
reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming
isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe
that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical
concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an
element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has
half as many peons but twice as many morons.
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And everyone under the age of thirty composes their sentences of endless streams of "Umm...like...."
Not just under 30. One of my employees, a 45-year-old male, is also inflicted. To me, nothing is more distracting and irritating than hearing endless, mindless, misuse of the word "like." I am to the point now that I wish the word were banned from the English language completely. Even a greatly respected postcaster I listen to, who is quite intelligent and thoughtful, can't formulate more than a few sentences without the word "like."
I was, like,
It was, like,
I am, like,
Do you, like, go
What, like, do you think
Like, when are they
If the person he is interviewing is also a "liker", then use doesn't just double, it triples because they seem to feed off of each other.
https://www.sankinspeechimprovement.com/the-like-epidemic-using-word-like-excessively/ (https://www.sankinspeechimprovement.com/the-like-epidemic-using-word-like-excessively/)
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For some reason, this one sticks in my ear- hole whenever I hear it; I have never heard anyone refer to an interstate highway with a preceding 'the', at least not in person. I have heard it while watching TV and occasionally in movies perhaps. It is a regional thing that I associate mostly with the western and south- western US states. And it is the single oddest sounding phrase I think I have ever heard in colloquial English..... ever.
Nothing wrong with it and of course it is merely a regional quirk of the spoken language (I assume it is NOT written that way). Lots of us modify (read: butcher) spoken English in some ways, especially with those sounds such as 'like' and 'ya' know' that are designed to fill the air pockets in the brain. But that specific manner of speaking just surprises me every single time I hear it. Not a pet peeve, more like a pet amazement..... ya' know? ;D
Brian
<snip>
Up here we designate our highways as "I-5" or "405". Transplanted folks (especially Kaliphorneeyans) give themselves away by saying "THE I-5" and "THE 405".
<snip>
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pronounced the same, mean the same, but spelled differently..... Gray...or ...Grey.... ::) ::)
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pronounced the same, mean the same, but spelled differently..... Gray...or ...Grey.... ::) ::)
Yep. I was taught "grey" for some reason, and it seems every spell checker prefers "gray." After decades of using grey, I am now grey, and too old to change (but not too old to dye it out).
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Other than peoples' actual names I have found the grey spelling to be much more common. It seems 'the world' prefers grey while I personally like gray and use it whenever it is not a proper name.
This one time, in banned camp in Germany, I needed to say the color gray but did not know the word in German.... so I said 'schwartz und weiss' (black and white in English) while making mixing motions with my hands. Hey, maybe not the slickest way to communicate but they got the idea (or idear for some of you in Kansas). Successful communications and I learned the word for gray, 'grau'.
Brian (not Bryan but sometimes people call me that anyway)
Yep. I was taught "grey" for some reason, and it seems every spell checker prefers "gray." After decades of using grey, I am now grey, and too old to change (but not too old to dye it out).
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We have a city, Yakima, that used to be called Yak-i-maw. Now the new(s) people have taken to calling it Yak-im-u.
One of my pet peeves is words not being spelled how people want them pronounced. If they wanted a "maw" on the end they should have spelled it that way. I gotta
side with the news folks on this one, assuming they are pronouncing the "u" as a short sound not a long one that is "Yak-im-ahhh" not "Yak-im-ewww".
You'd hate how I say it. I just said it out loud here a few times and it came out "Yuk-i-ma"..mentally I know it's wrong but if I just blurt it out instead of thinking
about it that's the way it comes out.
And I am sick to death of hearing people use the word "impact" when they really mean "effect".
Some use of it verbally is probably just a carryover habit from writing. Many forgetting which "affect" or "effect" to use have substituted "impact" instead. Impact is spelled the same either used as a verb or a noun, so it's use is easier.
Our native bivalve is the geoduck, real name pronounced Gwee-duk", but Anglicized as "Gooey-duck".
Well two wrongs don't make a right...er..correct..er..well anyway if it's going to be spelled geoduck then it's pronounced as gee-o-duk. Saying one mispronunciation
is better than another is silly when the word is clearly misspelled.
And everyone under the age of thirty composes their sentences of endless streams of "Umm...like....ya know....." with little use of words that actually convey information.
Agreed, "I mean" [sic] people feel obligated to speak so quickly that their brain can't keep up when searching for the correct word, so all this like "ya know" gobbledy gook air filling noise comes out instead, ya know? No that wasn't really a question, I just felt obligated to punctuate it that way because of the "ya know " which wasn't a question but an air filler, right? OOPs I did it again. "I mean" used to be something you said when your brain catches up an realizes what you just said may not be very clear, it acted as a pause between what you just said unclearly and what you are about to say more clearly after mental editing. It also was an indicator to the listener that they should quit trying to process what was just said, and instead concentrate on what is about to be said. However, now it has become a sentence starter for no apparent reason just like "ya know" has been added to the end for no apparent reason, right? (<---oops)
Another pet peeve ( I mentioned it in the things that annoy me thread but I'm rolling and can't stop now) is starting a greeting with a question at the beginning of a one way discussion, such as a YouTube video. "Hey guys how's it goin'? Here's how you can get your dog to stop licking it's paws....blah blah.." "Hi what's up? I'm often asked how to lance a boil on your own butt without asking for..." irks me more than being stuck in traffic on the I-35W, ya know? Right? Eh?
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Not just under 30. One of my employees, a 45-year-old male, is also inflicted afflicted . To me, nothing is more distracting and irritating than hearing endless, mindless, misuse of the word "like." I am to the point now that I wish the word were banned from the English language completely. Even a greatly respected postcaster I listen to, who is quite intelligent and thoughtful, can't formulate more than a few sentences without the word "like."
I was, like,
It was, like,
I am, like,
Do you, like, go
What, like, do you think
Like, when are they
If the person he is interviewing is also a "liker", then use doesn't just double, it triples because they seem to feed off of each other.
https://www.sankinspeechimprovement.com/the-like-epidemic-using-word-like-excessively/ (https://www.sankinspeechimprovement.com/the-like-epidemic-using-word-like-excessively/)
FIFY...I think. But you may be right..
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Gray vs grey... US uses Gray for the most part, whilst other English speaking countries use Grey. Either one is correct but as I was raised in England in my early years I have all sorts of problems with words and going back and forth with spellings and pronunciations.
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For instance the word been. Most US people use 'bin'. I use the English version 'bean'. Totally made fun of me while I was in HS here. I love watching English TV over here as I feel at home with the language. The word herb. Pronounced over here 'erb'. I pronounce it 'herb'. The wife gives me heck over this one.
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All I can do is refer to that great philosopher, Popeye in that 'I yam what I yam' and damn proud of it cause I'm different than most people I know. I hate being lumped into a group of anything (present company excepted of course). Pisses me off, it does.
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And yet another thing that grips me...is hearing someone doing something 'Like a Boss'. WTF does that mean? I literally cringe when I hear it used. I've known some pretty inept 'bosses' over the years. Usually the Boss does nothing but manage (yeah right) and doesn't know sh*t about what is really going on.
So, based on my feelings concerning this phrase if you think you can use it to be funny.....just refer to this video.
https://youtu.be/OLvz5E61UNs
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I love watching English TV over here
No Welsh or Scottish or Northern Irish TV?
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You bring up a good point. In doing a bit of a search, there are BBC Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Ireland has it's own set of TV channels. I watch BBC America which really doesn't distinguish under which area actually produced the show (not that I've looked either). I also watch Acorn and britbox. With that being said, the BBC uses actors and actresses from all the regions.
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You bring up a good point. [...] I watch BBC America which really doesn't distinguish under which area actually produced the show [...] With that being said, the BBC uses actors and actresses from all the regions.
So you are watching British TV, then (the first "B" in BBC)! Kinda like watching American TV and not so much Virginia TV, Ohio TV, Washington TV, and NY TV :)
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BBC shows are nothing like we see over here. The humour is quite different and the cinematography is spectacular.
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BBC shows are nothing like we see over here. The humour is quite different
I am sure the glamour is too, as well as the general flavour and colourful production. But I won't apologise for the defence of our labour- I recognise some of their good work but prefer our own catalogue of dialogue. No offense to our neighbours across the pond.
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I am sure the glamour is too, as well as the general flavour and colourful production. But I won't apologise for the defence of our labour- I recognise some of their good work but prefer our own catalogue of dialogue. No offense to our neighbours across the pond.
None taken. We get a lot of US shows over here and a great many US channels such as Discovery channels, National Geographic channels, PBS America, Fox, Paramount, CNN, CNBC, etc. In addition, some 70% of the films (movies) in our Cinemas are from the USA.
Quite apart from the 4 country versions of the BBC (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), each region in the UK has it's own local news (BBC and the commercial channels) which is usually shown before or after the national/international news.
I use grey/gray interchangeably. My spell checker tells me that gray is incorrect w.r.t. the colour, but Gray is fine, since with the uppercase G it is a measure of radiation dose. :D
Here we get the "like" and also "yeah?" overused in conversation.
The "Yeah" is normally used by people to try and make sure that you're still listening and is very irritating.
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Yeah...
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"I here ya."
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Quite apart from the 4 country versions of the BBC (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland), each region in the UK has it's own local news (BBC and the commercial channels) which is usually shown before or after the national/international news.
Almost the same here with our 50 countries (which we call states)... almost all general programming is national, then national news, then local (city/county/metro area) news. There is little, if any, state programming.
Here we get the "like" and also "yeah?" overused in conversation.
Well, misery loves company, it seems.
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For instance the word been. Most US people use 'bin'. I use the English version 'bean'. Totally made fun of me while I was in HS here. I love watching English TV over here as I feel at home with the language. The word herb. Pronounced over here 'erb'. I pronounce it 'herb'. The wife gives me heck over this one.
Well, then, it sounds like she should be giving you "eck".
And if you watch the old Rowan Atkinson show "Mr. Bean", are you watching "Mr. Bin"?
Personally I love watching BBC America on cable, especially the older stuff, sitcoms are a riot to me. And of course the humor (humour?) classics: Mr. Bean, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, As Time Goes By, Dr. Who.
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Well, then, it sounds like she should be giving you "eck".
And if you watch the old Rowan Atkinson show "Mr. Bean", are you watching "Mr. Bin"?
Personally I love watching BBC America on cable, especially the older stuff, sitcoms are a riot to me. And of course the humor (humour?) classics: Mr. Bean, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, As Time Goes By, Dr. Who.
I pronounce that 'Mr. Bean' exactly like it's spelled...LOL. Funny about language, as bean over here and I think over there is pronounced 'bean'.
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I pronounce that 'Mr. Bean' exactly like it's spelled...LOL. Funny about language, as bean over here and I think over there is pronounced 'bean'.
That's still better than the two syllable pronunciations, "be AN' " or "BE' an".
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Thread revival!
Slightly off topic, but I really get annoyed with public speakers peppering their sentences with "right" and answering questions starting with "so".
Regarding accents, my siblings and I grew up with a father that was very particular about proper pronunciation. Because of that, we don't sound like most of the people in my area. We sometimes get asked about where we are from and they look surprised when we say we were born and raised here.
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Slightly off topic, but I really get annoyed with public speakers peppering their sentences with "right" and answering questions starting with "so".
Yep, off topic, but my chief annoyance is people who are incapable of speaking without using the word "like" dozens of times.
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Like what? Like what? Like what? Like what? Like what? Like, this is too much work to type Like what?
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Like what? Like what? Like what? Like what? Like what? Like, this is too much work to type Like what?
"I was, like, going to the store and, like, picked up some food. The employee was all like "how can I help you?" And I had a, like, thing in my cart, it was sorta like a box. OMG! I like, didn't know what to say!" Etc...
I watched some on-the-street videos the other day and not a single person (there were dozens) could say more than one sentence without the word "like." Even a well-respected podcaster I watch misuses/overuses "like." One of my employees has been contaminated with "like" and apparently doesn't realize he is saying it all the time. Ug.
I have to admit that I have been pushed to the limit a few times during conversations and started adding slightly-stressed "like"'s into my replies. The other party usually looks at me a little strangely and continues on with the "likes"!
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Like, LOL!
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Sooooooooo.... ;D
My Dad used to say OrBurn instead of Auburn. Drove me nuts!
When I was a young-un in 2nd or 3rd grade, we had a speech class and the teacher recorded each of us reading and then played it back to us. I was appalled and devastated. How could I sound like that!! It made me very aware at an early age to pay attention to pronunciation and temper my speech as well.
The same teacher also taught us about dialects. I was fortunate to know people and relatives from a wide geographic area. If I meet someone that has not moved around a lot I can usually tell what state they are from. In the south, I can usually pick out the difference between East and West TN, MS, AL and GA.
I have lived in the south, TX and CA for the most part, but I've got enough friends from the north that I can pick you out too! ;) ;D
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Realator rather than realtor
'so yeah' as a filler (much the same as 'like')
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'so yeah' as a filler (much the same as 'like')
"ya know what I mean"
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People are weird.
One friend calls the short hairy axe-wielding Middle-Earth characters "Dorfs" when everyone else calls them Dwarfs or Dwarves (we used to play a lot of D&D).
Another just cannot say Nuclear (Nu-Clear) and instead always says NewKular.
Me, I struggle to say "Yes, you're right and I am wrong,...." :rotflmao: :rotflmao:
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I have three new gripes:
People who pronounce "and" with a "t" as "ant". One of the women at my workplace does this and it drives me NUTS.
The second item is that people are now beginning to add an "s" to pluralize things that don't need it, as in "aircrafts", and (just yesterday in a news article) "spacecrafts". It never saw this until a few months ago, now it is becoming more common. Once a bad habit starts it is hard to get it stopped, which brings up gripe number three:
90 % of the time when someone says "impact" they really mean "affect". A few days ago I listened to a new broadcaster say "impact" about a dozen times in two minutes. Ten years ago, this wasn't an issue, but it has become a bad habit promoted by illiterate TV and radio people. I realize they are usually just reading the teleprompter, so maybe they need a new teleprompter writer.
Whine....whine....**** moan.....................
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Ten years ago, this wasn't an issue, but it has become a bad habit promoted by illiterate TV and radio people. I realize they are usually just reading the teleprompter, so maybe they need a new teleprompter writer.
Whine....whine....**** moan.....................
Well, don't worry, Webster's will just "revise" the dictionary and textbooks will revise too, to accommodate any and all new atrocities to the language. And teachers won't want to "offend" any students, so they won't ever be corrected, either. Then all that stuff will be proper and acceptable.
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Here's a couple more that you'll hear from talking heads and politicians ad nauseam:
- "Look . . . " <insert a comment here>"
- "At the end of the day . . . . . "
Sports 'sayings':
- "take it to the next level"
- "Lets give 110%"
High School GPA's:
Anything over 4.0 diminishes the 'impact' (see what i did there ;)) of what this should mean.
This score is supposed to be an average with 4.0 as a perfect average score, not some cumulative score that can increase above that.
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I hear this one on the Oak Island reality show...from the narrator.
"Could it be...?" I'm starting to cringe every time I hear that now.... The show's getting old and the only ones getting the treasure are the contractors doing the actual work.