dipthongs, ligatures & ampersands

Harrison Hill

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Jul 28, 2016, 1:14:06 PM7/28/16

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On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
"mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
ligatures any more?

There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?

Only cutting-edge answers accepted. Formula 1 or Formulae
1 & 2 - no lower than that :)

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 1:50:41 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:

> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
> the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
> ligatures any more?

We do not and never have had <dipthongs> (once is a typo, twice is a mistake).

What distinction in pronunciation do you make between medieval and mediaeval?

> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?

There's a complicated story behind "Ye Olde" signs, involving Anglo-Saxons,
Normans, and Flemings at least, but it doesn't involve any lambdas.

Whiskers

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Jul 28, 2016, 2:32:29 PM7/28/16

to

On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>
>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>
> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>

What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.

> (once is a typo, twice is a
> mistake).
>
> What distinction in pronunciation do you make between medieval and
> mediaeval?

And is 'mediæval' a third?

>> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
>> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?

I think you are thinking of 'thorn', a character borrowed from runes.
It resembles a curly y, or sometimes a p with the vertical extended
upwards (which is how most UTF8 'fonts' show it - þÞ - like the modern
Icelandic letter).

> There's a complicated story behind "Ye Olde" signs, involving
> Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and Flemings at least, but it doesn't involve
> any lambdas.
>
>> Only cutting-edge answers accepted. Formula 1 or Formulae 1 & 2 - no
>> lower than that :)

You might get cutting responses; cutting edge perhaps not.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 28, 2016, 2:48:11 PM7/28/16

to

On 2016-07-28 17:14:01 +0000, Harrison Hill said:

> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
> the two words differently.

I pronounce them the same: "medieval" is just the American for
"mediaeval", which is still the ordinary spelling in British English.

> Do we have dipthongs and

Diphthongs don't seem to have anything to do with it. I don't think
there is a diphthong in "medi(a)eval".

> ligatures any more?

Ligatures for fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl are alive and well in serious
typography. Ligatures for ct, st, and ft have become rare. However, I
suppose you're thinking of æ: I think it would look pretentious in
"mediæval", but it's by no means dead.

>
> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
>

Not sure what you mean here: Þ and đ don't look much like a y upside down.

> Only cutting-edge answers accepted.

Answers to what? You haven't asked a question: putting a ? after and
statement doesn't make it a question.

> Formula 1 or Formulae
> 1 & 2 - no lower than that :)

--
athel

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 28, 2016, 2:50:55 PM7/28/16

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On 2016-07-28 18:32:27 +0000, Whiskers said:

> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>
>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>
>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>
> What we is that? We have dipthongs,

I think he's fussing about the spelling, which is OK in French but not
in English: "diphthongs".

--
athel

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 28, 2016, 3:18:10 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:50:41 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>
> > On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
> > "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
> > the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
> > ligatures any more?
>
> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>

Really? I'm sure I've seen them in a Victoria's Secret catalog.

Best,
Helen

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 28, 2016, 3:38:09 PM7/28/16

to

Somehow I doubt whether PTD would have much acquaintance with the
Victoria's Secret catalogue.

--
athel

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 28, 2016, 3:43:24 PM7/28/16

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Too bad. I think they have ligatures too!

Oh wait, that's a different catalog:

http://www.honour.co.uk/cat/bondage

Best,
Helen

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 4:24:54 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 2:32:29 PM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:

> >> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
> >> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
> >> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
> > We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>
> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.

If your squiggler didn't squiggle it (three times now), you need a new squiggler.

> > (once is a typo, twice is a mistake).
> > What distinction in pronunciation do you make between medieval and
> > mediaeval?
>
> And is 'mediæval' a third?
>
> >> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
> >> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
>
> I think you are thinking of 'thorn', a character borrowed from runes.
> It resembles a curly y, or sometimes a p with the vertical extended
> upwards (which is how most UTF8 'fonts' show it - þÞ - like the modern
> Icelandic letter).

"Curly y" and thorn are two different Old English letters.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 4:26:22 PM7/28/16

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Is it that some thongs dip farther than others?

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 4:27:41 PM7/28/16

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Surely you don't imagine that the thong is gender-specific? Don't they have
beaches in Marseille?

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 4:29:09 PM7/28/16

to

You can get ligature _marks_ easily enough, but does "ligature" refer to any
specific piece of equipment?

Tony Cooper

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Jul 28, 2016, 4:57:50 PM7/28/16

to

Why does the movie "Victor Victoria" come to mind? The title, not the
plot.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 28, 2016, 5:31:24 PM7/28/16

to

That's my observation: the T-back, for instance, or the V-string.

But given the dippy nature of all thongs great and small, perhaps the
term "dipthong" is tautological.

Tautly,
Helen

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 28, 2016, 5:37:44 PM7/28/16

to

Just a fancy name for rope, innit?

Examples from oxforddictionaries.com:

"Her hands were tied together so tightly that the ligature was cutting into the skin."

"He had been strangled with a ligature and his wrists were tied."

Best,
Helen

Mack A. Damia

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Jul 28, 2016, 6:04:16 PM7/28/16

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Are you making a pubic statement?

spuorg...@gowanhill.com

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Jul 28, 2016, 6:36:49 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, 28 July 2016 20:38:09 UTC+1, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> Somehow I doubt whether PTD would have much acquaintance with the
> Victoria's Secret catalogue.

I think I've got a Victoria Plum(b) one somewhere

Owain

Will Parsons

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Jul 28, 2016, 7:26:17 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 5:37 PM -0400, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:
> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:29:09 PM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 3:43:24 PM UTC-4, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:
>> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 12:38:09 PM UTC-7, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> > > On 2016-07-28 19:18:06 +0000, Helen Lacedaemonian said:
>> > > > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:50:41 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > > >> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>
>> > > >>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>> > > >>> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
>> > > >>> the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
>> > > >>> ligatures any more?
>> > > >> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>> > > > Really? I'm sure I've seen them in a Victoria's Secret catalog.
>> > > Somehow I doubt whether PTD would have much acquaintance with the
>> > > Victoria's Secret catalogue.
>> >
>> > Too bad. I think they have ligatures too!
>> >
>> > Oh wait, that's a different catalog:
>> >
>> > http://www.honour.co.uk/cat/bondage
>>
>> You can get ligature _marks_ easily enough, but does "ligature" refer to any
>> specific piece of equipment?
>
> Just a fancy name for rope, innit?

No. A rope specifies a certain type of object (traditionally made
from hemp) without implying what uses may be made of it. A ligature
refers explicitly to its function of tying or binding something, and
that function can be performed by rope, string, a stocking, or various
other media.

> Examples from oxforddictionaries.com:
>
> "Her hands were tied together so tightly that the ligature was cutting into the skin."
>
> "He had been strangled with a ligature and his wrists were tied."

No implication that the ligature was a rope.

--
Will

Will Parsons

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Jul 28, 2016, 8:24:12 PM7/28/16

to

On Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 2:48 PM -0400, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2016-07-28 17:14:01 +0000, Harrison Hill said:
>
>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
>> the two words differently.
>
> I pronounce them the same: "medieval" is just the American for
> "mediaeval", which is still the ordinary spelling in British English.
>
>> Do we have dipthongs and
>
> Diphthongs don't seem to have anything to do with it. I don't think
> there is a diphthong in "medi(a)eval".

Right - just two alternative spellings for the same word.

>> ligatures any more?
>
> Ligatures for fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl are alive and well in serious
> typography. Ligatures for ct, st, and ft have become rare. However, I
> suppose you're thinking of æ: I think it would look pretentious in
> "mediæval", but it's by no means dead.

When I actually wrote things by hand, I would regularly use æ and œ in
words like "mediæval" and "amœba", but since I rarely write anything
by hand any more, I don't bother.

It seems to me there are two types of ligatures - mere typographical
ligatures like fi, &c., and ligatures like æ and œ. (Incidentally,
*is* the ft ligature rare now? I hadn't noticed.)

>> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
>> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
>>
> Not sure what you mean here: Þ and đ don't look much like a y upside down.

I was wondering about that, too.

--
Will

Robert Bannister

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Jul 28, 2016, 8:24:49 PM7/28/16

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On 29/07/2016 2:32 AM, Whiskers wrote:
> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>
>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>
>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>
> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.

Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate perhaps?

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 28, 2016, 11:42:07 PM7/28/16

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On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 8:24:12 PM UTC-4, Will Parsons wrote:

> When I actually wrote things by hand, I would regularly use æ and œ in
> words like "mediæval" and "amœba", but since I rarely write anything
> by hand any more, I don't bother.

MSWord makes it fairly easy to type them on the US keyboard (Ctrl-&,a/o).

> It seems to me there are two types of ligatures - mere typographical
> ligatures like fi, &c., and ligatures like æ and œ. (Incidentally,
> *is* the ft ligature rare now? I hadn't noticed.)

Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in standard
fonts, but there was rarely provision in word processors to access even them.
The ct, st, etc., were found in hot type (handset) in some fonts in the 18th
century and their imitators but were never particularly popular.

Peter Moylan

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Jul 29, 2016, 1:16:51 AM7/29/16

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On 2016-Jul-29 10:24, Robert Bannister wrote:
> On 29/07/2016 2:32 AM, Whiskers wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>>
>>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>>
>> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
>
> Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
> don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate perhaps?
>

It's true, though, that many of us /pronounce/ it as if it had been
written "dipthong". The first h is an aspiration; whether that makes the
"ph" sound like an "f" or a "p" seems to be a matter of personal taste.

A purist would probably also pronounce the "th" as an aspirated "h",
rather than as a thorn. (I almost said "a theta sound" there, but it is
doubtful whether classical Greek theta was ever pronounced as what we
now call "a theta sound".)

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Peter Moylan

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Jul 29, 2016, 1:22:27 AM7/29/16

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Jul 29, 2016, 2:24:16 AM7/29/16

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ISTR that in the novel "Footfall" someone strangled a fi by tying a knot
in its snffp.

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 29, 2016, 2:51:38 AM7/29/16

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On 2016-07-29 00:24:08 +0000, Will Parsons said:

>
>>> ligatures any more?
>>
>> Ligatures for fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl are alive and well in serious
>> typography. Ligatures for ct, st, and ft have become rare. However, I
>> suppose you're thinking of æ: I think it would look pretentious in
>> "mediæval", but it's by no means dead.
>

> [ … ]

> It seems to me there are two types of ligatures - mere typographical
> ligatures like fi, &c., and ligatures like æ and œ. (Incidentally,
> *is* the ft ligature rare now? I hadn't noticed.)

Probably not, for professional printers. I was thinking of computer
fonts, in which fi and fl are common, ff, ffi and ffl less so , and
others like ft only found in "expert sets". I shall try to determine if
LaTeX has a ligature for ft in Times or Mathpazo (I don't care about
Computer Modern, which I never use).

--
athel

Dingbat

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Jul 29, 2016, 2:52:40 AM7/29/16

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On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 10:52:27 AM UTC+5:30, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-Jul-29 10:24, Will Parsons wrote:
> > On Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 2:48 PM -0400, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >> On 2016-07-28 17:14:01 +0000, Harrison Hill said:
>
> >>> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
> >>> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
> >>>
> >> Not sure what you mean here: Þ and đ don't look much like a y upside down.
> >
> > I was wondering about that, too.
>
> It suddenly clicked! He doesn't mean upside down, he means back to
> front.

In a modern script, a capital Y remains unchanged when laterally inverted.

Ross

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Jul 29, 2016, 2:54:33 AM7/29/16

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On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 5:16:51 PM UTC+12, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-Jul-29 10:24, Robert Bannister wrote:
> > On 29/07/2016 2:32 AM, Whiskers wrote:
> >> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
> >>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
> >>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
> >>>
> >>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
> >>
> >> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
> >
> > Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
> > don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate perhaps?
> >
> It's true, though, that many of us /pronounce/ it as if it had been
> written "dipthong". The first h is an aspiration; whether that makes the
> "ph" sound like an "f" or a "p" seems to be a matter of personal taste.

I don't follow your explanation here. What do you mean by saying
the first h is an aspiration? Written <ph> is *always* pronounced
as /f/, unless it's between morphemes as in "uphill". Isn't it?

One reason why the "pth" pronunciation is (as you say) extremely
common might be that people just don't notice the first (written) h.
Sequences of ChCh are fairly unusual.

But I think another is just that the consonant cluster /fT/ is
itself rare and (dare I say) difficult. Aha! another excuse to
use Sound Search. There are only half a dozen word-groups that
have it. In the word-families of naphtha, diphtheria, ophthalmia
we see the same tendency to simplify the cluster to "pth".

(Other occurrences that don't show this tendency can, I think,
be explained:
- In final position, the ordinals "twelfth" and "fifth"
- A couple of initial occurrences (phthalic, phthisis) where
a shift to "pth" would hardly improve the situation.
- Obvious compounds like "life-threatening".)

I don't see a "pth" pronunciation recorded for the medical
term "aphtha" or the proper names "Jephtha" and "Nephthys", but
I wouldn't be surprised to hear it among those who have occasion
to use them regularly.

> A purist would probably also pronounce the "th" as an aspirated "h",
> rather than as a thorn.

That would be a pretty manic purist. It would be amusing (assuming
such a person exists) to see what other alien sounds they would
introduce into their English in the name of "purity".

(I almost said "a theta sound" there, but it is
> doubtful whether classical Greek theta was ever pronounced as what we
> now call "a theta sound".)

Right. According to Wiki (Koine Greek Phonology) "...fricatization of
aspirated voiceless stops, ... is attested in several locations from
the 1st century AD, but seems to have been generalized at a later date, possibly in the late Roman or early Byzantine period."

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 29, 2016, 3:07:55 AM7/29/16

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On 2016-07-28 18:50:52 +0000, Athel Cornish-Bowden said:

> On 2016-07-28 18:32:27 +0000, Whiskers said:
>
>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>>
>>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>>
>> What we is that? We have dipthongs,
>

> I think he's fussing about the spelling, which is OK in French

Well, not exactly: I dropped the wrong h and forgot the ue at the end:
diphtongue

> but not in English: "diphthongs".

--
athel

Whiskers

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:19:47 AM7/29/16

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On 2016-07-29, Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote:
> On 29/07/2016 2:32 AM, Whiskers wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>>
>>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>>
>> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
>
> Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
> don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate
> perhaps?

OED doesn't seem to reject the spelling I use, even if it can't find
examples more recent than 1757. I don't mind being old-fashioned.

"diphthong, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2016. Web. 29
July 2016.

Forms: ME–15 diptong(e, ( dypton), 15 dyphtong, diphthonge,
diphthongue, 16–18 dipthong, 17 dipthongue, 15– diphthong.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Whiskers

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:42:39 AM7/29/16

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On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 2:32:29 PM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel
> wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill
>> > wrote:
>
>> >> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>> >> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the
>> >> two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any
>> >> more?
>> > We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>>
>> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
>
> If your squiggler didn't squiggle it (three times now), you need a new
> squiggler.

That took some working out. I think you're referring to the way your
spelling checker indicates words whose spelling it doesn't recognise.
My spelling checker doesn't do it that way, instead it highlights the
word in a red block. But I don't let it over-rule my preferences.

>> > (once is a typo, twice is a mistake). What distinction in
>> > pronunciation do you make between medieval and mediaeval?
>>
>> And is 'mediæval' a third?
>>
>> >> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
>> >> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
>>
>> I think you are thinking of 'thorn', a character borrowed from runes.
>> It resembles a curly y, or sometimes a p with the vertical extended
>> upwards (which is how most UTF8 'fonts' show it - þÞ - like the
>> modern Icelandic letter).
>
> "Curly y" and thorn are two different Old English letters.

[...]

The old form of thorn does resemble the entirely unrelated and quite
different but very similar-looking curly y; so much so that the y came
to be used for both roles when printers imported their type sets from
rune-ignoring continentals.

Whiskers

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:45:56 AM7/29/16

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LaTeX caters for them, automatically.

Whiskers

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:51:17 AM7/29/16

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But perhaps not with a thong.

I think autopsy reports say 'ligature' when they don't want to commit
themselves to identifying any particular thing as the implement used to
achieve the effect.

Peter Moylan

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:57:33 AM7/29/16

to

On 2016-Jul-29 16:54, Ross wrote:
> On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 5:16:51 PM UTC+12, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 2016-Jul-29 10:24, Robert Bannister wrote:

>>> Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
>>> don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate perhaps?
>>>
>> It's true, though, that many of us /pronounce/ it as if it had been
>> written "dipthong". The first h is an aspiration; whether that makes the
>> "ph" sound like an "f" or a "p" seems to be a matter of personal taste.
>
> I don't follow your explanation here. What do you mean by saying
> the first h is an aspiration? Written <ph> is *always* pronounced
> as /f/, unless it's between morphemes as in "uphill". Isn't it?

The dictionaries I've consulted all give two pronunciations, one with
/f/ and one with /p/.

Ross

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Jul 29, 2016, 8:12:56 AM7/29/16

to

Right, that's what we're trying to account for. Perhaps all you're
saying is that some people choose to ignore the first h when they
pronounce the word? OK, but as I went on to point out, this seems to
happen just in this little group of words where there's written
"phth" and spoken /fT/. I don't think there's any _general_ tendency
to pronounce "ph" as /p/.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 29, 2016, 9:22:39 AM7/29/16

to

On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 7:42:39 AM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 2:32:29 PM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel
> > wrote:
> >> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill
> >> > wrote:

> >> >> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
> >> >> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the
> >> >> two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any
> >> >> more?
> >> > We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
> >> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
> > If your squiggler didn't squiggle it (three times now), you need a new
> > squiggler.
>
> That took some working out. I think you're referring to the way your
> spelling checker indicates words whose spelling it doesn't recognise.
> My spelling checker doesn't do it that way, instead it highlights the
> word in a red block. But I don't let it over-rule my preferences.

Why would you "prefer" the wrong spelling?

> >> > (once is a typo, twice is a mistake). What distinction in
> >> > pronunciation do you make between medieval and mediaeval?
> >> And is 'mediæval' a third?
> >> >> There is an old letter that is like a "y" upside down; and it is
> >> >> pronounced (something like) "Th" as in "Ye Olde Anchor"?
> >> I think you are thinking of 'thorn', a character borrowed from runes.
> >> It resembles a curly y, or sometimes a p with the vertical extended
> >> upwards (which is how most UTF8 'fonts' show it - þÞ - like the
> >> modern Icelandic letter).
> > "Curly y" and thorn are two different Old English letters.
>
> [...]
>
> The old form of thorn does resemble the entirely unrelated and quite
> different but very similar-looking curly y; so much so that the y came
> to be used for both roles when printers imported their type sets from
> rune-ignoring continentals.

You shouldn't have deleted the few lines that you did, simply because they
point out that your account is, at best, simplistic.

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 29, 2016, 9:30:28 AM7/29/16

to

If so, that's yet another mark against LaTeX. Fortunately, it seems to be false:
I've never seen the ct, st, th, etc. ligatures in those ugly books set in
"Computer Modern." Unfortunately, the conceptualizers of OpenType seem to
have provided them in whatever Roman fonts there are, and word processors
offer the option of using all of them. Word processors don't recognize
morpheme boundaries and would, for instance, use the ligature in "mistake"
as well as in "mist."

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 29, 2016, 9:54:31 AM7/29/16

to

On 2016-07-29 13:45:53 +0200, Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> said:

> On 2016-07-29, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 8:24:12 PM UTC-4, Will Parsons wrote:
>>
>>> When I actually wrote things by hand, I would regularly use æ and œ
>>> in words like "mediæval" and "amœba", but since I rarely write
>>> anything by hand any more, I don't bother.
>>
>> MSWord makes it fairly easy to type them on the US keyboard
>> (Ctrl-&,a/o).
>>
>>> It seems to me there are two types of ligatures - mere typographical
>>> ligatures like fi, &c., and ligatures like æ and œ. (Incidentally,
>>> *is* the ft ligature rare now? I hadn't noticed.)
>>
>> Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in
>> standard fonts, but there was rarely provision in word processors to
>> access even them.

Not sure what "access" means here. It's the work of a moment to do a
global search and replace to put ﬁ for fi.

>> The ct, st, etc., were found in hot type (handset)
>> in some fonts in the 18th century and their imitators but were never
>> particularly popular.
>
> LaTeX caters for them, automatically.

In a test I've just done it catered for fi and fl, but not for any of
the others. However, it seems to require the ligatures to be present in
the typeface. So, for example, neither Mathpazo nor Times produced an
ff ligature, but Computer Modern did. It's not a good enough reason to
use Computer Modern, however: one of the few things PTD is right about
is that Computer Modern is hideous.

--
athel

Peter T. Daniels

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Jul 29, 2016, 10:06:54 AM7/29/16

to

On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 9:54:31 AM UTC-4, athel...@yahoo wrote:
> On 2016-07-29 13:45:53 +0200, Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> said:
>
> > On 2016-07-29, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 8:24:12 PM UTC-4, Will Parsons wrote:
> >>
> >>> When I actually wrote things by hand, I would regularly use æ and œ
> >>> in words like "mediæval" and "amœba", but since I rarely write
> >>> anything by hand any more, I don't bother.
> >>
> >> MSWord makes it fairly easy to type them on the US keyboard
> >> (Ctrl-&,a/o).
> >>
> >>> It seems to me there are two types of ligatures - mere typographical
> >>> ligatures like fi, &c., and ligatures like æ and œ. (Incidentally,
> >>> *is* the ft ligature rare now? I hadn't noticed.)
> >>
> >> Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in
> >> standard fonts, but there was rarely provision in word processors to
> >> access even them.
>
> Not sure what "access" means here. It's the work of a moment to do a
> global search and replace to put ﬁ for fi.

You may be familiar with more recent word processors that use fonts more
extensive than ASCII and its extension.

Once you've manually replaced every fi (etc.) with the ligature character(s),
the hyphenation routine will not recognize it (nor the spellchecker, if you
use such a thing).

> >> The ct, st, etc., were found in hot type (handset)
> >> in some fonts in the 18th century and their imitators but were never
> >> particularly popular.
> >
> > LaTeX caters for them, automatically.
>
> In a test I've just done it catered for fi and fl, but not for any of
> the others. However, it seems to require the ligatures to be present in
> the typeface. So, for example, neither Mathpazo nor Times produced an
> ff ligature, but Computer Modern did. It's not a good enough reason to
> use Computer Modern, however: one of the few things PTD is right about
> is that Computer Modern is hideous.

Well, you wouldn't know about all the others, would you.

spuorg...@gowanhill.com

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Jul 29, 2016, 12:54:50 PM7/29/16

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On Friday, 29 July 2016 12:51:17 UTC+1, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
> I think autopsy reports say 'ligature' when they don't want to commit
> themselves to identifying any particular thing as the implement used to
> achieve the effect.

Like a 'blunt instrument'

Owain

Jerry Friedman

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Jul 29, 2016, 12:59:43 PM7/29/16

to

On 7/29/16 6:14 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:

> Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> writes:
>>> Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in

>> LaTeX caters for them, automatically.
>

> That's better than plain TeX, where one has to take care to
> /manually/ type: »shelf{\kern0pt}ful« to avoid the ligature
> where it's not supposed to appear.

Doesn't "shelf{}ful" work, for all those times when you need to typeset
"shelfful"? Doesn't "{shelf}ful" work?

--
Jerry Friedman
"No Trump" bridge-themed political shirts: cafepress.com/jerrysdesigns
Bumper stickers ditto: cafepress/jerrysstickers

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 29, 2016, 1:04:06 PM7/29/16

to

On 2016-07-29 18:59:36 +0200, Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> said:

> On 7/29/16 6:14 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
>> Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> writes:
>>>> Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in
>>> LaTeX caters for them, automatically.
>>
>> That's better than plain TeX, where one has to take care to
>> /manually/ type: »shelf{\kern0pt}ful« to avoid the ligature
>> where it's not supposed to appear.
>
> Doesn't "shelf{}ful" work, for all those times when you need to typeset
> "shelfful"? Doesn't "{shelf}ful" work?

I think most people only ever want to type "shelfful" when they want to
test whether they can suppress the ligature.

--
athel

Jerry Friedman

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Jul 29, 2016, 1:41:03 PM7/29/16

to

On 7/29/16 11:07 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> On 7/29/16 6:14 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
>>> Whiskers <catwh...@operamail.com> writes:
>>>>> Before OpenType, only fi, fl, ff, ffi, and maybe ffl were provided in
>>>> LaTeX caters for them, automatically.
>>> That's better than plain TeX, where one has to take care to
>>> /manually/ type: »shelf{\kern0pt}ful« to avoid the ligature
>>> where it's not supposed to appear.
>> Doesn't "shelf{}ful" work, for all those times when you need to typeset
>> "shelfful"? Doesn't "{shelf}ful" work?
>

> TeX will reinsert the ligature by itself after hyphenating
> »shelf{}ful«. (Ligatures are put into a hyphenated word that
> contains no explicit kerns.)

Not a problem. If the word is hyphenated at the end of a line, there's
no place for a ligature. If I'm to believe this, the problem occurs
with words that have at least one hyphenation point in addition to the
point where you want to suppress a ligature.

http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/106487/difference-between-and-for-breaking-ligatures

"Standoffish", maybe?

> This could be avoid using an italic correction, as in
> »shelf\/ful«. But the italic correction may be too much
> (especially in an italic font), so »shelf{\kern0pt}ful« is
> often best.

Certainly not "shelf\/ful".

Jerry Friedman

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Jul 29, 2016, 2:50:34 PM7/29/16

to

On 7/29/16 11:55 AM, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> writes:
>> Not a problem. If the word is hyphenated at the end of a line, there's
>> no place for a ligature. If I'm to believe this, the problem occurs
>> with words that have at least one hyphenation point in addition to the
>> point where you want to suppress a ligature.

>> "Standoffish", maybe?
>
> Or »selffullfilling«.

Normally "self-fulfilling". This shows the ratio:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=selffulfilling%2Fself-fulfilling&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%28selffulfilling%20/%20self%20-%20fulfilling%29%3B%2Cc0

http://tinyurl.com/hqswf9k

> There are problems with »kern0pt« too, as it
> reportedly does not permit automatic hyphenation at this point anymore.
>
> Someone suggested
>
> \newcommand{\hk}{\discretionary{-}{}{\kern.033333em}}
>
> for this.

There's another suggestion at the site I linked to.

I'd like to suggest that not all those 3s are necessary.

Will Parsons

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Jul 29, 2016, 4:20:05 PM7/29/16

to

I think that the reason is not so much that the first H ignored as
that people in general find the sequence [pθ] easier to pronounce than
[fθ], and that of course leads to the spelling with <pth>. It's
probably similar to why it takes conscious effort to pronounce
"isthmus" [ˈɪsθməs] rather than [ˈɪsməs].

--
Will

Will Parsons

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Jul 29, 2016, 4:42:20 PM7/29/16

to

On Friday, 29 Jul 2016 9:22 AM -0400, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 7:42:39 AM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 2:32:29 PM UTC-4, Whiskers Catwheezel
>> > wrote:
>> >> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> >> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill
>> >> > wrote:
>
>> >> >> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>> >> >> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the
>> >> >> two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any
>> >> >> more?
>> >> > We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>> >> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
>> > If your squiggler didn't squiggle it (three times now), you need a new
>> > squiggler.
>>
>> That took some working out. I think you're referring to the way your
>> spelling checker indicates words whose spelling it doesn't recognise.
>> My spelling checker doesn't do it that way, instead it highlights the
>> word in a red block. But I don't let it over-rule my preferences.
>
> Why would you "prefer" the wrong spelling?

Because it might not be wrong? I disagree often with what my
spell-checker suggests, and have no hesitation in overruling it.

--
Will

Ross

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Jul 29, 2016, 5:52:50 PM7/29/16

to

I agree. That's what I suggested in my earlier post to PeterM. I noted
that other words with [fθ] clusters also have variant pronunciations
with [pθ].

Will Parsons

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Jul 29, 2016, 7:11:58 PM7/29/16

to

I think that's probably true. Although evidence is (as might be
expected) problematic, there has been a tendency to push the
beginnings of the systematic shift of aspirated and voiced stops to
fricatives further back in time, as far as the Hellenistic era. I'm
inclined to agree, though of course considering the vast extent of the
Hellenistic world, there must have been considerable variation.

--
Will

Robert Bannister

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Jul 29, 2016, 8:07:26 PM7/29/16

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It'th eathy for you to thay that.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

Robert Bannister

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Jul 29, 2016, 8:09:02 PM7/29/16

to

On 29/07/2016 7:26 AM, Will Parsons wrote:
> On Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 5:37 PM -0400, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:29:09 PM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 3:43:24 PM UTC-4, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 12:38:09 PM UTC-7, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>>>>> On 2016-07-28 19:18:06 +0000, Helen Lacedaemonian said:

>>>>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:50:41 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>>>>>>>> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
>>>>>>>> the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
>>>>>>>> ligatures any more?
>>>>>>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>

>>>>>> Really? I'm sure I've seen them in a Victoria's Secret catalog.
>>>>> Somehow I doubt whether PTD would have much acquaintance with the
>>>>> Victoria's Secret catalogue.
>>>>
>>>> Too bad. I think they have ligatures too!
>>>>
>>>> Oh wait, that's a different catalog:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.honour.co.uk/cat/bondage
>>>
>>> You can get ligature _marks_ easily enough, but does "ligature" refer to any
>>> specific piece of equipment?
>>
>> Just a fancy name for rope, innit?
>
> No. A rope specifies a certain type of object (traditionally made
> from hemp) without implying what uses may be made of it. A ligature
> refers explicitly to its function of tying or binding something, and
> that function can be performed by rope, string, a stocking, or various
> other media.

Quite right. I'm sure proper ligatures are made with rawhide or cat gut.

Robert Bannister

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Jul 29, 2016, 8:10:38 PM7/29/16

to

On 29/07/2016 8:24 AM, Will Parsons wrote:
> On Thursday, 28 Jul 2016 2:48 PM -0400, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2016-07-28 17:14:01 +0000, Harrison Hill said:
>>

>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>>> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
>>> the two words differently.
>>

>> I pronounce them the same: "medieval" is just the American for
>> "mediaeval", which is still the ordinary spelling in British English.

>>
>>> Do we have dipthongs and
>>

>> Diphthongs don't seem to have anything to do with it. I don't think
>> there is a diphthong in "medi(a)eval".
>
> Right - just two alternative spellings for the same word.

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Jul 30, 2016, 6:12:58 AM7/30/16

to

On Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:37:41 -0700 (PDT), Helen Lacedaemonian
<helenofs...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:29:09 PM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 3:43:24 PM UTC-4, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:
>> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 12:38:09 PM UTC-7, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> > > On 2016-07-28 19:18:06 +0000, Helen Lacedaemonian said:
>> > > > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:50:41 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > > >> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>
>> > > >>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
>> > > >>> "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
>> > > >>> the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
>> > > >>> ligatures any more?
>> > > >> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>> > > > Really? I'm sure I've seen them in a Victoria's Secret catalog.
>> > > Somehow I doubt whether PTD would have much acquaintance with the
>> > > Victoria's Secret catalogue.
>> >
>> > Too bad. I think they have ligatures too!
>> >
>> > Oh wait, that's a different catalog:
>> >
>> > http://www.honour.co.uk/cat/bondage
>>
>> You can get ligature _marks_ easily enough, but does "ligature" refer to any
>> specific piece of equipment?
>
>Just a fancy name for rope, innit?
>

In some contexts, perhaps.

There are surgical ligatures:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(medicine)>

In surgery or medical procedure, a ligature consists of a piece of
thread (suture) tied around an anatomical structure, usually a blood
vessel or another hollow structure (e.g. urethra) to shut it off.
<...>
The principle of ligation is attributed to Hippocrates and
Galen,[1][2] later reintroduced some 1,500 years later by Ambroise
Paré,[3] and finally it found its modern use in 1870–80, made
popular by Jules-Émile Péan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_suture

Through many millennia, various suture materials were used, debated,
and remained largely unchanged. ... Sutures were made of plant
materials (flax, hemp and cotton) or animal material (hair, tendons,
arteries, muscle strips and nerves, silk, and catgut).

Judging by the quotations in the OED, the surgical sense of "ligature"
predates other senses.

>Examples from oxforddictionaries.com:
>
>"Her hands were tied together so tightly that the ligature was cutting into the skin."
>
>"He had been strangled with a ligature and his wrists were tied."
>

>Best,
>Helen

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

Will Parsons

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Jul 30, 2016, 10:52:32 AM7/30/16

to

That's a learned word with a spelling pronunciation (not that there
aren't quite a few of those). A typical example of the normal
development is:

A. Gr. φθάνω/phthano -> M. Gk. φτάνω/ftano "reach"

--
Will

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 30, 2016, 2:35:40 PM7/30/16

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That's what we're talking about, isn't it? Violence?

It should be noted that "cat gut" refers to dried sheep intestines.

Best,
Helen

charles

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Jul 30, 2016, 3:32:56 PM7/30/16

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In article <aa23d587-789d-4d55...@googlegroups.com>, Helen

I'm told it's from cattle for my harp.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 30, 2016, 4:26:25 PM7/30/16

to

Those are better for the low notes.

Best,
Helen

charles

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Jul 30, 2016, 4:42:13 PM7/30/16

to

In article <74c85f35-6e01-4e45...@googlegroups.com>, Helen

well, I suppose a cow's "moo" is lower than a pig's "oink", but a harp does
have high notes - more than 2 octaves above middle C.

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Jul 30, 2016, 4:51:44 PM7/30/16

to

On Sat, 30 Jul 2016 13:26:23 -0700 (PDT), Helen Lacedaemonian

Oliver Cromm

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Jul 30, 2016, 7:20:26 PM7/30/16

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* Ross:

> On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 5:16:51 PM UTC+12, Peter Moylan wrote:

>> On 2016-Jul-29 10:24, Robert Bannister wrote:
>>> On 29/07/2016 2:32 AM, Whiskers wrote:

>>>> On 2016-07-28, Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling "mediaeval"
>>>>>> rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce the two words
>>>>>> differently. Do we have dipthongs and ligatures any more?
>>>>>
>>>>> We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
>>>>

>>>> What we is that? We have dipthongs, and digraphs, over here.
>>>

>>> Where is here? Does any form of English have the word "dipthong"? I
>>> don't know of one. An article of underwear you dip in chocolate perhaps?
>>>
>> It's true, though, that many of us /pronounce/ it as if it had been
>> written "dipthong". The first h is an aspiration; whether that makes the
>> "ph" sound like an "f" or a "p" seems to be a matter of personal taste.
>
> I don't follow your explanation here. What do you mean by saying
> the first h is an aspiration? Written <ph> is *always* pronounced
> as /f/, unless it's between morphemes as in "uphill". Isn't it?
>

> One reason why the "pth" pronunciation is (as you say) extremely
> common might be that people just don't notice the first (written) h.
> Sequences of ChCh are fairly unusual.

Yes; I would certainly have registered that as simple a mistake.

> But I think another is just that the consonant cluster /fT/ is
> itself rare and (dare I say) difficult. Aha! another excuse to
> use Sound Search. There are only half a dozen word-groups that
> have it. In the word-families of naphtha, diphtheria, ophthalmia
> we see the same tendency to simplify the cluster to "pth".
>
> (Other occurrences that don't show this tendency can, I think,
> be explained:
> - In final position, the ordinals "twelfth" and "fifth"
> - A couple of initial occurrences (phthalic, phthisis) where
> a shift to "pth" would hardly improve the situation.
> - Obvious compounds like "life-threatening".)
>
> I don't see a "pth" pronunciation recorded for the medical
> term "aphtha" or the proper names "Jephtha" and "Nephthys", but
> I wouldn't be surprised to hear it among those who have occasion
> to use them regularly.

>
>> A purist would probably also pronounce the "th" as an aspirated "h",

>> rather than as a thorn.
>

> That would be a pretty manic purist. It would be amusing (assuming
> such a person exists) to see what other alien sounds they would
> introduce into their English in the name of "purity".

What? The ordinary English t *is* aspirated. Your argument might
be true for French, but they simply dropped the h in writing (not
the one after the p, as someone here believed).

Anyway, I just learned that I had this wrong all those years. The
change from aspirated p to an f sound happened in pretty much all
languages that have an f at all, including Greek itself, so I
assumed it's a given. The change from aspirated t to the lisp
sound, however, is rather unique to English, so I did indeed
pronounce the "diphthong" with an "ft" in the middle in English,
as a nod to the Classical Greek origin - and because it is the way
to say it in German, French and Russian.

--
Microsoft designed a user-friendly car:
instead of the oil, alternator, gas and engine
warning lights it has just one: "General Car Fault"

Robert Bannister

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Jul 30, 2016, 7:55:11 PM7/30/16

to

My feeling is that fth is easy enough to say, but hard for a listener to
distinguish from a plain th.

Robert Bannister

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Jul 30, 2016, 7:59:08 PM7/30/16

to

I've never had tie a violin up.
A violinist is, of course, a different matter.

Ross

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Jul 30, 2016, 8:04:26 PM7/30/16

to

It is aspirated in certain environments, less so or not at all in
others. I'm assuming our hypothetical purist would be producing a
strong aspiration in an environment where it would not normally
occur. The /t/ in, say, "liftoff" would not be strongly aspirated;
so producing a strongly aspirated /t/ in "diphthong" would be alien
to English phonology.

Your argument might
> be true for French, but they simply dropped the h in writing (not
> the one after the p, as someone here believed).
>
> Anyway, I just learned that I had this wrong all those years. The
> change from aspirated p to an f sound happened in pretty much all
> languages that have an f at all, including Greek itself, so I
> assumed it's a given. The change from aspirated t to the lisp
> sound, however, is rather unique to English, so I did indeed
> pronounce the "diphthong" with an "ft" in the middle in English,
> as a nod to the Classical Greek origin - and because it is the way
> to say it in German, French and Russian.

I don't see any "nod" going on. It's just that most European languages
have an /f/ phoneme, so they can happily take in Greek ph with the
Byzantine (fricative) pronunciation. But few have /θ/ (besides
Greek, there's English, Icelandic, Welsh, some varieties of Spanish,
is that all?) so they have to do the best they can, usually with
/t/.

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Jul 31, 2016, 12:38:50 AM7/31/16

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It is also apicoalveolar. So, it is more distinct from the realization of /T/ than in languages where both /t/ and /T/ are laminodental (dentialveolar).

In Irish English, /T/ is realized as a laminodental plosive. There might be other Englishes with this realization as an allophone, possibly in a <phth> context.

FWIW, I have a slightly aspirated dental [t[<h>] in <myth> and <naphtha> but fricative [T] in <mythical>.

Dingbat

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Jul 31, 2016, 12:49:09 AM7/31/16

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Cows low!

Dingbat

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Jul 31, 2016, 1:32:16 AM7/31/16

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On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 3:34:16 AM UTC+5:30, Mack A. Damia wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:31:21 -0700 (PDT), Helen Lacedaemonian
> <helenofs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:26:22 PM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 3:18:10 PM UTC-4, Helen Lacedaemonian wrote:

> >> > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:50:41 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> > > On Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:14:06 PM UTC-4, Harrison Hill wrote:
> >>
> >> > > > On Facebook today, a complaint that someone is spelling
> >> > > > "mediaeval" rather than "the more usual" medieval. I pronounce
> >> > > > the two words differently. Do we have dipthongs and
> >> > > > ligatures any more?
> >> > > We do not and never have had <dipthongs>
> >> >

> >> > Really? I'm sure I've seen them in a Victoria's Secret catalog.
> >>

> >> Is it that some thongs dip farther than others?
> >
> >That's my observation: the T-back, for instance, or the V-string.
> >
> >But given the dippy nature of all thongs great and small, perhaps the
> >term "dipthong" is tautological.
>
> Are you making a pubic statement?

A statement down under, as distinct from a statement up udder.

At the Cleveland GOP convention, protesters made both statements:
http://spencertunickcleveland.com/

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 31, 2016, 1:32:31 AM7/31/16

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Albanian, I think. It's an odd list, as none of these languages shares
the presence of [θ] with its close relatives, or even, apart from
English and Icelandic, with more distant relatives.

> ) so they have to do the best they can, usually with
> /t/.

--
athel

Helen Lacedaemonian

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Jul 31, 2016, 1:34:33 AM7/31/16

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Of course not! You *string* a violin up.

> A violinist is, of course, a different matter.

I'll get back to you later on that, but at the moment I'm tired and all

Tied up,
Helen

Dingbat

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Jul 31, 2016, 1:56:44 AM7/31/16

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On Sunday, July 31, 2016 at 2:12:13 AM UTC+5:30, charles wrote:
> well, I suppose a cow's "moo" is lower than a pig's "oink", but a harp does
> have high notes - more than 2 octaves above middle C.

Re: A harp goes over 2 octaves above middle C

Automatically, if it's an auto-harp?

An anecdote from Chester Bowles' daughter: She went to buy a 'Hollow Notes' record for her nephew. There was no such band. By and by, she discovered their real name: 'Hall & Oates.'

Dingbat

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Jul 31, 2016, 1:58:30 AM7/31/16

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On Sunday, July 31, 2016 at 11:04:33 AM UTC+5:30, Helen Lacedaemonian

>
> I'll get back to you later on that, but at the moment I'm tired and all
>
> Tied up,
> Helen

... but are you fit to be tied?

Dingbat

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Jul 31, 2016, 2:09:04 AM7/31/16

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... and then take a bow to it, like William Tell.

Richard Heathfield

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Jul 31, 2016, 2:41:35 AM7/31/16

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That sounds like a slur on her character.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

Peter Moylan

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Jul 31, 2016, 4:07:11 AM7/31/16

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If you listen to someone learning the violin, it's clear that a cat is
involved somewhere in the process.

>> I've never had tie a violin up.
>
> Of course not! You *string* a violin up.

Or, in serious cases, you string a violinist up.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Peter Moylan

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Jul 31, 2016, 4:16:17 AM7/31/16

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On 2016-Jul-30 00:06, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, July 29, 2016 at 9:54:31 AM UTC-4, athel...@yahoo wrote:

[LaTeX]

>> In a test I've just done it catered for fi and fl, but not for any of
>> the others. However, it seems to require the ligatures to be present in
>> the typeface. So, for example, neither Mathpazo nor Times produced an
>> ff ligature, but Computer Modern did. It's not a good enough reason to
>> use Computer Modern, however: one of the few things PTD is right about
>> is that Computer Modern is hideous.
>
> Well, you wouldn't know about all the others, would you.

?

If he didn't know about the others, why did he included them in his
LaTeX tests?

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Jul 31, 2016, 8:50:38 AM7/31/16

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From time to time my wife wants me to buy something with the brand name
Elvira at the supermarket. Now that I know what to look for I can find
it, as Elle-et-Vire, I can find it, but the first time I searched for
ages, and the supermarket staff weren't much help.

--
athel

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Jul 31, 2016, 8:56:21 AM7/31/16

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I think you're interpreting his statement too narrowly, whereas he was
interpreting mine too broadly. I think he was referring to all of the
supposedly many things that he is right about (but which he doesn't
mention here), and not just to his dislike of Computer Modern. On the
other hand I was referring to the stuff he posts here. I have little
reason to doubt that when he writes learned articles about Nabataean
monuments, etc., he may know what he's talking about.

--
athel

Peter T. Daniels

unread,

>>>>>>> The dictionaries I've consulted all give two pronunciations, one with
>>>>>>> /f/ and one with /p/.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Right, that's what we're trying to account for. Perhaps all you're
>>>>>> saying is that some people choose to ignore the first h when they
>>>>>> pronounce the word? OK, but as I went on to point out, this seems to
>>>>>> happen just in this little group of words where there's written
>>>>>> "phth" and spoken /fT/. I don't think there's any _general_ tendency
>>>>>> to pronounce "ph" as /p/.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that the reason is not so much that the first H ignored as
>>>>> that people in general find the sequence [pθ] easier to pronounce than
>>>>> [fθ], and that of course leads to the spelling with <pth>. It's
>>>>> probably similar to why it takes conscious effort to pronounce
>>>>> "isthmus" [ˈɪsθməs] rather than [ˈɪsməs].
>>>>
>>>> In the original Greek it seems that "φθ" was the way to write an
>>>> aspirated "pt" where "pt" are co-articulated. Given an origin like
>>>> that I think most anything is permissable in English.
>>>
>>> Your statement about the pronunciation of "φθ" in Ancient Greek is
>>> likely correct, but I think it does not follow that "anything is
>>> permissable" in English. The theoretically "correct" pronunciation in
>>> English is indeed [fθ], but this seems to be a somewhat difficult
>>> combination to articulate, hence its replacement by [pθ]. It seems
>>> that the transition also was problematic for the Greeks themselves,
>>> resulting in the replacement of [φθ] by [ft] in Modern Greek.

>>>
>> My feeling is that fth is easy enough to say, but hard for a listener to
>> distinguish from a plain th.
>

> Why would that be a problem? I don't think any of the -phth-
> words have near-homophones with just -th-, so one wouldn't
> expect compensatory modification of /f/ to /p/ to avert
> misunderstanding. (I'm assuming you meant this as an explanation
> for the "pth" pronunciation.)
>
You're probably right, but I find it hard to believe that "fth" is
difficult to say. Still, enough tennis commentators seem to find
"Kvitova" impossible without inserting a syllable, so maybe my ideas
about what's easy to pronounce and what's not do not run with the
mainstream.

--
Robert B. born England a long time ago;
Western Australia since 1972

Robert Bannister

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Jul 31, 2016, 7:28:35 PM7/31/16

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On 31/07/2016 11:17 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 7:55:11 PM UTC-4, Robert Bannister wrote:
>

>> My feeling is that fth is easy enough to say, but hard for a listener to
>> distinguish from a plain th.
>

> That's not the fifth time you said that, is it? Let alone the twelfth?
>

Most people seem to say "fifth" near enough - at least for my ears. But
"twelfth" seems to be too much for most. Perhaps too much tongue
movement to get from L to F and TH. "Sixth" is another story.

Robert Bannister

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Jul 31, 2016, 7:37:43 PM7/31/16

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+1

>
>> A violinist is, of course, a different matter.
>
> I'll get back to you later on that, but at the moment I'm tired and all

I'd forgotten about the G string.

musika

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Jul 31, 2016, 7:46:46 PM7/31/16

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The same with Daniil Kvyat - Daniel Kivyat.

--
Ray
UK