Intro E: Mini-FAQ on Spelling
Donna Richoux
* = recently revised
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mini-FAQ on Spelling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are longer answers, with more examples, for most of these items in
the full AUE FAQ (see end). Many of these topics cause much argument,
and we earnestly request that you do some research before deciding to
post on these.
CONTENTS OF THIS MINI FAQ ON SPELLING:
- Isn't spelling reform a good idea?
- Joke about step-by-step spelling reform
* - Humorous poems about spelling
- What is "ghoti"?
- I before E except after C
- U.S. -v- REST-OF-WORLD ENGLISH
"-er" -v- "-re"
-----------------------------------
Isn't spelling reform a good idea?
-----------------------------------
Only a tiny number of a.u.e participants favour spelling reform. One
chief reason is that there are so many ways to pronounce common English
words that any simplified standard spelling would still be irregular for
many people.
We do not appreciate long attempts at trying to convert us to spelling
reform. You may find a better audience at
alt.language.english.spelling.reform, and there is The Simplified
Spelling Society at:
http://www.spellingsociety.org/
---------------------------------------
Joke about step-by-step spelling reform
---------------------------------------
Three versions of this joke, in which spelling reforms are proposed
and then made in the course of the article itself, are in circulation.
They can be found on the Web, so please don't post any to a.u.e.
(1) A plan for the improvement of spelling, by M. J. Shields
http://www.ojohaven.com/fun/spelling.html
[M. J. Shields was a critic of G. B. Shaw's spelling reform ideas,
according to the book "Another Almanac of Words at Play" (William Espy,
1980, p. 80). Many web sites attribute this piece to Mark Twain, but
Twain scholars at the University of California could find no supporting
evidence for that.]
(2) MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton Edwards (in _Astounding SF_ 1946)
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~mjm62gwg/humour9.htm
(3) The European Commission has just announced...
http://www.speedybar.ch/witze/jokes2000/spelling.html
-----------------------------
Humorous poems about spelling
-----------------------------
* One well-known poem that is posted occasionally and can be found on
the Web is sometimes called "English is Tough Stuff," but its original
title was "The Chaos." It was written by Dutch writer and teacher G.
Nolst Trenite, and first appeared in his textbook, _Drop Your Foreign
Accent_ (Haarlem, 1920). In later editions he added more verses. It
begins:
Dearest creature in creation,
Studying English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.html
Another poem is sometimes called "Ode to a Spelling Checker" or "Owed to
a Spieling Chequer." What appears to be the original version is at:
CANDIDATE FOR A PULLET SURPRISE
by Jerrold H. Zar
http://www.tenderbytes.net/rhymeworld/feeder/teacher/pullet.htm
------------------
What is "ghoti"?
------------------
It's an alternative spelling of "chestnut". :-) O.K., it's "fish",
re-spelled to demonstrate the inconsistency of English spelling: "gh"
as in "cough", "o" as in "women", "ti" as in "nation".
Supposedly, this is an example of how awful English spelling is. In
fact, it argues that English spelling is kind, considerate, and easy.
Why? Because fish isn't really spelled "ghoti"! These fun examples
overstate the case for spelling reform and strike some of us as
self-defeating.
The "ghoti" spelling is said to have been suggested to G. B. Shaw by
a spelling-reform enthusiast (see FAQ for reference).
--------------------------
I before E except after C
--------------------------
This rule is presented in different ways in America and Britain. The
British version specifies:
"I" before "E"
Except after "C",
When the sound is "ee". [/i:/ in ASCII phonetic]
This old rule is supposed to help students remember the
spelling of vowels pronounced /i:/ (the long "e" sound of "feed"). It
has no value for words where the vowel is pronounced in any other way,
the key fact which people bemused by many "exceptions" to the rule
usually do not realise.
Apart from some personal names (Keith, Sheila), there are very few
common exceptions to the British rule. The apparent change in
pronunciation of words like "fancies" from the traditional "fanciz" to
the modern "fanceez" may lead to a new common exception being added to
the rule.
A common U.S. version is:
"I" before "E"
Except after "C",
or when pronounced "ay" [/eI/]
as in "neighbor" and "weigh".
It has been pointed out (by at least one American) that this version has
far more exceptions because "ei" has many other pronunciations, e.g. in
"height" and "heifer". There are more examples in the AUE FAQ
Supplement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. -v- REST-OF-WORLD ENGLISH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
---------------
"-er" -v- "-re"
---------------
Many words which in American English are spelled with "er" at the end
are spelled with "re" in the U.K. and in most other dialects around the
world. A typical example is
(U.S.) "center"
(U.K.) "centre"
This difference does not exist where "-er" is the agent suffix (as in
"revolver") or the comparative suffix (as in "longer"). In this case
U.K. and U.S. spellings both use "er".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This series of seven "Intro Documents" is intended to aid newcomers to
the newsgroup. The articles are posted frequently here, and are also on
the Web for your convenience, at:
http://www.alt-usage-english.org/
Parts of this document are taken from the big AUE FAQ, which was edited
by Mark Israel and is also accessible at the same website. Remaining
parts were written by Albert Marshall and others. Suggestions for
improvements in clarity, fairness, accuracy, and brevity should be
emailed to me -- Donna Richoux
Bob Cunningham
Richoux) said:
[ . . . ]
> What is "ghoti"?
> ------------------
> It's an alternative spelling of "chestnut". :-) O.K., it's "fish",
> re-spelled to demonstrate the inconsistency of English spelling: "gh"
> as in "cough", "o" as in "women", "ti" as in "nation".
> Supposedly, this is an example of how awful English spelling is. In
> fact, it argues that English spelling is kind, considerate, and easy.
> Why? Because fish isn't really spelled "ghoti"! These fun examples
> overstate the case for spelling reform and strike some of us as
> self-defeating.
I'm sorry to see that Donna presents a very one-sided
opinion of the "ghoti" piece. In a document that is in
effect one of the FAQs for AUE, it would seem appropriate to
at least acknowledge that there may be cogent
counter-arguments.
The "ghoti" piece is in fact a clever demonstration that
English spelling is a mess. Whether or not, for example,
"gh" can be used for "f" in initial position is beside the
point. The point is that "gh" is one of the ways in English
to spell the sound of "f".
Instead of arguing that "gh" isn't used in initial position
for the sound of "f" and "ti" isn't used in final position
for the "sh" sound, it should be helpful to look at the
other side of the coin: It shouldn't be surprising if a
beginning student of English wanted to spell "laugh" "laff",
"nation" "nashun". and "women" "wimmun".
R J Valentine
...
} Instead of arguing that "gh" isn't used in initial position
} for the sound of "f" and "ti" isn't used in final position
} for the "sh" sound, it should be helpful to look at the
} other side of the coin: It shouldn't be surprising if a
} beginning student of English wanted to spell "laugh" "laff",
} "nation" "nashun". and "women" "wimmun".
Or if he or she wanted to use a period where a comma clearly belongs.
Indeed, we should always cut slack for people who make what we might think
are elementary errors. I applaud Mr. Cunningham for seeing this side of
the coin instead of just giggling at the things that make English a little
different and instead of speculating that a "ghoti" was a fetish of early
Christians. You go, Sparky!
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Bob Cunningham
<r...@smart.net> said:
> On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 20:41:25 GMT Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > Instead of arguing that "gh" isn't used in initial position
> > for the sound of "f" and "ti" isn't used in final position
> > for the "sh" sound, it should be helpful to look at the
> > other side of the coin: It shouldn't be surprising if a
> > beginning student of English wanted to spell "laugh" "laff",
> > "nation" "nashun". and "women" "wimmun".
> Or if he or she wanted to use a period where a comma clearly belongs.
Newcomers should be advised that in AUE it's customary to
overlook ordinary typos, but you never know what Valentine
is going to do next.
R J Valentine
Newcomers should also know that I agree with Mr. Cunningham on both counts
(as I usually do), and that in the very next sentence (snipped by him or
her) I said at least half of that, but I am prepared to admit here that I
am probably less predictable than he or she is.
Tony Cooper
> instead of speculating that a "ghoti" was a fetish of early
>Christians.
Once again, we have someone who demonstrates a shocking lack of
sensitivity to the religious practices of others. Early Christians
deserve as much - if not more - respect than the swarm of late-comers
to church. There is nothing more annoying than to get comfortable in
one's pew (conveniently next to the aisle in preparation for early
departure) and have one of the Late Christians insist on everyone
sliding over to make room for them. Their late entrance is disruptive
to the congregation in general. Also, one usually finds that the Late
Christians have parked illegally and in such a way to block one of the
Early Christian's cars.
As someone said - actually, sung in a most annoying manner - Get Thee
To The Church On Time.
Bob Cunningham
<r...@smart.net> said:
[ . . . ]
> Newcomers should also know that I agree with Mr.
> Cunningham on both counts (as I usually do)
Newcomers may find it interesting to learn that I don't give
a damn whether Valentine agrees with me about anything or
not.
Donna Richoux
> On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 20:55:31 +0200, tr...@euronet.nl (Donna
> Richoux) said:
>
> [ . . . ]
>
> > What is "ghoti"?
> > ------------------
>
> > It's an alternative spelling of "chestnut". :-) O.K., it's "fish",
> > re-spelled to demonstrate the inconsistency of English spelling: "gh"
> > as in "cough", "o" as in "women", "ti" as in "nation".
>
> > Supposedly, this is an example of how awful English spelling is. In
> > fact, it argues that English spelling is kind, considerate, and easy.
> > Why? Because fish isn't really spelled "ghoti"! These fun examples
> > overstate the case for spelling reform and strike some of us as
> > self-defeating.
>
> I'm sorry to see that Donna presents a very one-sided
> opinion of the "ghoti" piece.
"Presents" in the sense of "publishes, posts." This is not an entry I
wrote or have any strong feelings about, so I'm open to suggestion.
I see it is a shortening of the AUE FAQ entry, which had more about the
history of the word.
I'm trying to remember what questions we've gotten about "ghoti." People
wanted to be reminded of what it consists of, and maybe one or two
people wanted to know who was responsible for inventing it. I vaguely
recall some discussion of its significance.
>In a document that is in
> effect one of the FAQs for AUE, it would seem appropriate to
> at least acknowledge that there may be cogent
> counter-arguments.
It took some thought to see what a "counter-argument" might mean here. I
think you're saying to include something good about "ghoti." I can see
where it has been valuable as a thought-provoker, an educational tool,
an attention-getter, an amusing puzzle, a discussion-starter. We could
say something like that.
>
> The "ghoti" piece is in fact a clever demonstration that
> English spelling is a mess.
So I take it that you object to the "supposedly." But if I cut it, then
I immediately hit the same problem that the paragraph points out --
"ghoti" is *not* an example of awful English spelling; it is not an
English word. If it was truly a word that evolved like any other word,
and still it was the only one of its kind, then, yes, it would show that
English spelling is a mess. But it isn't and it didn't, so it doesn't.
So even if we put something about "ghoti" being a clever device, I think
the conclusion that the FAQ entry makes is still a good one, and, as I
recall, it had the support of many people, not just a single FAQ-maker.
I tried to think of an analogy, to identify what it is about "ghoti."
Suppose an artist welded together a lot of junk car parts into a random,
bizarre sculpture (the way the elements of "ghoti" are welded together
into an artificial word). The result might be eye-catching and amusing,
and even be a stirring condemnation of the evils of the automobile age,
or whatever. But it would not be "proof" or even "evidence" that Detroit
did not know how to build cars. In fact, it would make ordinary cars
look downright pleasant and sensible.
Similarly, the FAQ entry is cautioning anyone from saying that "ghoti"
is, in itself, proof or evidence that English spelling is bad,
illogical, etc. Someone must have been claiming that.
> Whether or not, for example,
> "gh" can be used for "f" in initial position is beside the
> point. The point is that "gh" is one of the ways in English
> to spell the sound of "f".
Several times lately, you've declared things to be beside the point that
I think *are* the point. If "ghoti" teaches us anything, it is that, in
our system, position matters, not just the pure symbols.
>
> Instead of arguing that "gh" isn't used in initial position
> for the sound of "f" and "ti" isn't used in final position
> for the "sh" sound, it should be helpful to look at the
> other side of the coin: It shouldn't be surprising if a
> beginning student of English wanted to spell "laugh" "laff",
> "nation" "nashun". and "women" "wimmun".
True, but I don't see the connection between that and "ghoti." Are you
saying that by teaching people about "ghoti," we will help them remember
how to spell difficult words? Has anyone seen that in practice?
I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on improving the
entry. So far, I can see adding a few words about it being a clever
device, and perhaps clarifying the caution at the end.
PS - I never cared much for the snide *opening* of that FAQ entry, with
the smiley. I would happily cut that line, if no one would figure I was
being too grim and humorless.
--
Best - Donna Richoux
Dr. Jai Maharaj
Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
women spell "boy" as "boi". ("Da kine" is pidgin here in Hawaii
for "You know, the kind of . . .", or "You know what I
mean".) English is more about usage than rules.
*---===== English is Munglish =====---*
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Dr. Jai Maharaj
Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> posted:
>
Has that resulted in a surplus of damns in your possession?
Bob Cunningham
Richoux) said:
I have more than once over the years protested the negative
attitude some people have shown regarding "ghoti".
> >In a document that is in
> > effect one of the FAQs for AUE, it would seem appropriate to
> > at least acknowledge that there may be cogent
> > counter-arguments.
> It took some thought to see what a "counter-argument" might mean here. I
> think you're saying to include something good about "ghoti." I can see
> where it has been valuable as a thought-provoker, an educational tool,
> an attention-getter, an amusing puzzle, a discussion-starter. We could
> say something like that.
It's a viable position to maintain that "ghoti" has
considerable merit. That position should get at least equal
time.
> > The "ghoti" piece is in fact a clever demonstration that
> > English spelling is a mess.
> So I take it that you object to the "supposedly." But if I cut it, then
> I immediately hit the same problem that the paragraph points out --
> "ghoti" is *not* an example of awful English spelling;
It is a fact, and it is bad, that the "f" sound, the "sh"
sound, the sound of "short i", and other sounds can each be
written more than one way in English. The spelling "ghoti"
is a succinct and clever way to comment on that fact.
It doesn't matter that the "f" sound can't be spelled with
"gh" at the beginning of a word. It's enough that it can be
spelled with "gh". It gives the learner more to worry about
if he or she has to remember that "f" is spelled "ff" in one
place, "gh" in another place, and "ph" in still others.
In addition to adding to the learner's problems, it should
offend the esthetic sensibilities of even good spellers to
know that English spelling is replete with inconsistencies.
> it is not an
> English word. If it was truly a word that evolved like any other word,
> and still it was the only one of its kind, then, yes, it would show that
> English spelling is a mess. But it isn't and it didn't, so it doesn't.
It isn't and it didn't, but it does.
> So even if we put something about "ghoti" being a clever device, I think
> the conclusion that the FAQ entry makes is still a good one, and, as I
> recall, it had the support of many people, not just a single FAQ-maker.
A good FAQ entry should present both sides of any
controversial topic that it chooses to address. The entry
on "ghoti" should present both sides, or it should be
entirely noncommittal, saying no more than something like
The spelling "ghoti", for "fish", was devised to
comment on the fact that some sounds in English
can have more than one spelling.
There have been claims that the spelling "ghoti"
was devised by George Bernard Shaw to bolster his
efforts to introduce reformed spelling. Shaw
was a strong advocate of reformed spelling, but it's
probably true that it was not Shaw who invented
"ghoti", but an acquaintance of his.
[ . . . ]
> > Instead of arguing that "gh" isn't used in initial position
> > for the sound of "f" and "ti" isn't used in final position
> > for the "sh" sound, it should be helpful to look at the
> > other side of the coin: It shouldn't be surprising if a
> > beginning student of English wanted to spell "laugh" "laff",
> > "nation" "nashun". and "women" "wimmun".
> True, but I don't see the connection between that and "ghoti."
The connection is that it's not good to have more than one
way to spell a sound, having more than one way to spell a
sound presents added difficulty to a learner, and "ghoti" is
a succinct and clever way to focus on the fact that sounds
in English can be spelled more than one way.
> Are you
> saying that by teaching people about "ghoti," we will help them remember
> how to spell difficult words?
Of course not. If "ghoti" serves a good purpose, it is to
emphasize the fact that English spelling has inconsistencies
in the hope that some day efforts to reform it may take
hold.
[ . . . ]
Let me emphasize that I'm not taking a position either way
on the goodness or badness of "ghoti", and I certainly don't
want to give the impression that I'm in favor of reformed
spelling. I'm merely arguing in favor of balanced treatment
of FAQ topics. In seeming to argue in favor of the goodness
of "ghoti", I'm only showing that there are reasonable
arguments available to anyone who wants to so argue.
[ . . . ]
J. J. Lodder
> -----------------------------
> Humorous poems about spelling
> -----------------------------
>
> * One well-known poem that is posted occasionally and can be found on
> the Web is sometimes called "English is Tough Stuff," but its original
> title was "The Chaos." It was written by Dutch writer and teacher G.
> Nolst Trenite, and first appeared in his textbook, _Drop Your Foreign
> Accent_ (Haarlem, 1920). In later editions he added more verses. It
> begins:
Some clue to the correct pronunciation of the authors name would be
given by spelling it correctly, as G. Nolst Trenité.
It doesn't rhyme with American 'tonite'.
> Dearest creature in creation,
> Studying English pronunciation.
> I will teach you in my verse
> Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
>
> http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.html
It's a masterpiece.
It should be made available as a lot sound files,
spoken by different native speakers.
Jan
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The connection is that it's not good to have more than one way to
> spell a sound,
Whoa. Time out. Did you really mean to imply that I should write
"don" and "dawn" the same because there are speakers who use the same
vowel or else that I should spell the words differently from the way
they do? Did you really mean that it is a bad thing that I can
distinguish "Mary", "merry", and "marry" or "bear" and "bare" on sight
even though I pronounce them identically? Did you really mean that
it's a bad thing to always spell the plural "s", even though in some
words it's pronounced [z]? Did you really mean that there's no
benefit in spelling part of a word the same way in different derived
forms, even though the pronunciation of the vowels change based on
stress?
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |This isn't good. I've seen good,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |and it didn't look anything like
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |this.
| MST3K
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Bob Cunningham
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > The connection is that it's not good to have more than one way to
> > spell a sound,
>
> Whoa. Time out. Did you really mean to imply that I should write
> "don" and "dawn" the same because there are speakers who use the same
> vowel or else that I should spell the words differently from the way
> they do?
[ and lots more in the same vein ]
If you read to the end of the posting, you may have noticed
the following disclaimer:
Bob Cunningham
I accidentally posted this message when I was in the middle
of preparing it for posting. Here it is to the intended
end:
On 10 Sep 2003 15:30:45 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > The connection is that it's not good to have more than one way to
> > spell a sound,
>
> Whoa. Time out. Did you really mean to imply that I should write
> "don" and "dawn" the same because there are speakers who use the same
> vowel or else that I should spell the words differently from the way
> they do?
> [ and lots more good stuff in the same vein ]
If you read to the end of the posting, you may have noticed
the following disclaimer:
Let me emphasize that I'm not taking a position
either way on the goodness or badness of "ghoti", and
I certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm
in favor of reformed spelling. I'm merely arguing in
favor of balanced treatment of FAQ topics. In seeming
to argue in favor of the goodness of "ghoti", I'm only
showing that there are reasonable arguments available
to anyone who wants to so argue.
If I were a person who really meant all the things I said in
my posting, rather than a sort of devil's advocate, I might
answer your remarks as follows:
All of your points are well taken and are food for
serious thought by anyone who advocates an all-out
reform of English spelling. They lead me to decide
that this is another of the many places where the
ancient maxim "Moderation in all things" applies.
I would correct only those spelling inconsistencies
whose inconsistency offers no advantages of the
sort you've mentioned.
Let me also mention that reformed spelling doesn't
have to imply phonetic spelling.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 10 Sep 2003 15:30:45 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
>
> > Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >
> > > The connection is that it's not good to have more than one way to
> > > spell a sound,
> >
> > Whoa. Time out. Did you really mean to imply that I should write
> > "don" and "dawn" the same because there are speakers who use the
> > same vowel or else that I should spell the words differently from
> > the way they do?
>
> [ and lots more in the same vein ]
>
> If you read to the end of the posting,
I hadn't. I was stopped abruptly at that point, which appeared to be
spoken in the authorial first person.
> you may have noticed the following disclaimer:
>
> Let me emphasize that I'm not taking a position
> either way on the goodness or badness of "ghoti", and I
> certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm in
> favor of reformed spelling. I'm merely arguing in favor of
> balanced treatment of FAQ topics. In seeming to argue in
> favor of the goodness of "ghoti", I'm only showing that
> there are reasonable arguments available to anyone who wants
> to so argue.
These are "reasonable arguments" to the extent that they are, if the
topic is spelling reform. I'm not sure that they have anything much
to do with "ghoti" being a good example of anything or not. The
problem is, it really *is* a spectacularly bad example to support a
cause of spelling reform. There may be good ones; this isn't one of
them.
But perhaps we could go with something like
What is "ghoti"?
It's a word widely (but almost certainly erroneously) attributed
to G. B. Shaw (or, more likely, a fellow spelling-reform
enthusiast) and used as an example of how English spelling is so
chaotic that this could be the way to spell "fish" (or that an
English learner might be tempted to spell "fish" this way), using
the "gh" of "rough", the "o" of "women", and the "ti" of "nation".
The inference that the reader is invited to draw is that English
spelling needs to be reformed.
Opponents, who include the broad consensus of the linguistic
community, counter that it actually shows the regularity of
English spelling, since "gh" never sounds like "f" at the begining
of a word, "ti" never sounds like "sh" at the end, and "o" only
sounds like "i" in a few fossilized words. As evidence, they
point to the fact that nobody looks at the word and pronounces it
"fish" until the "rules" are pointed out to them, and no English
learner is tempted to spell "fish" that way. Indeed, English
speakers nearly always look at it and say "goaty" or "go tie",
which demonstrates that the rules are, indeed, there and useful.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
Evan Kirshenbaum
> If I were a person who really meant all the things I said in my
> posting, rather than a sort of devil's advocate, I might answer your
> remarks as follows:
>
> All of your points are well taken and are food for serious
> thought by anyone who advocates an all-out reform of English
> spelling. They lead me to decide that this is another of the
> many places where the ancient maxim "Moderation in all things"
> applies. I would correct only those spelling inconsistencies
> whose inconsistency offers no advantages of the sort you've
> mentioned.
That would be a reasonable position to take. (There are other
arguments against making any change at all, stemming largely from the
huge installed base of printed material, but that's a different
argument.) And, indeed, many of those changes are proceeding.
Slowly.
> Let me also mention that reformed spelling doesn't have to imply
> phonetic spelling.
*That's* hard to reconcile with
] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling, and
even then you run smack into the problem of different dialects having
different phoneme inventories.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The misinformation that passes for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |gospel wisdom about English usage
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |is sometimes astounding.
| Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | of English Usage
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Bob Cunningham
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
> > If I were a person who really meant all the things I said in my
> > posting, rather than a sort of devil's advocate, I might answer your
> > remarks as follows:
> > All of your points are well taken and are food for serious
> > thought by anyone who advocates an all-out reform of English
> > spelling. They lead me to decide that this is another of the
> > many places where the ancient maxim "Moderation in all things"
> > applies. I would correct only those spelling inconsistencies
> > whose inconsistency offers no advantages of the sort you've
> > mentioned.
> That would be a reasonable position to take. (There are other
> arguments against making any change at all, stemming largely from the
> huge installed base of printed material, but that's a different
> argument.)
Yes, the arguments against spelling reform are well-known
and, to me, persuasive. I think I posted my views on the
subject at some length in AUE six or seven years ago. I
doubt that they've changed much, except that I would be more
realistic about the spelling of Shakespeare's day versus
that of today.
> And, indeed, many of those changes are proceeding.
> Slowly.
> > Let me also mention that reformed spelling doesn't have to imply
> > phonetic spelling.
> *That's* hard to reconcile with
> ] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
> I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling, and
> even then you run smack into the problem of different dialects having
> different phoneme inventories.
How about if I say there were two devil's advocates, one
extolling the merits of "ghoti", and the other rooting for
spelling reform? They wouldn't necessarily have to have
consistent points of view.
No? Well, then:
Yes, I didn't think that through before I wrote it.
However, if you consider consonants only, isn't there enough
commonality in their pronunciation to come up with symbols
that would be immediately acceptable to most dialects?
As for the vowels, all that would be necessary would be to
pick any dialect and choose symbols that agreed with that
dialect. As long as there was consistency, writers would
become accustomed to the new symbols representing *their*
sounds. In some dialects, one symbol might go with more
than one sound, but that should be no more of a problem than
it is with present orthography.
The resulting orthography would be neither phonetic nor
phonemic for many people, but it would be consistent, which
is all that really matters.
About picking the dialect, I think a reasonable choice would
be the variety of English spoken in Northern Utah.
But, again, all of this is academic exercise for me. I
remain firmly opposed to any but the most gradual spelling
reform, and I remain fairly neutral on the subject of
"ghoti".
R J Valentine
Newcomers are not likely to find it interesting to learn that I forgive
Mr. Cunningham for saying that.
R J Valentine
...
} The resulting orthography would be neither phonetic nor
} phonemic for many people, but it would be consistent, which
} is all that really matters.
Consistency is overrated. It presents an unwelcoming front to the world
and results in the wearing of uniforms by children (or worse).
} About picking the dialect, I think a reasonable choice would
} be the variety of English spoken in Northern Utah.
...
The Panhandle?
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:ar...@wicked.smart.net>
Jonathan Jordan
news:8yow89...@hpl.hp.com...
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
<snip>
> > Let me emphasize that I'm not taking a position
> > either way on the goodness or badness of "ghoti", and I
> > certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm in
> > favor of reformed spelling. I'm merely arguing in favor of
> > balanced treatment of FAQ topics. In seeming to argue in
> > favor of the goodness of "ghoti", I'm only showing that
> > there are reasonable arguments available to anyone who wants
> > to so argue.
>
> These are "reasonable arguments" to the extent that they are, if the
> topic is spelling reform. I'm not sure that they have anything much
> to do with "ghoti" being a good example of anything or not. The
> problem is, it really *is* a spectacularly bad example to support a
> cause of spelling reform. There may be good ones; this isn't one of
> them.
I think two of them are "laugh" and "women", which are included in the
point that "ghoti" is trying to make.
>
> But perhaps we could go with something like
>
> What is "ghoti"?
>
> It's a word widely (but almost certainly erroneously) attributed
> to G. B. Shaw (or, more likely, a fellow spelling-reform
> enthusiast) and used as an example of how English spelling is so
> chaotic that this could be the way to spell "fish" (or that an
> English learner might be tempted to spell "fish" this way), using
> the "gh" of "rough", the "o" of "women", and the "ti" of "nation".
> The inference that the reader is invited to draw is that English
> spelling needs to be reformed.
>
> Opponents, who include the broad consensus of the linguistic
> community, counter that it actually shows the regularity of
> English spelling, since "gh" never sounds like "f" at the begining
> of a word, "ti" never sounds like "sh" at the end, and "o" only
> sounds like "i" in a few fossilized words. As evidence, they
> point to the fact that nobody looks at the word and pronounces it
> "fish" until the "rules" are pointed out to them, and no English
> learner is tempted to spell "fish" that way. Indeed, English
> speakers nearly always look at it and say "goaty" or "go tie",
> which demonstrates that the rules are, indeed, there and useful.
I think this is missing the point about "ghoti". The point is not about
how you might spell /fIS/ - it's about the ways that we do in fact spell
/laf/, /'wImIn/ and /'neS@n/. The fact that so many people seem to miss
this point may suggest that it's not making it very well.
Note: I'm not particularly in favour of spelling reform, though I'm not
particularly against it either.
Jonathan
Evan Kirshenbaum
> > These are "reasonable arguments" to the extent that they are, if
> > the topic is spelling reform. I'm not sure that they have
> > anything much to do with "ghoti" being a good example of anything
> > or not. The problem is, it really *is* a spectacularly bad
> > example to support a cause of spelling reform. There may be good
> > ones; this isn't one of them.
>
> I think two of them are "laugh" and "women", which are included in
> the point that "ghoti" is trying to make.
"Laugh" is a good one, and that spelling is changing, slowly, in the
US. I'd give it another hundred years or so. "Women" is just one of
a class of very common fossilized spellings for words that are so
frequent that they don't really cause most people any problem after
the very beginning. Words like "the", "to", "do", "one", and "love".
[snip]
> I think this is missing the point about "ghoti". The point is not about
> how you might spell /fIS/ - it's about the ways that we do in fact spell
> /laf/, /'wImIn/ and /'neS@n/. The fact that so many people seem to miss
> this point may suggest that it's not making it very well.
Part of the problem may be that "gh" doesn't actually spell /f/ in
"laugh", "augh" spells /&f/.
But I confess that it never has been clear just what point they people
who put it forward are trying to make? Is it that somebody might see
the word "laugh" and not recognize it? Then we just reiterate the
rule that "ugh" is typically read as "f" or "w" (the latter is an
approximation, but usually gets close enough). If it's that somebody
might try to write "laugh" as "laff", we just expect that and point
out that it's actually "laugh". If it's that we worry that people
will overgeneralize "gh" to stand for /f/ in other words, well, quite
frankly, I don't think I've ever actually seen that in the wild.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Now and then an innocent man is sent
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to the legislature.
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kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Bob Cunningham
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
[ . . . ]
> Opponents, who include the broad consensus of the linguistic
> community,
It seems to me the linguistic community provides a very
limited scope as a place to ask about poking fun at English
spelling. At least an equal opportunity to vote should be
given to ESL students, schoolteachers, and every Joe Sixpack
who wishes he could spell better.
> counter that it actually shows the regularity of
> English spelling, since "gh" never sounds like "f" at the begining
> of a word, "ti" never sounds like "sh" at the end, and "o" only
> sounds like "i" in a few fossilized words.
Consider the plight of the learner of English. He or she
has to learn that the "f" sound can be spelled with "f" or
"ph" at the beginning of a word, with "f", "ph", or "gh" in
the middle of a word, and with "f", "ph", or "gh" at the end
of a word. And the only way the student can learn which to
use at a given place in a given word is by memorization.
Tell that student that English spelling is regular.
I don't favor spelling reform, but I think "ghoti" is a
clever, succinct, and humorous way to ridicule English
spelling. I've never understood why some people seem so
dead set against it. I got a nice chuckle out of it the
first time I heard it.
I suppose some people might be less upset by a proposed
spelling of "fish" as "phoche", which has "ph" at the
beginning as in "photo", "o" in the middle as in "women",
and "che" at the end as in "cache". To me, it seems less
effective than, and not so droll as, "ghoti".
Bob Cunningham
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
> Then we just reiterate the
> rule that "ugh" is typically read as "f" or "w"
I though "ugh" was typically read as [Vg], but _NSOED_ has
ugh /Uh, Vh, <schwa>:, Ux, Vg/
But you probably meant "-ugh".
Bob Cunningham
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
[ . . . ]
> If it's that we worry that people
> will overgeneralize "gh" to stand for /f/ in other words, well, quite
> frankly, I don't think I've ever actually seen that in the wild.
No, the problem is that a learner will not know how to spell
"laughable", "graphable", and "affable" until he or she has
memorized them.
Evan Kirshenbaum
Yes, when part of another word. "Ugh" itself was the only
counterexample that came to mind to encourage me to include the
"typically", although I'm sure there are others.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |_Bauplan_ is just the German word
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |for blueprint. Typically, one
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |switches languages to indicate
|profundity.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Richard Dawkins
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 10 Sep 2003 17:11:38 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
>
> Consider the plight of the learner of English. He or she has to
> learn that the "f" sound can be spelled with "f" or "ph" at the
> beginning of a word, with "f", "ph", or "gh" in the middle of a
> word, and with "f", "ph", or "gh" at the end of a word. And the
> only way the student can learn which to use at a given place in a
> given word is by memorization.
No. They learn that basically it's "ff" or "f" at the end of a word
and "f" everyplace else. Except for a few exceptions that they'll
come across and just have to memorize. Which they'll probably get
wrong at first, but everybody expects that, English does have quite a
few irregularities and even native speakers take a while to learn
them, but eventually you'll see that there are patterns even there.
In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what you
mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile to
memorize the few exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
> Tell that student that English spelling is regular.
If it was a Mexican Spanish speaker I might point out the way that /s/
can be "s" or "z" or "c" or /k/ can be "c" or "qu" or sometimes even
"k" and that doesn't really cause much problem for Spanish speakers
once they get used to it, although it does at first for people
learning Spanish.
> I don't favor spelling reform, but I think "ghoti" is a clever,
> succinct, and humorous way to ridicule English spelling. I've never
> understood why some people seem so dead set against it. I got a
> nice chuckle out of it the first time I heard it.
So did I until I thought about it. It's like laughing at some of the
ludicrous spending examples from the military and the space program.
Funny, until you looked at *why* the costs were so high, and then it
started to not look quite so unreasonable.
> I suppose some people might be less upset by a proposed spelling of
> "fish" as "phoche", which has "ph" at the beginning as in "photo",
> "o" in the middle as in "women", and "che" at the end as in "cache".
> To me, it seems less effective than, and not so droll as, "ghoti".
I'd still argue with the "o". "Physche" would be a fine example, but
it is less effective. Why? Because most people look at it and says
/fIS/. (Those that don't think that it's a typo for "psyche", which
itself is a good word to use ridicule English spelling.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |English is about as pure as a
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |cribhouse whore. We don't just
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |borrow words; on occasion, English
|has pursued other languages down
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |alleyways to beat them unconscious
(650)857-7572 |and rifle their pockets for new
|vocabulary.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | --James D. Nicoll
Jerry Friedman
I'd greatly prefer, "It's a word invented by some spelling-reform
enthusiast (widely, but almost certainly erroneously, said to be G. B.
Shaw)
> and used as an example of how English spelling is so
> chaotic that this could be the way to spell "fish" (or that an
> English learner might be tempted to spell "fish" this way), using
> the "gh" of "rough", the "o" of "women", and the "ti" of "nation".
> The inference that the reader is invited to draw is that English
> spelling needs to be reformed.
How about "The reader is invited to infer that English spelling needs
to be reformed."?
> Opponents, who include the broad consensus of the linguistic
> community,
How about "Many people, including the majority of the linguistic
community,"?
> counter that it actually shows the
partial?
> regularity of
> English spelling, since "gh" never sounds like "f" at the begining
> of a word, "ti" never sounds like "sh" at the end, and "o" only
> sounds like "i" in a few fossilized words. As evidence, they
> point to the fact that nobody looks at the word and pronounces it
> "fish" until the "rules" are pointed out to them, and no English
> learner is tempted to spell "fish" that way. Indeed, English
> speakers nearly always look at it and say "goaty" or "go tie",
> which demonstrates that the rules are, indeed, there and useful.
How about, "As evidence, they point out that nobody looks at the word
and pronounces it "fish", and nobody is tempted to spell "fish" that
way. Thus "ghoti" is a satirical caricature of English spelling, but
not a serious argument for reform."
--
Jerry Friedman
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > But perhaps we could go with something like
> >
> > What is "ghoti"?
> >
> > It's a word widely (but almost certainly erroneously) attributed
> > to G. B. Shaw (or, more likely, a fellow spelling-reform
> > enthusiast)
>
> I'd greatly prefer, "It's a word invented by some spelling-reform
> enthusiast (widely, but almost certainly erroneously, said to be
> G. B. Shaw)
I have no problem with that, although it's never been conclusively
demonstrated that it was in fact invented by a spelling-reform
enthusiast.
> > and used as an example of how English spelling is so
> > chaotic that this could be the way to spell "fish" (or that an
> > English learner might be tempted to spell "fish" this way), using
> > the "gh" of "rough", the "o" of "women", and the "ti" of "nation".
> > The inference that the reader is invited to draw is that English
> > spelling needs to be reformed.
>
> How about "The reader is invited to infer that English spelling needs
> to be reformed."?
Better.
> > Opponents, who include the broad consensus of the linguistic
> > community,
>
> How about "Many people, including the majority of the linguistic
> community,"?
Sure.
>
> > counter that it actually shows the
>
> partial?
I'm not sure what a "partial regularity" is, but I see what you're
trying to get at.
> > regularity of
> > English spelling, since "gh" never sounds like "f" at the begining
> > of a word, "ti" never sounds like "sh" at the end, and "o" only
> > sounds like "i" in a few fossilized words. As evidence, they
> > point to the fact that nobody looks at the word and pronounces it
> > "fish" until the "rules" are pointed out to them, and no English
> > learner is tempted to spell "fish" that way. Indeed, English
> > speakers nearly always look at it and say "goaty" or "go tie",
> > which demonstrates that the rules are, indeed, there and useful.
>
> How about, "As evidence, they point out that nobody looks at the word
> and pronounces it "fish", and nobody is tempted to spell "fish" that
> way. Thus "ghoti" is a satirical caricature of English spelling, but
> not a serious argument for reform."
I'd want to leave in the fact that people *do* pronounce it as if it
followed the normal rules of English.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |When correctly viewed,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 | Everything is lewd.
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| about Peter Pan,
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| Tom Lehrer
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Bob Cunningham
(Jerry Friedman) said:
[ . . . ]
> How about, "As evidence, they point out that nobody looks at the word
> and pronounces it "fish", and nobody is tempted to spell "fish" that
> way. Thus "ghoti" is a satirical caricature of English spelling, but
> not a serious argument for reform."
It occurs to me that it's the very fact that no one would
pronounce it "fish" that makes it funny. You ask someone,
"Know what 'ghoti' spells?" They give you a blank stare for
a while, then maybe they say "['goUti]". Then you say
"fish" and get another blank stare; then you explain it: big
laughs all around.
Of course, if there's someone present who knows there's a
place called "Ghoti" in India, then things get a little more
complicated.
But besides being funny, it is in my opinion a nice,
succinct commentary on the craziness of English spelling,
and I should think reformed-spelling advocates would prize
it as one of their weapons.
Jerry Friedman
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > On 10 Sep 2003 17:11:38 -0700, Evan Kirshenbaum
> > <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> said:
> >
> > Consider the plight of the learner of English. He or she has to
> > learn that the "f" sound can be spelled with "f" or "ph" at the
> > beginning of a word, with "f", "ph", or "gh" in the middle of a
> > word, and with "f", "ph", or "gh" at the end of a word. And the
> > only way the student can learn which to use at a given place in a
> > given word is by memorization.
>
> No. They learn that basically it's "ff" or "f" at the end of a word
> and "f" everyplace else. Except for a few exceptions that they'll
> come across and just have to memorize. Which they'll probably get
> wrong at first, but everybody expects that, English does have quite a
> few irregularities and even native speakers take a while to learn
> them, but eventually you'll see that there are
often
> patterns even there.
> In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what you
> mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile to
> memorize the few
hundred
> exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
>
> > Tell that student that English spelling is regular.
>
> If it was a Mexican Spanish speaker I might point out the way that /s/
> can be "s" or "z" or "c" or /k/ can be "c" or "qu" or sometimes even
> "k" and that doesn't really cause much problem for Spanish speakers
> once they get used to it, although it does at first for people
> learning Spanish.
...
There's no comparison. The problem with English spelling is not just
that there are three or four ways to spell /f/, but that two of them
spell other sounds as well. The problem is "though", "through",
"bough", "tough". Or just "wind".
People from other Spanish-speaking countries occasionally make fun of
Mexico [*]because "x" can represent four sounds there (/ks/, /C/, /s/,
and /S/), at least in proper names of Indian origin, but in English,
almost every letter can represent more than one sound, if you include
the null sound, and you usually can't tell for sure from the rest of
the word what sound to use.
(I can't think of any words in which "v" doesn't represent /v/ except
maybe a few obvious borrowings, or any in which "r" doesn't represent
/r/ in rhotic dialects. In non-rhotic dialects, "r" is more
complicated but I think it's predictable.)
[*] See <http://tinyurl.com/n25v> and search for "Xochimilco". The
accented letters don't work for me in the original post, but they do
in the first response.
--
Jerry Friedman
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what
> > you mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile
> > to memorize the few
>
> hundred
>
> > exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
Let's see:
rough, tough, enough, cough, laugh, laughter
words with "phone", "photo", and "graph"
sphere, philosophy
and words obviously derived from them. I'm sure that there are other
exceptions that they're likely to be called upon to write, but it's
certainly not in the "hundreds".
[snip]
> (I can't think of any words in which "v" doesn't represent /v/
> except maybe a few obvious borrowings,
Whereas in Spanish, the choice of whether to use "v" or "b" is purely
a historical accident for every word. And this leads to the "n" in
"enviar" and the "m" in "ambos" being the same sound. You just have
to know that if you spell the one "v" then the other will be "n". "J"
and "g" (in some contexts) are in free variation. And "s", "z" (in
some dialects), and "c" (in some contexts), although there is some
grammatical regularity there. The phoneme spelled "rr" must be
spelled "r" at the beginning of a word, though "r" means a different
phoneme in the middle of a word. "H" may or may not be there for any
word that begins with a vowel, and if the word begins with /i/
followed by a vowel, it might be "hi" or it might be "y" or, in some
dialects, "ll". Depending on the dialect you're learning, you may
need to learn that the past participles that end in /ao/ have a
historical "d" in them and/or that the plurals that end in /e/ have a
historical "s". Then you've got words like "kilómetro" and "koala",
which use a letter you're not really supposed to consider a letter,
but which would be wrong if spelled "quilómetro" or "coala", assuming
that you've already learned that the /k/ would be "qu" in the one case
and "c" in the other. (My mistake, the DRAE allows "quilómetro", but
not "coala". I don't think I've ever seen it spelled that way.)
Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a double
"t" that just shouldn't exist. Ditto things like "living". Then
you've got the rules about accent marks which say that you don't put
them on one-syllable words except when you do.
There's probably more, especially if you count recent borrowings I'm
not familiar with.
So what is that? b, c, d, g, h, i, j, k, ll, m, n, q, r, s, t, v, w,
x, y, and z?
It's a lot more regular than English, but I think that there's enough
there to convince a Spanish speaker that if he could learn how to
spell his own language, he should be able to handle English.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If I may digress momentarily from
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |the mainstream of this evening's
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |symposium, I'd like to sing a song
|which is completely pointless.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Tom Lehrer
(650)857-7572
Donna Richoux
[snip]
> But I confess that it never has been clear just what point they people
> who put it forward are trying to make?
Precisely. I think it behooves us to look for what people said when they
brought up "ghoti," what point were they trying to make. Rather than
speculate endlessly on what they might have meant (and then getting
tangled up in our own theories).
I looked for a while at Web entries, which vary a great deal (except
that nearly everybody attributes it to Shaw, although no one says when
or where). What I really should do is leaf through some of the books on
my shelves, especially the older ones. We don't know how far back to
look, yet, although I did see that Joyce made a reference to it in the
1939 _Finnegans Wake_. (If any ProQuest people are here, can we have a
first date? So to speak.)
I do suspect that a large part of the answer has to do with *humor*,
absurdity, a joke. Don't take it too seriously. Nobody could ever have
literally said that "ghoti" *is* an English word with a normal history.
Even if they said something *like* that they couldn't have meant it.
Irony, don't you know.
(For a tickle, try putting "ghoti" in m-w.com.)
Robert Bannister
> I'd still argue with the "o". "Physche" would be a fine example, but
> it is less effective. Why? Because most people look at it and says
> /fIS/.
On the contrary, they would be more likely to say 'faIS'.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
> ] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
>
> I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling, and
> even then you run smack into the problem of different dialects having
> different phoneme inventories.
>
Not only that, but we also use spelling variations to differentiate
between different meanings: rite, right, write, wright. It would only
add to the confusion if they were all spelt the same.
--
Rob Bannister
R J Valentine
No, the problem is that a learner hasn't yet put them on the list of
things to memorize. The learner who doesn't want to memorize too many
things has Esperanto to console him or her. The learner who does has
English.
It's tough enough to get *some* people to remember the proper mouth
positions approved by published linguists to get vowel sounds.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
(When English becomes memorized, we change it.)
Skitt
> It's tough enough to get *some* people to remember the proper mouth
> positions approved by published linguists to get vowel sounds.
It's that centipede thing, isn't it?
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Jonathan Jordan
news:3F610E9...@it.net.au...
I've never really bought this argument. You distinguish them OK when
people say them, don't you?
But there are certainly dialects (which I hear quite frequently) in which
the four words you list are not all pronounced the same.
Jonathan
Ben Zimmer
>
> I looked for a while at Web entries, which vary a great deal (except
> that nearly everybody attributes it to Shaw, although no one says when
> or where). What I really should do is leaf through some of the books on
> my shelves, especially the older ones. We don't know how far back to
> look, yet, although I did see that Joyce made a reference to it in the
> 1939 _Finnegans Wake_. (If any ProQuest people are here, can we have a
> first date? So to speak.)
ProQuest isn't much help-- nothing predates the _Finnegans Wake_ line
("Gee each owe tea eye smells fish"). The earliest cite I can find is
in a Washington Post column from Sep 14, 1948 ("The District Line" by
Bill Gold): "an indolent newspaper friend of mind ... points out that
there's a perfectly logical way to pronounce the good English word
'ghoti.'" Gold gave a similar example in a column published on Oct 11,
1948:
Our recent demonstration that phonetically, "ghoti" spells
"fish," results now in another example of absurd English
spelling.
"Psoloquoise" should be pronounced with the "ps" as in
"psychology," the "olo" as in "colonel," the "qu" as in
"bouquet," and the "oise" as in "tortoise."
The result is "circus."
And in a later column (Apr 21, 1949), Gold refers to "ghoti" as "that
classic example of English pronunciation" (no attribution given). First
attribution to Shaw is in a Jul 23, 1961 New York Times article ("The
World: Newspell").
Jerry Friedman
> jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
>
> > Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > > In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what
> > > you mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile
> > > to memorize the few
> >
> > hundred
> >
> > > exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
>
> Let's see:
>
> rough, tough, enough, cough, laugh, laughter
> words with "phone", "photo", and "graph"
> sphere, philosophy
>
> and words obviously derived from them. I'm sure that there are other
> exceptions that they're likely to be called upon to write,
sough (rare), slough (in one meaning), trough, sphinx, phalanx,
sulphur, gopher, all the "phil" and "soph" words in addition to
"philosophy", all the "phobe" words, all the "morph" words, phat
coinages like phreak, and others
> but it's
> certainly not in the "hundreds".
What I meant by in the hundreds was all the exceptions in English
spelling, as in that poem.
> [snip]
>
> > (I can't think of any words in which "v" doesn't represent /v/
> > except maybe a few obvious borrowings,
>
> Whereas in Spanish, the choice of whether to use "v" or "b" is purely
> a historical accident for every word. And this leads to the "n" in
> "enviar" and the "m" in "ambos" being the same sound. You just have
> to know that if you spell the one "v" then the other will be "n".
With a few exceptions, such as "tramv
> "J"
> and "g" (in some contexts) are in free variation. And "s", "z" (in
> some dialects), and "c" (in some contexts), although there is some
> grammatical regularity there.
It's the other way: z and soft c are always the same, but s can be
different (only in northern Spain, as far as I know).
> The phoneme spelled "rr" must be
> spelled "r" at the beginning of a word, though "r" means a different
> phoneme in the middle of a word. "H" may or may not be there for any
> word that begins with a vowel, and if the word begins with /i/
> followed by a vowel, it might be "hi" or it might be "y" or, in some
> dialects, "ll". Depending on the dialect you're learning, you may
> need to learn that the past participles that end in /ao/ have a
> historical "d" in them and/or that the plurals that end in /e/ have a
> historical "s".
I'm told that many (most?) people who do this have an [h] there. It
does make life hard for foreigners, though.
> Then you've got words like "kilómetro" and "koala",
> which use a letter you're not really supposed to consider a letter,
> but which would be wrong if spelled "quilómetro" or "coala", assuming
> that you've already learned that the /k/ would be "qu" in the one case
> and "c" in the other. (My mistake, the DRAE allows "quilómetro", but
> not "coala". I don't think I've ever seen it spelled that way.)
> Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a double
> "t" that just shouldn't exist.
The DRAE has "vatio", believe it or not. I'd have suggested "huat".
> Ditto things like "living". Then
> you've got the rules about accent marks which say that you don't put
> them on one-syllable words except when you do.
There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was made
up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
> There's probably more, especially if you count recent borrowings I'm
> not familiar with.
>
> So what is that? b, c, d, g, h, i, j, k, ll, m, n, q, r, s, t, v, w,
> x, y, and z?
>
> It's a lot more regular than English,
Okay, we agree.
> but I think that there's enough
> there to convince a Spanish speaker that if he could learn how to
> spell his own language, he should be able to handle English.
First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*. You can
learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed words,
within a week. A lifetime doesn't suffice for English--I'm still
surprised now and then.
As for learning to spell, here 's my best effort at all the ways to
spell the phonemes in Mexican Spanish, which has the maximum number of
mergers. Much of this is a repetition of what you wrote.
/b/ b, v, w (in borrowings)
/d/ d
/g/ g (not before e, i), gu (before e, i)
/p/ p
/t/ t
/k/ c (not before e, i), qu (before e, i), k (in borrowings), and
/ks/ can be spelled x as well as cs
/f/ f
/s/ c (before e, i), s, z (not before e, i, except in some proper
names), x (before a consonant, for some people)
/S/ x (in some proper names)
/C/ j, g (before e, i), x (in some proper names)
/tS/ ch
/m/ m, n (before b, m, p)
/n/ n, m (at the end of a syllable--though m is rare in that
position, and not everybody pronounces it that way)
/l/ l
/r/ r
/R/ rr (not at the beginning of a word), r (at the beginning)
/w/ hu, gu (before a, o), maybe w (in borrowings)
/j/ y, ll, hi (rare, mostly at the beginnings of words)
/a/ a
/e/ e
/i/ i, y (in old-style proper names)
/o/ o
/u/ u
Also, h is silent and d is often silent, especially at the ends of
syllables and in the suffix -ado. B and v can be silent, especially
in "bueno". I'm told the j in "reloj" is often silent.
I'll let somebody else make that table for English. :-) (Actually,
there might be some in dictionaries.) It's a lot longer, and almost
every vowel phoneme has more than one spelling, with the result that
you can misspell almost every word. In Spanish, you know exactly
where there's a potential problem, and especially in the usual case
where a word is not a proper name or an un-respelled borrowing, you
can often be perfectly confident.
But the worst thing for Spanish speakers learning English may be the
words that make no sense at all. Business? Yacht? Celt? That has
to seem like deliberate enmity (on the part of someone named Webster),
and has to make any confidence very difficult--which in turn makes
learning very difficult.
--
Jerry Friedman
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
> >
> > > Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > > > In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what
> > > > you mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile
> > > > to memorize the few
> > >
> > > hundred
> > >
> > > > exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
> >
> > Let's see:
> >
> > rough, tough, enough, cough, laugh, laughter
> > words with "phone", "photo", and "graph"
> > sphere, philosophy
> >
> > and words obviously derived from them. I'm sure that there are
> > other exceptions that they're likely to be called upon to write,
>
> sough (rare), slough (in one meaning), trough, sphinx, phalanx,
> sulphur, gopher, all the "phil" and "soph" words in addition to
> "philosophy", all the "phobe" words, all the "morph" words, phat
> coinages like phreak, and others
Not a whole lot of words there that the average English learner is
going to be called upon to write without already being familiar with
them in print. As for reading them, I'd guess that it takes the
average learner about as long to internalize that "ph" is nearly
always /f/ as it does to learn that "sh" is nearly always /S/.
> > but it's certainly not in the "hundreds".
>
> What I meant by in the hundreds was all the exceptions in English
> spelling, as in that poem.
Sure, although most of the "exceptions" are really just "less common
paradigms". But there are hundreds that are idiosyncratic. Luckily,
they're mainly very common words, like "the" and "do" and "one" and
"women", so people pick up on them while they're still sounding out
less common words.
> > [snip]
> >
> > > (I can't think of any words in which "v" doesn't represent /v/
> > > except maybe a few obvious borrowings,
> >
> > Whereas in Spanish, the choice of whether to use "v" or "b" is
> > purely a historical accident for every word. And this leads to
> > the "n" in "enviar" and the "m" in "ambos" being the same sound.
> > You just have to know that if you spell the one "v" then the other
> > will be "n".
>
> With a few exceptions, such as "tramv
What's that? It's not in the DRAE, and it "doesn't look like Spanish"
to me.
> > "J" and "g" (in some contexts) are in free variation. And "s",
> > "z" (in some dialects), and "c" (in some contexts), although there
> > is some grammatical regularity there.
>
> It's the other way: z and soft c are always the same, but s can be
> different (only in northern Spain, as far as I know).
Right. (Actually, my dictionary says "Spain, except the southwest",
rather than "northern Spain".) By "in some contexts", I just meant
"when followed by 'i' or 'e'". An analogy with "ghoti" would be to
use "c" for /s/ in other contexts.
> > The phoneme spelled "rr" must be
> > spelled "r" at the beginning of a word, though "r" means a different
> > phoneme in the middle of a word. "H" may or may not be there for any
> > word that begins with a vowel, and if the word begins with /i/
> > followed by a vowel, it might be "hi" or it might be "y" or, in some
> > dialects, "ll". Depending on the dialect you're learning, you may
> > need to learn that the past participles that end in /ao/ have a
> > historical "d" in them and/or that the plurals that end in /e/ have a
> > historical "s".
>
> I'm told that many (most?) people who do this have an [h] there. It
> does make life hard for foreigners, though.
If so, I could never hear it. Of "d", my dictionary says "There is a
tendency in modern Spanish to move from the fricative ... to zero
articulation." They don't mention the dropped terminal "s"s, but I've
certainly heard them. (Or, rather, not heard them.)
> > Then you've got words like "kilómetro" and "koala",
> > which use a letter you're not really supposed to consider a letter,
> > but which would be wrong if spelled "quilómetro" or "coala", assuming
> > that you've already learned that the /k/ would be "qu" in the one case
> > and "c" in the other. (My mistake, the DRAE allows "quilómetro", but
> > not "coala". I don't think I've ever seen it spelled that way.)
> > Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a double
> > "t" that just shouldn't exist.
>
> The DRAE has "vatio", believe it or not. I'd have suggested "huat".
I saw that. I presumed it was pronounced differently. I agree that
"huat" makes more sense.
> > Ditto things like "living". Then you've got the rules about
> > accent marks which say that you don't put them on one-syllable
> > words except when you do.
>
> There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
> perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
> made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
things like "porqué" and "porque", pronounced identically, but one was
formed from "que" and therefore doesn't have an accent mark, even
though it should, while the other was formed from "qué".
> > There's probably more, especially if you count recent borrowings
> > I'm not familiar with.
> >
> > So what is that? b, c, d, g, h, i, j, k, ll, m, n, q, r, s, t, v,
> > w, x, y, and z?
> >
> > It's a lot more regular than English,
>
> Okay, we agree.
>
> > but I think that there's enough there to convince a Spanish
> > speaker that if he could learn how to spell his own language, he
> > should be able to handle English.
>
> First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
Oh, I thought that the problem was that English was hard to spell. If
the focus is on reading, then "ghoti" is a spectacularly bad example,
because nobody will be faced with a word like that constructed by any
rules of English word-formation or borrowing.
But I'm not sure how hard English, especially the consonants, really
is to read. Especially since words are most often in context and the
reader can generally assume that the word is one he's already
encountered, at least by sound and probably by sight. There are more
overall multi-letter paradigms to learn than in many other languages,
but probably not significantly more than the arbitrary shapes of the
Japanese kana syllables, which are perfectly phonemically regular.
Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
> You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
> words, within a week. A lifetime doesn't suffice for English--I'm
> still surprised now and then.
Now and then, sure (although be honest--how many of the surprises
aren't "borrowed words").
[snip]
> But the worst thing for Spanish speakers learning English may be the
> words that make no sense at all. Business? Yacht? Celt?
A Spanish speaker is going to have problem with the fact that the
translation of "celta" is "Celt"? It can't be too much harder than
the Spanish learner trying to remember that it's "*los* celtas".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There is no such thing as bad data,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |only data from bad homes.
Palo Alto, CA 94304
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Robert Bannister
> "Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
> news:3F610E9...@it.net.au...
>
>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
>>
>>> ] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
>>>
>>> I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling,
>>> and even then you run smack into the problem of different
>>> dialects
>
> having
>
>>> different phoneme inventories.
>>>
>> Not only that, but we also use spelling variations to differentiate
>> between different meanings: rite, right, write, wright. It would
>> only add to the confusion if they were all spelt the same.
>
>
> I've never really bought this argument. You distinguish them OK when
> people say them, don't you?
That's the whole point. In conversation, either the context is clear or
you can ask what was meant. In print, there is more room for error.
>
> But there are certainly dialects (which I hear quite frequently) in
> which the four words you list are not all pronounced the same.
Interesting. I don't doubt it for a moment. I have a theory that, with
the exception of 'gh', every English word is pronounced as it is spelt
somewhere or other, and then there are all the places where words, that
are normally said as they are written, are pronounced differently.
--
Rob Bannister
Aaron J. Dinkin
I think what Jerry was referring to is that "Celt" is the only(?) English
word in which <c> before <e> is /k/ rather than /s/ that wouls trip up a
Spanish speaker encountering it in English for the first time.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I have a theory that, with the exception of 'gh', every English word is
> pronounced as it is spelt somewhere or other,
Even there: there are, I believe, parts of Scotland in which "night" is
still pronounced [nICt].
R J Valentine
For casual values of "only", sure. We've got "Celtic" (except in the
Boston area), "centum" (for linguists), and "Cepheus. Plus there are
words like "cello" and "ceorl" to get in the way of easy rules. But how
hard can a few exceptions be?
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:cep...@wicked.smart.net>
Evan Kirshenbaum
Unless he encountered it from an English speaker who pronounces the
word with /s/. MWCD10 gives both with no indication that one is
significantly less common. I learned it as /s/, although I hear it
more with /k/ these days.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If we have to re-invent the wheel,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |can we at least make it round this
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time?
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Jonathan Jordan
> Jonathan Jordan wrote:
> > "Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
> > news:3F610E9...@it.net.au...
> >
> >> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> >>> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
> >>
> >>> ] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
> >>>
> >>> I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling,
> >>> and even then you run smack into the problem of different
> >>> dialects
> >
> > having
> >
> >>> different phoneme inventories.
> >>>
> >> Not only that, but we also use spelling variations to differentiate
> >> between different meanings: rite, right, write, wright. It would
> >> only add to the confusion if they were all spelt the same.
> >
> >
> > I've never really bought this argument. You distinguish them OK when
> > people say them, don't you?
>
> That's the whole point. In conversation, either the context is clear or
> you can ask what was meant. In print, there is more room for error.
So would you say that English spelling would be improved if we went further
and spelt "right"="not left" differently from "right"="not wrong"?
I'm fairly sure that the only times I've been confused by homographs are
when they're pronounced differently (e.g. <tear>).
> > But there are certainly dialects (which I hear quite frequently) in
> > which the four words you list are not all pronounced the same.
>
> Interesting. I don't doubt it for a moment. I have a theory that, with
> the exception of 'gh', every English word is pronounced as it is spelt
> somewhere or other, and then there are all the places where words, that
> are normally said as they are written, are pronounced differently.
In some Sheffield accents, "right" rhymes with "weight" (but not "wait", I
think). It probably sounds like "rate" to outsiders. There's also the
"reet" version, of course, which is better known. I'm not sure to what
extent this affects other <ight> words, but the <gh> does seem to be
relevant.
But yes, I think it's often the case that when English has two different
ways to spell what is the same phoneme (or sequence of phonemes) for most
people, there are dialects which distinguish them. Horse/hoarse is an
obvious example, as is the above. There's also <oa> and <ow> for "long o",
which are apparently distinguished in Norfolk.
Jonathan
Robert Bannister
> "Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
> news:3F625451...@it.net.au...
>
>>Jonathan Jordan wrote:
>> > "Robert Bannister" <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message
>> > news:3F610E9...@it.net.au...
>> >
>> >> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>> >>> Bob Cunningham <exw...@earthlink.net> writes:
>> >>
>> >>> ] it's not good to have more than one way to spell a sound,
>> >>>
>> >>> I can only read that as advocating at least phonemic spelling,
>> >>> and even then you run smack into the problem of different
>> >>> dialects
>> >
>> > having
>> >
>> >>> different phoneme inventories.
>> >>>
>> >> Not only that, but we also use spelling variations to differentiate
>> >> between different meanings: rite, right, write, wright. It would
>> >> only add to the confusion if they were all spelt the same.
>> >
>> >
>> > I've never really bought this argument. You distinguish them OK when
>> > people say them, don't you?
>>
>>That's the whole point. In conversation, either the context is clear or
>>you can ask what was meant. In print, there is more room for error.
>
>
> So would you say that English spelling would be improved if we went further
> and spelt "right"="not left" differently from "right"="not wrong"?
Might have been better, had it happened, but it's too late now.
>
> I'm fairly sure that the only times I've been confused by homographs are
> when they're pronounced differently (e.g. <tear>).
And 'read', 'lead' (the latter occasionally confused on Usenet with
'led'). Then there're the ones that are spelt differently, but which
people get wrong so often: there/their, its/it's, ones/one's,
your/you're - so maybe the spelling is of no help at all.
--
Rob Bannister
Javi
> jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
>
>
>>Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
>>
>>>"z" (in some dialects), and "c" (in some contexts), although there
>>>is some grammatical regularity there.
>>
>>It's the other way: z and soft c are always the same, but s can be
>>different (only in northern Spain, as far as I know).
>
>
> Right. (Actually, my dictionary says "Spain, except the southwest",
> rather than "northern Spain".)
One pronunciation is called "seseo" (soft c, z and s are pronounced
[s]), the other one is called "ceceo"(soft c, z and s are pronounced
[th] as in "thing"). "Ceceo" is common in southwestern Spain, except big
cities as Seville, Cadiz, Jerez and some others, where "seseo" is
predominant. "Ceceo" is a rural trend, and "seseo" is urban. As a result
of this, there is also a class difference that complicates the matter.
"Seseo" is predominant in most American Spanish dialects.
> By "in some contexts", I just meant
> "when followed by 'i' or 'e'". An analogy with "ghoti" would be to
> use "c" for /s/ in other contexts.
>>>The phoneme spelled "rr" must be
>>>spelled "r" at the beginning of a word, though "r" means a different
>>>phoneme in the middle of a word. "H" may or may not be there for any
>>>word that begins with a vowel, and if the word begins with /i/
>>>followed by a vowel, it might be "hi" or it might be "y" or, in some
>>>dialects, "ll". Depending on the dialect you're learning, you may
>>>need to learn that the past participles that end in /ao/ have a
>>>historical "d" in them and/or that the plurals that end in /e/ have a
>>>historical "s".
>>
>>I'm told that many (most?) people who do this have an [h] there. It
>>does make life hard for foreigners, though.
>
>
> If so, I could never hear it.
It is not strange, as your mother tongue doesn't have [h] in final
position. In my case, it took me years to differentiate between the
voiced and voiceless [s], as I always heard the same consonant: in
Spanish the difference between voiced and voiceles [s] exists, but is
not phonemic. People who have used final [h] since they were child can
hear it, as myself. Anyway, the thing is not as simple as to say "final
[s] is pronounced [h]"; I'd say that, when a word ends in [s] and the
next word begins with a plosive consonant, there is assimilation, for
instance, "los perros" is pronounced "lop perroh", "los gatos" is
pronounced "log gatoh", etc. Also, there is a change in the quality of
the final vowel before unpronounced [s], which is pronounced more open
in the plural: the vowel is different in "lo" and in "lo(s)".
> Of "d", my dictionary says "There is a
> tendency in modern Spanish to move from the fricative ... to zero
> articulation."
Indeed. But it is a matter of speech level; formal speech do not lose
intervocalic [d]; in non-formal speech it is quite common to drop it in
the "-ado" participles, but not so common in the "-ido" participles,
because many people regard it as a marker of non-educated people.
> They don't mention the dropped terminal "s"s, but I've
> certainly heard them. (Or, rather, not heard them.)
>
>
>>>Then you've got words like "kilómetro" and "koala",
>>>which use a letter you're not really supposed to consider a letter,
>>>but which would be wrong if spelled "quilómetro" or "coala", assuming
>>>that you've already learned that the /k/ would be "qu" in the one case
>>>and "c" in the other. (My mistake, the DRAE allows "quilómetro", but
>>>not "coala". I don't think I've ever seen it spelled that way.)
>>>Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a double
>>>"t" that just shouldn't exist.
>>
>>The DRAE has "vatio", believe it or not. I'd have suggested "huat".
>
>
> I saw that. I presumed it was pronounced differently. I agree that
> "huat" makes more sense.
Not from the Spanish viewpoint: words ending in [t] are rare in Spanish.
I could accept "huatio", but "vatio" is nearer to "watt".
>>>Ditto things like "living". Then you've got the rules about
>>>accent marks which say that you don't put them on one-syllable
>>>words except when you do.
>>
>>There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
>>perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
>>made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
>
>
> Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
> things like "porqué" and "porque", pronounced identically, but one was
> formed from "que" and therefore doesn't have an accent mark, even
> though it should, while the other was formed from "qué".
The words are written "por qué" and "porque". The first is used for
indirect question clauses (why), the second for causal clauses (because).
The pronunciation is different, as the accent mark shows.
>>>There's probably more, especially if you count recent borrowings
>>>I'm not familiar with.
>>>
>>>So what is that? b, c, d, g, h, i, j, k, ll, m, n, q, r, s, t, v,
>>>w, x, y, and z?
>>>
>>>It's a lot more regular than English,
>>
>>Okay, we agree.
>>
>>
>>>but I think that there's enough there to convince a Spanish
>>>speaker that if he could learn how to spell his own language, he
>>>should be able to handle English.
I can handle written English, but it has nothing to do with my ability
to spell my mother language, Spanish.
>>First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
From my viewpoint, it is harder to *speak* it.
> Oh, I thought that the problem was that English was hard to spell. If
> the focus is on reading, then "ghoti" is a spectacularly bad example,
> because nobody will be faced with a word like that constructed by any
> rules of English word-formation or borrowing.
>
> But I'm not sure how hard English, especially the consonants, really
> is to read. Especially since words are most often in context and the
> reader can generally assume that the word is one he's already
> encountered, at least by sound and probably by sight.
Having found a word before in a written text does not help at all with
its pronunciation.
There are more
> overall multi-letter paradigms to learn than in many other languages,
> but probably not significantly more than the arbitrary shapes of the
> Japanese kana syllables, which are perfectly phonemically regular.
No, I don't agree. Reading (and pronouncing) Japanese kana characters is
easier than reading (and pronouncing) English words. Of course, Kanji is
a bit more difficult.
> Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
> the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
>
>
>>You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
>>words, within a week.
Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
> A lifetime doesn't suffice for English--I'm
>>still surprised now and then.
>
>
> Now and then, sure (although be honest--how many of the surprises
> aren't "borrowed words").
>
> [snip]
>
>
>>But the worst thing for Spanish speakers learning English may be the
>>words that make no sense at all. Business? Yacht? Celt?
>
>
> A Spanish speaker is going to have problem with the fact that the
> translation of "celta" is "Celt"?
Be it pronounced [selt] or [kelt], I don't think I have any problem
recongnising it, provided it would be in context.
> It can't be too much harder than
> the Spanish learner trying to remember that it's "*los* celtas".
And "los turistas", "los deportistas", "los periodistas" and many
others. Once it is known that some words from Greek origin end in /a/
but are masculine, it is easy.
--
Saludos cordiales
Javi
The right of the people to keep and arm bears shall not be infringed.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> > jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
> >>Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
>
> One pronunciation is called "seseo" (soft c, z and s are pronounced
> [s]), the other one is called "ceceo"(soft c, z and s are pronounced
> [th] as in "thing"). "Ceceo" is common in southwestern Spain, except
> big cities as Seville, Cadiz, Jerez and some others, where "seseo"
> is predominant. "Ceceo" is a rural trend, and "seseo" is urban. As a
> result of this, there is also a class difference that complicates
> the matter.
So if, say a Mexican writer were writing about northern Spain, he
would write "ceceo", and pronounce it with [T], even though that
spelling, for him, would otherwise be [s]?
> >>>Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a
> >>>double "t" that just shouldn't exist.
> >>
> >>The DRAE has "vatio", believe it or not. I'd have suggested "huat".
> > I saw that. I presumed it was pronounced differently. I agree that
> > "huat" makes more sense.
>
> Not from the Spanish viewpoint: words ending in [t] are rare in Spanish.
> I could accept "huatio", but "vatio" is nearer to "watt".
So how is "watt" pronounced in Spanish? I presumed that it was /uat/,
as opposed to /vatio/ for "vatio".
> >>There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
> >>perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
> >>made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
> > Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
>
> > things like "porqué" and "porque", pronounced identically, but one was
> > formed from "que" and therefore doesn't have an accent mark, even
> > though it should, while the other was formed from "qué".
>
> The words are written "por qué"
Of course it is. I don't know how that space disappeared. Although
looking at the DRAE, they also list "el porqué" colloquially for
"reason, cause, or motive".
> and "porque". The first is used for indirect question clauses (why),
> the second for causal clauses (because).
>
> The pronunciation is different, as the accent mark shows.
Okay, this obviously shows that it's been too long since I've spoken
Spanish at all regularly, but I don't recall a first-syllable accent
on "porque", which is what the lack of accent mark would dictate.
Another pair is "solo" (alone) and "sólo" (only)--although the DRAE
allows both "solo" and "sólo" for the adverb.
There may be rules, but from a learner's point of view, it's pretty
much "the basic rules apply except when they don't". Looking at a
list like
dé give (subj. of dar) de of, from
él he, him el the
más more, most mas but
mí me mi my
sé I know (saber), be (ser) se himself, herself, etc.
sí yes, indeed si if, whether
té tea te you, yourself
tú you tu your
http://www.amen.net/lb/english/accents.htm
it's probably the rare student who can do better than simply memorize
which one takes the accent. ("Té" presumably gets the accent because
"te" is a pronoun, and pronouns trump nouns (but not determiners)--but
"te", without an accent, is also a noun meaning the letter "T".)
> >>First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
>
> From my viewpoint, it is harder to *speak* it.
You didn't hear the kids in my classes trying to speak Spanish.
> > Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
> > the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
> >
>
> >>You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
> >>words, within a week.
>
> Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
> any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
> Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
How is, for example, "el living" pronounced? It ends in "g", so
presumably the accent would be on the second syllable by rule, but
I've always assumed that it's on the first.
> > It can't be too much harder than
> > the Spanish learner trying to remember that it's "*los* celtas".
>
> And "los turistas", "los deportistas", "los periodistas" and many
> others. Once it is known that some words from Greek origin end in /a/
> but are masculine, it is easy.
But that's like saying that once you know that most words of Greek
origin in English spell /f/ as "ph", it's easy. Most people aren't
that good at etymology in their own language, let alone another. In
any case, the DRAE derives "turista" from English, which got "tour"
from Middle French. They also don't mention Greek in the etymology of
"deportar" or "celta", deriving both from Latin without further note.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |In the beginning, there were no
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |reasons, there were only causes.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 | Daniel Dennet
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I could accept "huatio", but "vatio" is nearer to "watt".
How is "vatio" nearer to "watt"? I mean the spelling is a little closer,
since "vatio" doesn't have an <h>, but "huatio" would be much closer in
pronunciation, wouldn't it?
Ross Howard
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrought:
[snip]
>So how is "watt" pronounced in Spanish? I presumed that it was /uat/,
>as opposed to /vatio/ for "vatio".
It's simply not pronounced -- at least not in electrical contexts. A
Spaniard seeing "250 W" will always pronounce it *doscientos cincuenta
vatios*. (The surname would probably be pronounced /uat/, though,
yes.)
>> >>There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
>> >>perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
>> >>made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
>> > Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
>>
>> > things like "porqué" and "porque", pronounced identically, but one was
>> > formed from "que" and therefore doesn't have an accent mark, even
>> > though it should, while the other was formed from "qué".
>>
>> The words are written "por qué"
>
>Of course it is. I don't know how that space disappeared. Although
>looking at the DRAE, they also list "el porqué" colloquially for
>"reason, cause, or motive".
>
>> and "porque". The first is used for indirect question clauses (why),
>> the second for causal clauses (because).
>>
>> The pronunciation is different, as the accent mark shows.
>
>Okay, this obviously shows that it's been too long since I've spoken
>Spanish at all regularly, but I don't recall a first-syllable accent
>on "porque", which is what the lack of accent mark would dictate.
Yet that's how it's pronounced. Your lack of recall is quite
understandable, though, because in rapid speech the two syllables of
*porque* -- just like those of "because" in English -- often receive
equal weak/non-stress, which is probably what you've been hearing
(e.g., *me voy porque me aburro* = *me VOY porque me aBUrro*).
>Another pair is "solo" (alone) and "sólo" (only)--although the DRAE
>allows both "solo" and "sólo" for the adverb.
Thereby muddying a distinction that was previously quite clear:
*Medito sólo para mejorar mi concentración*
(i.e. there's nothing religious about it).
*Medito solo para mejorar mi concentración*
(i.e. I get distracted if anyone else is in the room)
>> >>You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
>> >>words, within a week.
>>
>> Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
>> any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
>> Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
These days accent marks that are, strictly speaking, required are
hardly ever added these days to borrowed words (you hardly ever see
"párking", "motocróss", "wíndsurf" or "internét", for example --
although there are exceptions: "un córner" in soccer, for example).
Also, if you happen to know that "Washington" and "whisk(e)y" (or, in
its risible DRAE dead-horse spelling: *guisqui*) are pronounced much
as in English, then you may be misled into pronouncing "water"
(strictly speaking, *wáter*, but see above) with a "w", when it
actually should be [''Bater] (forgive me if B isn't the AASCI IPA
version of the beta symbol).
>How is, for example, "el living" pronounced? It ends in "g", so
>presumably the accent would be on the second syllable by rule, but
>I've always assumed that it's on the first.
You're right. See above.
***********
Ross Howard
Javi
news:7k4bjd...@hpl.hp.com gave utterance as follows:
> Javi <poziNO...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>> jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
>>>> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
>>
>> One pronunciation is called "seseo" (soft c, z and s are pronounced
>> [s]), the other one is called "ceceo"(soft c, z and s are pronounced
>> [th] as in "thing"). "Ceceo" is common in southwestern Spain, except
>> big cities as Seville, Cadiz, Jerez and some others, where "seseo"
>> is predominant. "Ceceo" is a rural trend, and "seseo" is urban. As a
>> result of this, there is also a class difference that complicates
>> the matter.
>
> So if, say a Mexican writer were writing about northern Spain, he
> would write "ceceo", and pronounce it with [T], even though that
> spelling, for him, would otherwise be [s]?
I don't think so. "Ceceo" and "seseo" are not the norm. Maybe I didn't
explain it well.
I'll try again: there are three ways of pronouncing [s] and [T] in Spanish.
The first is the normal way, where these sounds are pronounced differently;
this is the norm in Central and Northern Spain. The other two ways are
"seseo" (the sounds [s] and [T] are both pronounced [s], this is typical of
the American varieties of Spanish and also of some regions of Spain) and
"ceceo" (the sounds [s] and [T] are both pronounced [T], this is typical of
the southwestern rural Spain).
So, going back to your question, a Mexican writer writing about northern
Spain would NOT use "ceceo" nor "seseo", as these phenomena do not apppear
in northern Spain. Also, a Mexican writer is supposed to speak with "seseo"
but is also supposed to know when to write "s" or "c" or "z".
This phenomenon, the reduction of [s] and [T], is ancient, and is one step
beyond the reduction of sibilants that took place in the 14th and 15th
centuries: medieval Spanish had several sibilants sounds [S], [Z], etc. that
disappeared, and in Castilla the phenomenon stopped here, but in other
regions the phenomenon progressed one step beyond and reduced also [s] and
[T].
>>>>> Similarly "watt", which isn't, I don't know, "ouat" and has a
>>>>> double "t" that just shouldn't exist.
>>>>
>>>> The DRAE has "vatio", believe it or not. I'd have suggested
>>>> "huat".
>>> I saw that. I presumed it was pronounced differently. I agree that
>>> "huat" makes more sense.
>>
>> Not from the Spanish viewpoint: words ending in [t] are rare in
>> Spanish. I could accept "huatio", but "vatio" is nearer to "watt".
>
> So how is "watt" pronounced in Spanish? I presumed that it was /uat/,
> as opposed to /vatio/ for "vatio".
The word "watt" is not pronounced in Spanish. Of course, nowadays most
Spaniards know that English "w" is pronounced as a consonantic "u", but the
term "vatio" was adopted in Spanish in the 19th century, when English was
little known. My guess is that in that century German was a much known
language in Spain than English, and probably the engineers who adopted the
word knew German but not English: in German, "watt" is written as in
English, but pronounced [vat].
>>>> There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
>>>> perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
>>>> made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
>>> Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
>>
>>> things like "porqué" and "porque", pronounced identically, but one
>>> was formed from "que" and therefore doesn't have an accent mark,
>>> even though it should, while the other was formed from "qué".
>>
>> The words are written "por qué"
>
> Of course it is. I don't know how that space disappeared. Although
> looking at the DRAE, they also list "el porqué" colloquially for
> "reason, cause, or motive".
>
>> and "porque". The first is used for indirect question clauses (why),
>> the second for causal clauses (because).
>>
>> The pronunciation is different, as the accent mark shows.
>
> Okay, this obviously shows that it's been too long since I've spoken
> Spanish at all regularly, but I don't recall a first-syllable accent
> on "porque", which is what the lack of accent mark would dictate.
But it is: "porque" ['porke], "por qué" [por'ke].
> Another pair is "solo" (alone) and "sólo" (only)--although the DRAE
> allows both "solo" and "sólo" for the adverb.
Yes, but both are pronounced ['solo]. The accent mark is used to
differentiate between the adjective "solo" and the adverb "sólo", but
nowadays the accent mark is compulsory only in the few cases where both
words could be mistaken.
> There may be rules, but from a learner's point of view, it's pretty
> much "the basic rules apply except when they don't". Looking at a
> list like
>
> dé give (subj. of dar) de of, from
> él he, him el the
> más more, most mas but
> mí me mi my
> sé I know (saber), be (ser) se himself, herself, etc.
> sí yes, indeed si if, whether
> té tea te you, yourself
> tú you tu your
>
> http://www.amen.net/lb/english/accents.htm
>
> it's probably the rare student who can do better than simply memorize
> which one takes the accent. ("Té" presumably gets the accent because
> "te" is a pronoun, and pronouns trump nouns (but not determiners)--but
> "te", without an accent, is also a noun meaning the letter "T".)
As a rule, monosyllables words are accented when there are two identical
monosyllabic words with different meaning. It is not hard, for the native
speaker, to learn the rule: the words that take accent mark are tonic words.
>>>> First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
>>
>> From my viewpoint, it is harder to *speak* it.
>
> You didn't hear the kids in my classes trying to speak Spanish.
But I've heard Spanish kids trying to speak English. Anyway, my point was
that I learned first written English, and then I tried to speak it. Speaking
and understanding spoken English was a lot harder for me that reading and
writing English.
>>> Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
>>> the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
>>>
>>
>>>> You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few
>>>> borrowed words, within a week.
>>
>> Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
>> any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
>> Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
>
> How is, for example, "el living" pronounced? It ends in "g", so
> presumably the accent would be on the second syllable by rule, but
> I've always assumed that it's on the first.
Yes, it is ['livin]. But it follows the normal rules of Spanish
pronunciation: in final position, the only nasal allowed is [n], so words
like "álbum" and "living" are pronounced ['albun] and ['livin]. Living does
not take accent mark becuase it is quite new in Spanish, it is not in the
DRAE; I guess that if it is accepted by the RAE it will be written "livin"
or "líving".
>>> It can't be too much harder than
>>> the Spanish learner trying to remember that it's "*los* celtas".
>>
>> And "los turistas", "los deportistas", "los periodistas" and many
>> others. Once it is known that some words from Greek origin end in /a/
>> but are masculine, it is easy.
>
> But that's like saying that once you know that most words of Greek
> origin in English spell /f/ as "ph", it's easy. Most people aren't
> that good at etymology in their own language, let alone another.
You are right. Sometimes I lose the perspective. Of course, few people know
ancient Greek and Latin. But my point was that there are many Spanish words
that end in "-ta" but are masculine, and are not rare words. So, for someone
whith a certain knowledge of Spanish, "los celtas" is not strange, as they
are not "los deportistas", "los comunistas", etc.
> In
> any case, the DRAE derives "turista" from English, which got "tour"
> from Middle French. They also don't mention Greek in the etymology of
> "deportar" or "celta", deriving both from Latin without further note.
I don't know why you mention the verb "deportar". "Celta" is a Celtic word
that was adopted by the Greeks, and hence it passed to Latin, I'm sure; I
remember very well the beginning of "De bello Gallico": "Gallia is omnis
divisa in partis tris, quarum unam habitant.... tertiam qui ipsorum lingua
Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur", which means "Gallia is divided in three
parts, of wich one is dwelled by.... the third (is dwelled) by whom in their
own language are called "Celtae", in our (language) (are called) "Galli"."
The word "tourist" comes from "tour" plus the anglicized Greek ending "-ist"
("-ista" in Greek, Latin, and Spanish), as in psychiatrist, journalist,
communist, etc. This ending was used to derive action nouns from abstract
nouns formed with "-ism" ("-ismos" in Greek, "-ismus" in Latin, "-ismo" in
Spanish), with some exceptions (there is no "psychiatrism" but
"psychiatry").
--
Saludos cordiales
Javi
Conjunction of an irregular verb:
I am firm.
You are obstinate.
He is a pig-headed fool.
Javi
news:oF49b.442561$YN5.299351@sccrnsc01 gave utterance as follows:
Please, read my answer to Evan. I try to explain it there.
Javi
news:bk48tu$ok1p5$1...@ID-177688.news.uni-berlin.de gave utterance as follows:
>
> The word "tourist" comes from "tour" plus the anglicized Greek ending
> "-ist" ("-ista" in Greek, Latin, and Spanish), as in psychiatrist,
> journalist, communist, etc. This ending was used to derive action
> nouns
I meant "concrete actor nouns".
Ross Howard
wrought:
>These days accent marks that are, strictly speaking, required are
>hardly ever added these days to borrowed words (you hardly ever see
>"párking", "motocróss", "wíndsurf" or "internét", for example --
Oops. Kill that last one -- it doesn't need an accent.
***********
Ross Howard
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> in
>
> > Javi <poziNO...@hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> >>> jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
> >>>> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> >>
> >> One pronunciation is called "seseo" (soft c, z and s are
> >> pronounced [s]), the other one is called "ceceo"(soft c, z and s
> >> are pronounced [th] as in "thing"). "Ceceo" is common in
> >> southwestern Spain, except big cities as Seville, Cadiz, Jerez
> >> and some others, where "seseo" is predominant. "Ceceo" is a rural
> >> trend, and "seseo" is urban. As a result of this, there is also a
> >> class difference that complicates the matter.
> >
> > So if, say a Mexican writer were writing about northern Spain, he
> > would write "ceceo", and pronounce it with [T], even though that
> > spelling, for him, would otherwise be [s]?
>
> I don't think so. "Ceceo" and "seseo" are not the norm. Maybe I
> didn't explain it well.
Sorry. My poor reading comprehension. I didn't notice the "and s" in
the description of "ceceo", and thought that you were describing
dialects in which c/z was distinguished from s.
[snip]
> So, going back to your question, a Mexican writer writing about
> northern Spain would NOT use "ceceo" nor "seseo", as these phenomena
> do not apppear in northern Spain. Also, a Mexican writer is supposed
> to speak with "seseo" but is also supposed to know when to write "s"
> or "c" or "z".
But let's push on this. If a Mexican writer read that sentence aloud,
how would he pronounce "ceceo"? Does he use the [T] to distinguish it
from "seseo" even though that isn't in his normal phoneme inventory?
[snip]
> The word "watt" is not pronounced in Spanish.
Ah. That wasn't clear from the dictionary entry, which just said
watt.
(De J. Watt, 1736-1819, ingeniero escocés).
1. m. Electr. vatio.
I figured that it meant that some people actually wrote and spoke
about "wattes".
[snip]
> > Okay, this obviously shows that it's been too long since I've spoken
> > Spanish at all regularly, but I don't recall a first-syllable accent
> > on "porque", which is what the lack of accent mark would dictate.
>
> But it is: "porque" ['porke], "por qué" [por'ke].
Sigh. Sr. Carvajal, if you're reading this, «Lo siento».
> > Another pair is "solo" (alone) and "sólo" (only)--although the DRAE
> > allows both "solo" and "sólo" for the adverb.
>
> Yes, but both are pronounced ['solo]. The accent mark is used to
> differentiate between the adjective "solo" and the adverb "sólo",
> but nowadays the accent mark is compulsory only in the few cases
> where both words could be mistaken.
Exactly. It's one of those cases where having two different ways to
write words that are pronounced identically in speech is helpful, even
if you do have to arbitrarily memorize which one goes which way.
> > There may be rules, but from a learner's point of view, it's
> > pretty much "the basic rules apply except when they don't".
> > Looking at a list like
> >
> > dé give (subj. of dar) de of, from
> > él he, him el the
> > más more, most mas but
> > mí me mi my
> > sé I know (saber), be (ser) se himself, herself, etc.
> > sí yes, indeed si if, whether
> > té tea te you, yourself
> > tú you tu your
> >
> > http://www.amen.net/lb/english/accents.htm
> >
> > it's probably the rare student who can do better than simply
> > memorize which one takes the accent. ("Té" presumably gets the
> > accent because "te" is a pronoun, and pronouns trump nouns (but
> > not determiners)--but "te", without an accent, is also a noun
> > meaning the letter "T".)
>
> As a rule, monosyllables words are accented when there are two
> identical monosyllabic words with different meaning. It is not hard,
> for the native speaker, to learn the rule: the words that take
> accent mark are tonic words.
"Tonic words"? (I guess tea is a tonic in some sense.) Looking at
the list, nouns and verbs are more tonic than prepositions and
pronouns (and letters of the alphabet), pronouns are more tonic than
determiners, nominal and accusative pronouns are more tonic than
genetive pronouns, interjections and adverbs are more tonic than
conjunctions.
> >>>> First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
> >>
> >> From my viewpoint, it is harder to *speak* it.
> >
> > You didn't hear the kids in my classes trying to speak Spanish.
>
> But I've heard Spanish kids trying to speak English. Anyway, my
> point was that I learned first written English, and then I tried to
> speak it. Speaking and understanding spoken English was a lot harder
> for me that reading and writing English.
Oh, yeah. That goes both ways. I can (at times) follow a newspaper
in Spanish, if haltingly, but listening to people speak at speed was a
lot harder to learn and the ability disappeared much faster, and being
able to draw on the vocabulary to produce grammatical utterances on
the fly is hardest of all. But I wonder how much that correlates with
one's literacy level in one's native language. There are lots of
Spanish speakers here who are more comfortable speaking English than
reading it.
> >>> Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
> >>> the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
> >>
> >>>> You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few
> >>>> borrowed words, within a week.
> >>
> >> Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
> >> any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
> >> Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
> >
> > How is, for example, "el living" pronounced? It ends in "g", so
> > presumably the accent would be on the second syllable by rule, but
> > I've always assumed that it's on the first.
>
> Yes, it is ['livin]. But it follows the normal rules of Spanish
> pronunciation: in final position, the only nasal allowed is [n], so
> words like "álbum" and "living" are pronounced ['albun] and
> ['livin].
I did not know that. I assumed that it was either [N] or [ng].
> Living does not take accent mark becuase it is quite new in Spanish,
It can't be all that new. I first came across it when reading
_Mafalda_, and those date from the 1960s.
> it is not in the DRAE; I guess that if it is accepted by the RAE it
> will be written "livin" or "líving".
Nope. The on-line version has it:
living.
(Voz ingl.).
1. m. cuarto de estar.
> > In
> > any case, the DRAE derives "turista" from English, which got "tour"
> > from Middle French. They also don't mention Greek in the etymology of
> > "deportar" or "celta", deriving both from Latin without further note.
>
> I don't know why you mention the verb "deportar".
The DRAE seems to follow the normal dictionary convention of only for
the entry that would come first on the printed page when they come
together. You mention "deportista", which they define as
deportista.
1. com. Persona que por afición o profesionalmente practica algún
deporte.
2. com. Persona aficionada a los deportes o entendida en
ellos. U. t. c. adj.
So I looked back at "deporte", whose etymology is give as "de
_deportar_". So I looked back at "deportar", which was presumably how
the whole chain came into Spanish.
> "Celta" is a Celtic word that was adopted by the Greeks, and hence
> it passed to Latin, I'm sure; I remember very well the beginning of
> "De bello Gallico": "Gallia is omnis divisa in partis tris, quarum
> unam habitant.... tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli
> appellantur", which means "Gallia
"Gaul" in English.
> is divided in three parts, of wich one is dwelled by.... the third
> (is dwelled) by whom in their own language are called "Celtae", in
> our (language) (are called) "Galli"."
Where does that mention Greek? That's a Latin speaker writing in
Latin. He says that the Celts (by which he meant the continental
ones, I believe, rather than the ones on the islands) call themselves
Celts.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |_Bauplan_ is just the German word
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |for blueprint. Typically, one
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |switches languages to indicate
|profundity.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Richard Dawkins
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The DRAE seems to follow the normal dictionary convention of only
including the etymology
> for the entry that would come first on the printed page when they
> come together.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The Society for the Preservation of
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Tithesis commends your ebriated and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |scrutable use of delible and
|defatigable, which are gainly, sipid
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |and couth. We are gruntled and
(650)857-7572 |consolate that you have the ertia and
|eptitude to choose such putably
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |pensible tithesis, which we parage.
Javi
> "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> [snip]
>
>> So, going back to your question, a Mexican writer writing about
>> northern Spain would NOT use "ceceo" nor "seseo", as these phenomena
>> do not apppear in northern Spain. Also, a Mexican writer is supposed
>> to speak with "seseo" but is also supposed to know when to write "s"
>> or "c" or "z".
>
> But let's push on this. If a Mexican writer read that sentence aloud,
> how would he pronounce "ceceo"? Does he use the [T] to distinguish it
> from "seseo" even though that isn't in his normal phoneme inventory?
How can I know? I'm not a Mexican writer. My guess is that he would use [T],
though it is not in his normal phoneme inventory, because it is known to any
educated Spanish speaker and he has to distinguish the pronunciation of
"seseo" and "ceceo".
> [snip]
>
>>> There may be rules, but from a learner's point of view, it's
>>> pretty much "the basic rules apply except when they don't".
>>> Looking at a list like
>>>
>>> dé give (subj. of dar) de of, from
>>> él he, him el the
>>> más more, most mas but
>>> mí me mi my
>>> sé I know (saber), be (ser) se himself, herself, etc.
>>> sí yes, indeed si if, whether
>>> té tea te you, yourself
>>> tú you tu your
>>>
>>> http://www.amen.net/lb/english/accents.htm
>>>
>>> it's probably the rare student who can do better than simply
>>> memorize which one takes the accent. ("Té" presumably gets the
>>> accent because "te" is a pronoun, and pronouns trump nouns (but
>>> not determiners)--but "te", without an accent, is also a noun
>>> meaning the letter "T".)
>>
>> As a rule, monosyllables words are accented when there are two
>> identical monosyllabic words with different meaning. It is not hard,
>> for the native speaker, to learn the rule: the words that take
>> accent mark are tonic words.
>
> "Tonic words"? (I guess tea is a tonic in some sense.)
I was doubtful about the expression "tonic words", but M-W told me that
"tonic" in English can mean:
4 of a syllable : bearing a principal stress or accent
I supposed that "stressed words" would have been better.
> Looking at
> the list, nouns and verbs are more tonic than prepositions and
> pronouns (and letters of the alphabet), pronouns are more tonic than
> determiners, nominal and accusative pronouns are more tonic than
> genetive pronouns, interjections and adverbs are more tonic than
> conjunctions.
I don't believe it is a matter of more or less tonic monosyllabic words.
Some words are stressed, and some are not. Any native speaker knows when to
stress a word or not. This is why I wrote that, for the native speaker, it
is not hard to learn the rule.
>> Living does not take accent mark becuase it is quite new in Spanish,
>
> It can't be all that new. I first came across it when reading
> _Mafalda_, and those date from the 1960s.
Forty years is nothing for the RAE.
>> it is not in the DRAE; I guess that if it is accepted by the RAE it
>> will be written "livin" or "líving".
>
> Nope. The on-line version has it:
>
> living.
> (Voz ingl.).
> 1. m. cuarto de estar.
You are right. My paper DRAE (1992 edition) do not have it, but it is in the
new (2001 edition) of the DRAE.
>>> In
>>> any case, the DRAE derives "turista" from English, which got "tour"
>>> from Middle French. They also don't mention Greek in the etymology
>>> of "deportar" or "celta", deriving both from Latin without further
>>> note.
>>
>> I don't know why you mention the verb "deportar".
>
> The DRAE seems to follow the normal dictionary convention of only for
> the entry that would come first on the printed page when they come
> together. You mention "deportista", which they define as
>
> deportista.
>
> 1. com. Persona que por afición o profesionalmente practica algún
> deporte.
> 2. com. Persona aficionada a los deportes o entendida en
> ellos. U. t. c. adj.
>
> So I looked back at "deporte", whose etymology is give as "de
> _deportar_". So I looked back at "deportar", which was presumably how
> the whole chain came into Spanish.
No, no. "Deportista" is not related to "deportar" but to "deporte" (sport),
so "deportista" means "sportsperson" ("el deportista" = "the sportsman", "la
deportista" = "the sportswoman"). I don't understand why the DRAE says that
"deporte" comes from "deportar"; it is evident for me that they are not
related. I have to look at the Corominas etymological dictionay, maybe
tomorrow I can do it.
>> "Celta" is a Celtic word that was adopted by the Greeks, and hence
>> it passed to Latin, I'm sure; I remember very well the beginning of
>> "De bello Gallico": "Gallia is omnis divisa in partis tris, quarum
>> unam habitant.... tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli
>> appellantur", which means "Gallia
>
> "Gaul" in English.
Thank you.
>> is divided in three parts, of wich one is dwelled by.... the third
>> (is dwelled) by whom in their own language are called "Celtae", in
>> our (language) (are called) "Galli"."
>
> Where does that mention Greek? That's a Latin speaker writing in
> Latin. He says that the Celts (by which he meant the continental
> ones, I believe, rather than the ones on the islands) call themselves
> Celts.
OK. Julius Caesar does not mention Greek, he only says that "Celtae" is a
Celtic word equivalent to Latin "Galli". This shows that the word "Celt" is
not of Latin origin, because Romans used the word "Galli". Anyway, I know
that the word "Celtae" was in ancient Greek "Keltai" and it was used as
equivalent to Latin "Galli". You can take my word or not, or, if you are
interested, do your own investigation.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The carbon unit using the name Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> in news:brtmhw...@hpl.hp.com gave
> utterance as follows:
>
> > "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > But let's push on this. If a Mexican writer read that sentence
> > aloud, how would he pronounce "ceceo"? Does he use the [T] to
> > distinguish it from "seseo" even though that isn't in his normal
> > phoneme inventory?
>
> How can I know? I'm not a Mexican writer. My guess is that he would
> use [T], though it is not in his normal phoneme inventory, because
> it is known to any educated Spanish speaker and he has to
> distinguish the pronunciation of "seseo" and "ceceo".
Neither of the two Mexicans in my lab appear to be around at the
moment. I'll try to remember to ask them next time I see them. I
suspect that you're correct that they will use [T], and that this is
another of those "you just have to know" spellings.
> No, no. "Deportista" is not related to "deportar" but to "deporte"
> (sport), so "deportista" means "sportsperson" ("el deportista" =
> "the sportsman", "la deportista" = "the sportswoman"). I don't
> understand why the DRAE says that "deporte" comes from "deportar";
> it is evident for me that they are not related. I have to look at
> the Corominas etymological dictionay, maybe tomorrow I can do it.
Whereas I always assumed that they were related. The English
cognates, "sport" ("deporte") and "disport" ("deportar") are certainly
related, with the former coming from the latter.
Actually, if you push on it, that might not be true. The DRAE says
deportar.
(Del lat. deportare).
1. tr. Desterrar a alguien a un lugar, por lo regular extranjero,
y confinarlo allí por razones políticas o como castigo.
2. prnl. ant. Descansar, reposar, hacer mansión.
3. prnl. ant. Divertirse, recrearse.
The last one is equivalent English "disport". The first two are
equivalent to English "deport". The second and third appear to be
marked "antiguo" or "anticuado", which I take to be "archaic",
although I'm sure that I've come across the last one.
MWCD10 derives the two English words differently:
Main Entry: 2disport
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French _desporter_, from
_des_- _dis_- + _porter_ to carry, from Latin _portare_
-- more at FARE
Main Entry: de·port
Etymology: Middle French _deporter_, from Latin _deportare_ to
carry away, from _de_- + _portare_ to carry -- more at
FARE
So perhaps the DRAE is playing a little fast and loose and the third
sense of "deportar" came from a prior "desportar".
> >> is divided in three parts, of wich one is dwelled by.... the
> >> third (is dwelled) by whom in their own language are called
> >> "Celtae", in our (language) (are called) "Galli"."
> >
> > Where does that mention Greek? That's a Latin speaker writing in
> > Latin. He says that the Celts (by which he meant the continental
> > ones, I believe, rather than the ones on the islands) call
> > themselves Celts.
>
> OK. Julius Caesar does not mention Greek, he only says that "Celtae"
> is a Celtic word equivalent to Latin "Galli". This shows that the
> word "Celt" is not of Latin origin, because Romans used the word
> "Galli".
Well, sure. It says that it's "in their own language". I don't see
any need to postulate that the Romans got the word from the Greeks
when they could just as easily have gotten it from the Celts. In a
sentence like that, I'd expect him to mention "who are called by the
Greeks" if that's where they associate the word.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Usenet is like Tetris for people
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |who still remember how to read.
Jerry Friedman
> jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
>
> > Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > > jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
> > >
> > > > Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > > > > In the meanwhile, if you write "laff", people will understand what
> > > > > you mean, but they'll consider you uneducated, so it's worthwhile
> > > > > to memorize the few
> > > >
> > > > hundred
> > > >
> > > > > exceptions and try to learn to see the patterns.
> > >
> > > Let's see:
> > >
> > > rough, tough, enough, cough, laugh, laughter
> > > words with "phone", "photo", and "graph"
> > > sphere, philosophy
> > >
> > > and words obviously derived from them. I'm sure that there are
> > > other exceptions that they're likely to be called upon to write,
> >
> > sough (rare), slough (in one meaning), trough, sphinx, phalanx,
> > sulphur, gopher, all the "phil" and "soph" words in addition to
> > "philosophy", all the "phobe" words, all the "morph" words, phat
> > coinages like phreak, and others
>
> Not a whole lot of words there that the average English learner is
> going to be called upon to write without already being familiar with
> them in print.
Then I was right not to add "sphene"?
> As for reading them, I'd guess that it takes the
> average learner about as long to internalize that "ph" is nearly
> always /f/ as it does to learn that "sh" is nearly always /S/.
The problem with the "ph" words is not reading but spelling. Words
such as "trough" are, of course, a problem with both.
...
> > > Whereas in Spanish, the choice of whether to use "v" or "b" is
> > > purely a historical accident for every word. And this leads to
> > > the "n" in "enviar" and the "m" in "ambos" being the same sound.
> > > You just have to know that if you spell the one "v" then the other
> > > will be "n".
> >
> > With a few exceptions, such as "tramv
>
> What's that? It's not in the DRAE, and it "doesn't look like Spanish"
> to me.
Tramvía. I apologize for the technical difficulties.
> > > "J" and "g" (in some contexts) are in free variation. And "s",
> > > "z" (in some dialects), and "c" (in some contexts), although there
> > > is some grammatical regularity there.
> >
> > It's the other way: z and soft c are always the same, but s can be
> > different (only in northern Spain, as far as I know).
>
> Right. (Actually, my dictionary says "Spain, except the southwest",
> rather than "northern Spain".) By "in some contexts", I just meant
> "when followed by 'i' or 'e'". An analogy with "ghoti" would be to
> use "c" for /s/ in other contexts.
My "other way" referred to your "in some dialects".
...
> > First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
>
> Oh, I thought that the problem was that English was hard to spell. If
> the focus is on reading, then "ghoti" is a spectacularly bad example,
> because nobody will be faced with a word like that constructed by any
> rules of English word-formation or borrowing.
>
> But I'm not sure how hard English, especially the consonants, really
> is to read. Especially since words are most often in context and the
> reader can generally assume that the word is one he's already
> encountered, at least by sound and probably by sight.
What I meant by "hard to read" is "hard to pronounce based on
reading". Sorry to be unclear.
And how about this quotation from Kipling (in a nautical context):
"Here under heaven there is neither lead nor lee." I think even most
native speakers would have to think about the pronuncation of "lead".
> There are more
> overall multi-letter paradigms to learn than in many other languages,
> but probably not significantly more than the arbitrary shapes of the
> Japanese kana syllables, which are perfectly phonemically regular.
So you have to learn as many "multi-letter paradigms" in English as in
Japanese--and then there are the exceptions to them.
> Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
> the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
But quite a big obstacle to someone coming from a language where there
are none or almost none.
> > You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
> > words, within a week. A lifetime doesn't suffice for English--I'm
> > still surprised now and then.
>
> Now and then, sure (although be honest--how many of the surprises
> aren't "borrowed words").
Most of them are from Latin or Latinized Greek, but I think they're
vastly more numerous than the Spanish words that are exceptions to the
pronunciation rules.
...
--
Jerry Friedman
Jerry Friedman
> Javi <poziNO...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> > > jerry_f...@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) writes:
> > >>Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote
> > >>There's a short list of monosyllables that take accents, with a
> > >>perfectly comprehensible and exceptionless reason (because it was
> > >>made up by the RAE) for why they and only they take accents.
> > > Sure, but the learner still has to learn them. And then you get
...
> There may be rules, but from a learner's point of view, it's pretty
> much "the basic rules apply except when they don't". Looking at a
> list like
>
> dé give (subj. of dar) de of, from
> él he, him el the
> más more, most mas but
> mí me mi my
> sé I know (saber), be (ser) se himself, herself, etc.
> sí yes, indeed si if, whether
> té tea te you, yourself
> tú you tu your
>
> http://www.amen.net/lb/english/accents.htm
>
> it's probably the rare student who can do better than simply memorize
> which one takes the accent. ("Té" presumably gets the accent because
> "te" is a pronoun, and pronouns trump nouns (but not determiners)--but
> "te", without an accent, is also a noun meaning the letter "T".)
You just have to divide them up right. Direct-object,
indirect-object, reflexive, and possessive personal pronouns never
have spoken stress (acento tónico, I think). If you want to say "I
love *you*, you have to say something like "Te quiero a *ti*. The
object-of-a-preposition pronoun can be accented. Likewise "She loves
*him* is "Lo quiere a *él*. Unfortunately, that site doesn't make the
distinction. However, once you know that, the others are similar to
English (you need to accent "yes" a lot more often than "whether"),
except maybe for "más" and the nearly obsolete "mas".
However, I agree that it's not *that* easy, since many native speakers
screw it up frequently.
> > >>First of all, my point was that English is hard to *read*.
> >
> > From my viewpoint, it is harder to *speak* it.
>
> You didn't hear the kids in my classes trying to speak Spanish.
Or me, for that matter, and I try hard, and the Mexican and Southwest
U.S. dialects I try to speak don't have the dreaded fricative g.
> > > Sure, there are idiosyncratic spellings, but they are (you'll pardon
> > > the phrasing) either very common or pretty rare.
> > >
>
> > >>You can learn to pronounce all of Spanish, except for a few borrowed
> > >>words, within a week.
> >
> > Which borrowed words are you thinking about? I cannot think now about
> > any borrowed Spanish word that does not follow the common rules of
> > Spanish pronunciation, though I might be missing something.
I found "currículum vítae" (as if it were "currículum vite"). I'm
sure I saw another one recently, but I can't remember it ¡leñe!
> How is, for example, "el living" pronounced? It ends in "g", so
> presumably the accent would be on the second syllable by rule, but
> I've always assumed that it's on the first.
>
> > > It can't be too much harder than
> > > the Spanish learner trying to remember that it's "*los* celtas".
> >
> > And "los turistas", "los deportistas", "los periodistas" and many
> > others. Once it is known that some words from Greek origin end in /a/
> > but are masculine, it is easy.
You just have to know which ones.
> But that's like saying that once you know that most words of Greek
> origin in English spell /f/ as "ph", it's easy. Most people aren't
> that good at etymology in their own language, let alone another. In
> any case, the DRAE derives "turista" from English, which got "tour"
> from Middle French. They also don't mention Greek in the etymology of
> "deportar" or "celta", deriving both from Latin without further note.
"Los celtas" is easy because all names of ethnic groups and
nationalities are masculine. Another example that ends in "a" is "el
vietnamita", and I know there are others. I don't think Greek has
anything to do with it. (I don't think Greek has anything to do with
"el mapa" either, pace Sr. Vigil. I find it easier to remember a few
reversed genders such as "el mapa" and "la mano" than the ones that
don't have gender clues: "el origen", "la imagen".)
--
Jerry Friedman
Javi
> "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> The carbon unit using the name Evan Kirshenbaum
>> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> in news:brtmhw...@hpl.hp.com gave
>> utterance as follows:
>>
>>> "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> No, no. "Deportista" is not related to "deportar" but to "deporte"
>> (sport), so "deportista" means "sportsperson" ("el deportista" =
>> "the sportsman", "la deportista" = "the sportswoman"). I don't
>> understand why the DRAE says that "deporte" comes from "deportar";
>> it is evident for me that they are not related. I have to look at
>> the Corominas etymological dictionay, maybe tomorrow I can do it.
>
> Whereas I always assumed that they were related. The English
> cognates, "sport" ("deporte") and "disport" ("deportar") are certainly
> related, with the former coming from the latter.
I didn't know it. Searching in the ancient DRAE's I see that "deportarse"
meant in the 1780 dictionary "to enjoy oneself". From here, I can understand
the drift of meaning. Thank you, Evan. Anyway, I cannot explain the change
fron "disport" to "sport" (in Spanish it is easy: "deporte" comes from
"deportarse", but not from "deportar").
> Actually, if you push on it, that might not be true. The DRAE says
>
> deportar.
> (Del lat. deportare).
> 1. tr. Desterrar a alguien a un lugar, por lo regular extranjero,
> y confinarlo allí por razones políticas o como castigo.
> 2. prnl. ant. Descansar, reposar, hacer mansión.
> 3. prnl. ant. Divertirse, recrearse.
>
> The last one is equivalent English "disport". The first two are
> equivalent to English "deport". The second and third appear to be
> marked "antiguo" or "anticuado", which I take to be "archaic",
> although I'm sure that I've come across the last one.
They must be archaic meanings, because I only knew the first one. The 2nd
and 3rd meanings have "prnl." before them. This means "pronominal", this is,
the word is "deportarse", and I can tell you that they are no longer used in
Spanish: I only knew the non-pronominal "deportar".
> MWCD10 derives the two English words differently:
>
> Main Entry: 2disport
> Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French _desporter_, from
> _des_- _dis_- + _porter_ to carry, from Latin _portare_
> -- more at FARE
>
> Main Entry: de·port
> Etymology: Middle French _deporter_, from Latin _deportare_ to
> carry away, from _de_- + _portare_ to carry -- more at
> FARE
>
> So perhaps the DRAE is playing a little fast and loose and the third
> sense of "deportar" came from a prior "desportar".
No, I can see now that "deporte" comes from "deportarse" (not from
"deportar" nor "desportar"). I know that for the non-grammatically educated
people (or non-native speakers, as yourself) there is no big difference
between a pronominal verb and a non-pronominal verb, but there is: "matarse"
is quite different from "matar".
>>>> is divided in three parts, of wich one is dwelled by.... the
>>>> third (is dwelled) by whom in their own language are called
>>>> "Celtae", in our (language) (are called) "Galli"."
>>>
>>> Where does that mention Greek? That's a Latin speaker writing in
>>> Latin. He says that the Celts (by which he meant the continental
>>> ones, I believe, rather than the ones on the islands) call
>>> themselves Celts.
>>
>> OK. Julius Caesar does not mention Greek, he only says that "Celtae"
>> is a Celtic word equivalent to Latin "Galli". This shows that the
>> word "Celt" is not of Latin origin, because Romans used the word
>> "Galli".
>
> Well, sure. It says that it's "in their own language". I don't see
> any need to postulate that the Romans got the word from the Greeks
> when they could just as easily have gotten it from the Celts.
But I know that it is so. "Keltai" and "Galli" seems to have been nouns of
certain tribes (tribes of Celt origin), and the fact that the Romans chose
"Galli" and Greeks chose "Keltai" is only due to the fact that Greeks first
met people of a tribe that called themselves "Keltai", and Romans had to
deal with people from a tribe that called themselves "Galli".
> In a
> sentence like that, I'd expect him to mention "who are called by the
> Greeks" if that's where they associate the word.
J. Caesar, though he knew some Greek, wasn't an expert in Greek philology,
so he could not mention "who are called by the Greeks"; he knew that some of
them called themselves "Keltai" or "Celtae", and very probably he had
learned it from Greek historians. I'm sure that ancient Greek historians
used the word "Keltai" where the Romans used "Galli", and any ancient Greek
dictionary can prove it.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The carbon unit using the name Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> in news:4qzdhh...@hpl.hp.com gave
> utterance as follows:
>
> > Actually, if you push on it, that might not be true. The DRAE says
> >
> > deportar.
> > (Del lat. deportare).
> > 1. tr. Desterrar a alguien a un lugar, por lo regular extranjero,
> > y confinarlo allí por razones políticas o como castigo.
> > 2. prnl. ant. Descansar, reposar, hacer mansión.
> > 3. prnl. ant. Divertirse, recrearse.
> >
> > The last one is equivalent English "disport". The first two are
> > equivalent to English "deport". The second and third appear to be
> > marked "antiguo" or "anticuado", which I take to be "archaic",
> > although I'm sure that I've come across the last one.
>
> They must be archaic meanings, because I only knew the first
> one. The 2nd and 3rd meanings have "prnl." before them. This means
> "pronominal", this is, the word is "deportarse", and I can tell you
> that they are no longer used in Spanish: I only knew the
> non-pronominal "deportar".
Ah. *That's* what they mean by "pronominal". "Deportarse" is
definitely what I remembered. I just, as you said, don't think of
that as a different verb, but rather a different sense that requires a
reflexive. My memory is saying that we just called such things the
reflexive form of the infinitive, while noting (as you say below) that
they often mean something somewhat different.
I'm a bit surprised that you say that it isn't used anymore. I wonder
where I came across it.
> No, I can see now that "deporte" comes from "deportarse" (not from
> "deportar" nor "desportar"). I know that for the non-grammatically
> educated people (or non-native speakers, as yourself) there is no
> big difference between a pronominal verb and a non-pronominal verb,
> but there is: "matarse" is quite different from "matar".
But the DRAE lists them both together. "Matar" has fourteen
transitive senses, one intransitive sense, and four "pronominal"
senses.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Your claim might have more
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |credibility if you hadn't mispelled
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"inteligent"
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "Javi" <poziyo...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > The carbon unit using the name Evan Kirshenbaum
> > <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> in news:brtmhw...@hpl.hp.com gave
> > utterance as follows:
> >
> > > But let's push on this. If a Mexican writer read that sentence
> > > aloud, how would he pronounce "ceceo"? Does he use the [T] to
> > > distinguish it from "seseo" even though that isn't in his normal
> > > phoneme inventory?
> >
> > How can I know? I'm not a Mexican writer. My guess is that he would
> > use [T], though it is not in his normal phoneme inventory, because
> > it is known to any educated Spanish speaker and he has to
> > distinguish the pronunciation of "seseo" and "ceceo".
>
> Neither of the two Mexicans in my lab appear to be around at the
> moment. I'll try to remember to ask them next time I see them. I
> suspect that you're correct that they will use [T], and that this is
> another of those "you just have to know" spellings.
Well, I tracked down one of the two. At first she looked at the page
on which I had written the two words and said /sesear/ for both,
adding "They're the same". But she didn't seem familiar with them. I
started to explain and she said "Oh, yes" and said that "cecear" would
be /TeTear/ "in that context". She said that her husband, who is
Mexican but who has Spanish parents, would have distinguished the two
in any case, although he uses Mexican pronunciation when he thinks
about it when in Mexico.
The DRAE definitions are kind of cute:
cecear.
1. intr. Pronunciar la _s_ con articulación igual o semejante a la
de la _c_ ante _e_, _i_, o a la de la _z_.
sesear.
1. intr. Pronunciar la _z_, o la _c_ ante _e_, _i_, como _s_. Es
uso general en Andalucía, Canarias y otras regiones
españolas, y en América.
Both of those definitions have got to leave speakers who actually do
them scratching their heads.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |It does me no injury for my neighbor
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to say there are twenty gods, or no
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |God.
| Thomas Jefferson
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Ross Howard
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrought:
>Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> writes:
>The DRAE definitions are kind of cute:
>
> cecear.
>
> 1. intr. Pronunciar la _s_ con articulación igual o semejante a la
> de la _c_ ante _e_, _i_, o a la de la _z_.
>
> sesear.
>
> 1. intr. Pronunciar la _z_, o la _c_ ante _e_, _i_, como _s_. Es
> uso general en Andalucía, Canarias y otras regiones
> españolas, y en América.
>
>Both of those definitions have got to leave speakers who actually do
>them scratching their heads.
Most people who use *ceceo* can and sometimes do use [s]. Unlike with
lisping, it's not so much a speech impediment as a dialect feature.
For example, neither of Spain's current two most famous *ceceo* users
-- the bullfighter Jesulín de Ubrique (from rural Cadiz) and the
singer Rosa López (from rural Granada) -- does it all the time, and
the latter automatically stops doing it when she starts singing.[1]
*Seseo* is a whole nother story, particularly for Latin Americans,
many of whom do indeed have difficulty trying to get their mouths
around [T]. In Spain, though, everyone would understand those DRAE
definitions, lame though they are -- especially the *uso general* bit,
which is Dead Wrong -- these days it's only really the norm in the
Canaries and, of course, LatAm -- because all Spaniards are hear the
[T] sound all the time on TV, the radio, etc.
[1. I assume that this phenomenon occurs with most dialect features: I
doubt that even a Marx Brother, if called upon to sing the US national
anthem, would actually entone "the dawn's oily light". Or compare the
vowel in Lennon and McCartney's spoken "love" with the pronunciation
they use when singing, e.g. in "Love Me Do" or "Can't Buy Me Love".]
***********
Ross Howard
iwasaki
> But I'm not sure how hard English, especially the consonants, really
> is to read. Especially since words are most often in context and the
> reader can generally assume that the word is one he's already
> overall multi-letter paradigms to learn than in many other languages,
> but probably not significantly more than the arbitrary shapes of the
> Japanese kana syllables, which are perfectly phonemically regular.
"Regular", maybe, but not too "perfectly". For example, kana _ha_
is sometimes pronounced like "ha", and sometimes "wa". The long "o"
sound is written sometimes as _ou_, and sometimes as _oo_ in hiragana:
"ôkii" would be _ookii_, and "arigatô" would be _arigatou_, yet its
pronunciation is not "arigatou"; it's "arigatoh". And then there's
_wo_ and _o_, both of which are pronounced [o]. It's confusing enough
for children to spell correctly.
It used to be more confusing until they did the spelling reform about
50 years ago. _Gakkou_ (means "school"; pronounced like "gakkoh")
was spelled as _guatsukau_. _Chouchou_ (means "butterfly") was
spelled as _tefutefu_.
--
Nobuko Iwasaki
Ben Zimmer
>
> Donna Richoux wrote:
> >
> > I looked for a while at Web entries, which vary a great deal (except
> > that nearly everybody attributes it to Shaw, although no one says when
> > or where). What I really should do is leaf through some of the books on
> > my shelves, especially the older ones. We don't know how far back to
> > look, yet, although I did see that Joyce made a reference to it in the
> > 1939 _Finnegans Wake_. (If any ProQuest people are here, can we have a
> > first date? So to speak.)
>
> ProQuest isn't much help-- nothing predates the _Finnegans Wake_ line
> ("Gee each owe tea eye smells fish"). The earliest cite I can find is
> in a Washington Post column from Sep 14, 1948 ("The District Line" by
> Bill Gold): "an indolent newspaper friend of mind ... points out that
> there's a perfectly logical way to pronounce the good English word
> 'ghoti.'"
ProQuest (or at least the version I have access to) has just added the
LA Times and the Christian Science Monitor to its database. So now I
find the following, which slightly predates the 1939 publication of
_Finnegans Wake_:
In Lighter Vein
Christian Science Monitor, Aug 27, 1938. p. 17
A foreigner who insisted that "fish" should be spelled
"ghoti" explained it in this fashion: "Gh" is pronounced
as in "rough," the "o" as in "women," and the "ti" as in
"nation" -- so maybe he's right.
Donna Richoux
Still no association with Shaw. I find it significant that so far,
nothing attributes it to him until after his death. Death, 1950; New
York Times attribution, 1961.
I did check my bookshelves as I promised, but came up with no mentions
of it. I don't own the right books, I guess. So there's still very
little data about *why* people tell this story, what point they are
trying to make. Since the column above is labeled "In Lighter Vein," I
guess the ChrSciMon thought it was an amusing novelty. They didn't go on
to say anything more about spelling, did they?
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Ben Zimmer
Nope-- that's the item in its entirety. "In Lighter Vein" was a column
where the Monitor would publish amusing squibs (often reprinted from
other sources), much like the Wall Street Journal's "Pepper and Salt".
Speaking of those two columns, I checked out the old story about
Churchill and prepositions in the expanded database. Previously I had
noted a "Pepper and Salt" column from Sep. 30, 1942, repeating a version
of the story (not attributed to Churchill) that had appeared in the
Strand Magazine [1]. Sure enough, the Monitor also reprinted the
Strand's item in its "In Lighter Vein" column, on Oct. 7, 1942. And
about a year later the story turned up again, but with the anonymous wag
transposed to Washington:
In Lighter Vein
Christian Science Monitor, Oct 15, 1943. p. 15
Did you hear about the official in the OPA in Washington
who sent a proposed order to the legal department to learn
if it complied with the law? After an unreasonably long
time the order was returned with no comment on its legality,
but with sarcastic comment on the fact that several sentences
ended in prepositions. The official thus criticized replied,
"Your remarks about my ending my sentences with prepositions
is one of the things up with which I do not intend to put."
-- Advance.
Much like Shaw and the "ghoti" story, this one was apparently floating
around for years before attaching itself to Churchill.