Sexy Shibboleths
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Continuing the discussion from Representative Email: Coffee Club:
she had told how much job her current staff had
Thought I'd pull this out into a different topic.
Not to single you out or pick on you, Nipo, but this is a perfect example of something I was talking about a week or so ago. This is exactly the usage I was talking about when I mentioned Indian people frequently use "tell" where "say" is the contextually-appropriate word.
FWIW I saw you used "job" where "work" is the contextually correct word, too, so that sentence was a twofer!
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stop bullying people.
you are a terrible everything.
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do we need to hand out a pedant badge? i think we might have to.
i wonder how i could bring this to the attention of moderators for the application of the <rtl>izan rammarg</rtl> award? @pjh, ideas? ;-)
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stop bullying people.
If I were bullying someone, they'd know. The words "not to pick on you" were the first clue.
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Nothing grammar nazi about it. We were talking about language idioms last week, and in my mind, "using tell when you meant say" is the canonical one, because it's the first one I noticed that's widely used by a specific ethnic group. Every Indian person I've spoken to on a regular basis[1] uses it, and it got me wondering how English teachers wound up passing it on; it's not (as far as I know) regular UK English, either.
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We were talking about language idioms last week,
Thank you for calling support, this is John. Please to be helping you today. Is broke? What help can I be with dispensing?
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Thank you for calling support, this is John. Please to be helping you today. Is broke? What help can I be with dispensing?
But, strictly speaking, those are syntax or grammar errors. What I'm talking about, conceptually, is different. It's almost more like a vowel shift or an accent. (Accent fun--I am pretty sure I mentioned this on the CS forums: I called 411 once looking for a phone number in central/eastern Massachusetts. The operator asked me if I wanted Wooster or Worcester. Written that doesn't seem weird. Prounounced, it's "woostah or wustuh". Since I'd been out of the state for almost two years, I had to think for a couple of seconds for that to register.)
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Can I lend a fiver off someone?
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Sure. Just fill up this form.
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I thought that said "liver" at first.
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I thought that said "liver" at first.
I thought he wanted to go driving in his flivver.
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I could care less if you think I'm literally going to give you the shirt off my back so you can have another pint.
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But, strictly speaking, those are syntax or grammar errors. What I'm talking about, conceptually, is different. It's almost more like a vowel shift or an accent. (Accent fun--I am pretty sure I mentioned this on the CS forums: I called 411 once looking for a phone number in central/eastern Massachusetts. The operator asked me if I wanted Wooster or Worcester. Written that doesn't seem weird. Prounounced, it's "woostah or wustuh". Since I'd been out of the state for almost two years, I had to think for a couple of seconds for that to register.)
It's Wistah, just south of Leminstah (Leominster).
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Just be glad you don't live near Shuvull (Shelbyville).
--in the southern US, nowhere near Bawstun.
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I always liked how it was Wistah[1] and gloustah, but doa-chestah. I understand the subtlety but it's amusing nonetheless, because a nonlocal would never get it without having it explained.
(The three towns are spelled Worcester, Gloucester, and Dorchester. The extra h changes the pronunciation.)
[1] in retrospect your transliteration's more correct than mine--but I haven't been back in New England since 2001.
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I lived there until 2009, so I grew up near Worcester, Woburn, etc.
Worcester was on a lot of road signs in my town, it was always funny to hear non-locals try to pronounce it.
Filed under: listening to ESL people try to pronounce "Worcestershire Sauce"
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Filed under: listening to ESL people try to pronounce "Worcestershire Sauce"
Or Germans trying to say "squirrel mirror".
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Or Germans trying to say "squirrel mirror".
What's that sound like? You should put it on youtube.
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More wrong words: a trainer just forwarded to me (and a committee of other people) with a problem a customer's having, asking if I could give the customer some insight.
No, I can't do that. I can fix the problem, though.
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paging @faoileag and @kuro
Worcestershire is tricky if you don't know it, but what's the deal with squirrel mirror?The one I like best though is Woolfardisworthy in Devon.
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What's that sound like? You should put it on youtube.
Already been done apparently. Squirrels anyway...
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Worcestershire is tricky if you don't know it, but what's the deal with squirrel mirror?
The one I like best though is Woolfardisworthy in Devon.
Even when you tell many ESLers how to pronounce, many struggle.
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The one I like best though is Woolfardisworthy in Devon.
Siobhan Fetherstonhaugh
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Except for the ones who were saying "screwal," that wasn't too badly butchered.
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Ah, but were they doing the needful?
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As blakeyrat would put it, you shouldn't blame programmers for making mistakes when the programming language they use makes it pointlessly hard to do things right.
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Siobhan Fetherstonhaugh
Siobhan I know (some years ago I frequently listened to BBC Radio Scotland in the morning), but Fetherstonhaugh is a new one. I'll try to remember that...Dunkeld is another one that you can get wrong easily...
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See, I never thought I had problem with saying squirrel until I saw that video about half a year back. Now I am not even really sure anymore.
Then again, I do have a weird accent. It is completely different from that stereotypical German accent and is mainly based on the way people pronounce things on the internet (and oh boy do they pronounce things on the internet).Currently, without looking it up I would pronounce it: squirrel
With the italic part being almost silent.Then again, teaching an American the German "e"-sound is almost as hard as teaching them the "r"
Filed Under: At least from my personal study from trying to teach people on the internet
Addendum:
@Matches
funny Markup again: Squi__rre__l doesn't work while Squirrel works. Using * in between does fix something weirdly....
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Roughly speaking, as an American, I'd phonetically spell it skwirl. The I might be a schwa. One big thing I saw in the video was that the Germans were overpronouncing the e at the end, where it's actually more pronounced like the disappearing i/u in Japanese.
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psh, weak. Try @ d** wha
@squirrel_______rr____<__.____seriously i don't even. Explain how the "rr___<" is in bold there....
Even better, how about @ d* wha
@squirrel_______rrd___<_._____Explain how the "rrd" is in bold italics!!!.
raw: http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/the-wrong-word/3385/36
or see code:
[code]
psh, weak. Try @ d** wha
@squirrel_______rr____<.___.sdfseriously i don't even. Explain how the "rr___<" is in italics there....
Even better, how about @ d* wha
@squirrel_______rrd___<_._____.sdfExplain how the "rrd" is in bold italics!!!.
[/code]
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Okay, here you go....
You can leave suggestions and improvement in a reply, I guess.
Filed Under: No squirrels were harmed during the production of this stupid voice-clip | And, yes, I am aware that my accent is terrible, thank you very much
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Even more bizarre because a plain ** by itself doesn't do anything
or even * alone. EXPLAIN HOW MY PREVIOUS POST IS GO BERSERKERS!?!?!I think I just lost my mind.
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See, I am very impressed by the way you guys have been killing the Discourse-MarkDown and all that.... but I am still more impressed about me fixing things by adding more useless MarkDown. I think if there was a way for me to make a text non formated with markdown (by adding whatever character in front and back) I might have actually gotten it to work the way I wanted it to. (the italics were not wanted but needed for the whole thing not to break, as you can see)
Filed Under: Will Discourse Use CommonMark when that is released?
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Roughly speaking, as an American, I'd phonetically spell it skwirl. The I might be a schwa.
Wiktionary gives /ˈskwɪɹ.əl/ as the pronunciation in UK English, and either /ˈskwɝl/ or /ˈskwɝ.əl/ for US and Canadian English. As a West-Coast USian, I'd go with something kind of between the two, two syllables, but with the ə almost, but not quite, omitted.
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Fetherstonhaugh
FAN-shaw
Yet another step in British English evolving into a constant sound of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah".
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Fetherstonhaugh
FAN-shaw
TDEMSYR. Some of the pronunciations sort of make sense — they're lazy and leave out consonants or entire syllables. But this not only leaves out something like two and a half syllables, it ADDS sounds for letters that aren't in the word.
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Something like this is a minor plot point in a Heinlein novel; an attempt to determine whether a person is a bad guy or not depends on whether he pronounces "Taliaferro" as it's spelled, or as "tolliver."
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Krzyzewski = Shuh-Shev-Ski
But clearly the Kr is silent, Z = Sh, and w = v, so I guess that one's not that bad at all.
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Łódź - roughly "woodsh".
Polish is pretty weird in pronounciation.
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Heinlein novel ... pronounces "Taliaferro" as it's spelled, or as "tolliver."
I vaguely remember that, but it's been a long time since I read it. I had to Google it to remember which book it was.
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Krzyzewski = Shuh-Shev-Ski
But clearly the Kr is silent, Z = Sh, and w = v, so I guess that one's not that bad at all.
K isn't silent, rz = ż generally represents ʐ, but after consonants gets voiceless into "sh"-like sound. You don't really pronounce "y" as "uh" either, it's closer to "i" in "milk".
And the other z is actually voiced ż. The actual "z" is pronounced quite like in English.
Filed under: a lesson nobody wanted, i go by "Max" here so that I save people trouble of struggling to pronounce my name
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Łódź - roughly "woodsh".Polish is pretty weird in pronounciation.
I was taught "wudge". Should be close enough to pass.
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my bad. So it's Shih-Shev-Ski! (shih = shuh in southern US, so the first was the redneck pronunciation)
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