Pronouncing 'Noam' in Noam Chomsky

[Justin Thyme]

When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
me how his name should really be pronounced.
--
Sorrow in all lands, and grievous omens.
Great anger in the dragon of the hills,
And silent now the earth's green oracles
That will not speak again of innocence.
David Sutton -- Geomancies

[Horace LaBadie]

In article <mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net>,

Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote:

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
> still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
> me how his name should really be pronounced.

When in Nome do as the Nomens do.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 11:44:59 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
> still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
> me how his name should really be pronounced.

In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.

[J. J. Lodder]

In Dutch I would have two, in English one,

Jan

[Adam Funk]

There was a "Gnome Chompsky" (I'm pretty sure there was a "p" in it)
in the _Get Fuzzy_ cartoon once.


--
...the reason why so many professional artists drink a lot is not
necessarily very much to do with the artistic temperament, etc. It is
simply that they can afford to, because they can normally take a large
part of a day off to deal with the ravages. [Amis _On Drink_]

[Joe Fineman]

Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
> More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
> knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.

Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was startled
to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: My job is to talk to you, and your job is to listen. If you :||
||: finish first, please let me know. :||

[Justin Thyme]

In reply to both Jan and Peter: the point is what would Chomsky say were
I able to ask him?

[Don Phillipson]

"Justin Thyme" <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net...

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that

> his first name was pronounced like gnome . . .

Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-01-29, Joe Fineman wrote:

> Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
>
>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
>> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
>> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
>> More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
>> knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.
>
> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was startled
> to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.

Same here, more or less. I've always pronounced it with (what I think
of as) a short schwa.


--
Whenever communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or
manipulating others, we are dealing with a form of violent aggression
like that suffered by the man in the parable, who was beaten by
robbers and left abandoned on the road. --- Pope Francis

[Ross]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 10:15:09 AM UTC+13, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-01-29, Joe Fineman wrote:
>
> > Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
> >
> >> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
> >> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
> >> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
> >> More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
> >> knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.
> >
> > Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was startled
> > to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.
>
> Same here, more or less. I've always pronounced it with (what I think
> of as) a short schwa.

Me too, but of course I don't know 'im.

[Adam Funk]

Noam? Never met 'im!


--
You're the last hope for vaudeville.
--- Groucho Marx to Alice Cooper

[Jerry Friedman]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 1:44:49 PM UTC-7, Justin Thyme wrote:
> J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 11:44:59 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:
> >>
> >>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
> >>> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> >>> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
> >>> still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
> >>> me how his name should really be pronounced.
> >>
> >> In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.
> >
> > In Dutch I would have two, in English one,
> >
> > Jan
>
> In reply to both Jan and Peter: the point is what would Chomsky say were
> I able to ask him?

I've occasionally listened to his speeches, though never all the way
through as far as I remember, and he's always introduced as Nome, as PTD
said or hinted. Youtube has many, many videos of speeches by him and
interviews with him, and you can hear how the hosts introduce him. I
assume most of them have checked the pronunciation with him.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

"My uncle lives in Alaska."

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 3:42:01 PM UTC-5, Joe Fineman wrote:
> Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
>
> > When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
> > that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
> > heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
> > More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
> > knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.
>
> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was startled
> to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.

that's different, because the a in Noah isn't "real" -- it's a "furtive
patacb" (usually said in Latin), which intervenes between a non-low vowel
and a syllable-final "guttural."

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 3:51:14 PM UTC-5, Don Phillipson wrote:
> "Justin Thyme" <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net...

> > When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
> > his first name was pronounced like gnome . . .
>
> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?

So Don Phillipson is as unfamiliar with Hebrew as he is with English grammar.
One man's "obvious" is another's jumping to conclusions.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Aargh. Patach.

[Ross]

You may need to have that "b" key exorcised. It's been messing up your posts
for a while now.

[Peter T. Daniels]

A few days ago I pried up my space bar to blow the dirt out from under, as I've
done with other keys. Normally they've just snapped back on, but tbe space bar
is built differently and won't go back, so I have to press the middle button.
So my index finger (mostly the rigbt one) is discombobulated. When I hit b
instead of n it's obvious, but much less so for h.

A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.

NB I don't like "pried my space bar up."

[Dr Nick]

"Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> writes:

> "Justin Thyme" <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net...
>
>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
>> his first name was pronounced like gnome . . .
>
> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?

I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
making that (entirely logical) analogy.

I'd taken it as "gnome", despite having (a) come across "Noah" and (b)
knowing how to pronounce it.

[bu...@bubba.com]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 3:42:01 PM UTC-5, Joe Fineman wrote:
>> Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
>>
>> > When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)

I think it was entirely reasonable. It's spelled like roam, foam, and
loam.

>> > that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
>> > heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
>> > More recently still I have heard gnome.

Probably people who read it the way you did. Yes? Or who figured after
86 years, it mst have been anglicized.

>> >Can somebody who actually
>> > knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.

You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
probably all the time. Especially if you slur it. If you slur the two
syllables together, as I'm sure many people do much of the time, it's
almost nome. My name is MAY-ir, spelled like Golda Meir but
pronounced like Meir Kahane. But in practice the name usually gets
slurred, including by me, into mayor, as the mayor of a city.

I'm sure because I see his first name twoo is not angicized, Avram, not
Abram. Parents who give a kid two Hebrew names don't plan on
anglicizing the pronunciation either. Wikip, "Living at home, he
funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew."

The name means "pleasantness"

>> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome.

Wikip says "'noum" with a u that first showed up as a ? Are you sure
that's not two syllables?

>>I was startled
>> to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.

Indeed.

>that's different, because the a in Noah isn't "real" -- it's a "furtive

>patach" (usually said in Latin),

I don't understand, what makes it furtive. The a is there in English
and the patach sound is there in Hebrew. It seems like a good
representation.

Because the patach is not usually written?

> which intervenes between a non-low vowel
>and a syllable-final "guttural."

I'm sure you're right that the o is a non-low vowel, and I know you're
right about the rest, but what difference does it make that between
these particular things it intervenes?


What's similar is that they are both two syllables in Hebrew.



--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[Django Cat]

Adam Funk wrote:

> On 2015-01-29, Ross wrote:
>
> > On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 10:15:09 AM UTC+13, Adam Funk wrote:
> >> On 2015-01-29, Joe Fineman wrote:
> >>
> >> > Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
> >> >
> >> >> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good
> reason) >> >> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More
> recently I have >> >> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I
> thought might know. >> >> More recently still I have heard gnome.
> Can somebody who actually >> >> knows please tell me how his name
> should really be pronounced. >> >
> >> > Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was
> startled >> > to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.
> >>
> >> Same here, more or less. I've always pronounced it with (what I
> think >> of as) a short schwa.
> >
> > Me too, but of course I don't know 'im.
>
> Noam? Never met 'im!

There's no M in his name...

DC

--

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Dr Nick skrev:

>> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
>> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?

> I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
> making that (entirely logical) analogy.

Not so logical. "Noah" can hardly be pronounced with only one
syllable - not in any plausible way.

> I'd taken it as "gnome", despite having (a) come across "Noah" and (b)
> knowing how to pronounce it.

Ditto.

--
Bertel, Denmark

[Justin Thyme]

Don Phillipson wrote:
> "Justin Thyme" <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net...
>
>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
>> his first name was pronounced like gnome . . .
>
> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?

Yes, he surely has. But why should he assume that Noam is pronounced
with two vowel sounds like Noah?

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:44:54 +0000, Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
>his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
>pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
>still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
>me how his name should really be pronounced.

I always assumed that it was no-am, I'm not sure why, as I've never heard
anyone say it aloud.

Perhaps it was by analogy with Naum, which is quite a common name in the
Balkans.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Adam Funk]

That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
black stickers over all the letters. It worked.

When I was a student in the laste 1980s, we discovered that the IBM
PS/2 keyboard had movable keycaps. Those of us who could touch-type
occasionally liked to swap 2 or 3 of them around on our own
keyboards....

> NB I don't like "pried my space bar up."

Hmm, "pried my space bar off", maybe; "out" doesn't seem right for
that. But I don't see anything wrong with "up".



--
Classical Greek lent itself to the promulgation of a rich culture,
indeed, to Western civilization. Computer languages bring us
doorbells that chime with thirty-two tunes, alt.sex.bestiality, and
Tetris clones. (Stoll 1995)

[charles]

In article <mafku1$c91$1...@news.albasani.net>, Justin Thyme

<Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Don Phillipson wrote:
> > "Justin Thyme" <Justi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> > news:mado29$snj$1...@news.albasani.net...
> >
> >> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
> >> that his first name was pronounced like gnome . . .
> >
> > Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> > obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel
> > sounds?

> Yes, he surely has. But why should he assume that Noam is pronounced
> with two vowel sounds like Noah?

In England there's a place called "Blyth" - fairly easy to pronounce; in
Scotland there's "Alyth". Work that one out.

--
From KT24 in Surrey

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[John Holmes]

Justin Thyme wrote:
> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)

> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
> More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
> knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.

Just say gnome, as it says here:
http://www.justsaygnome.net/gnome-chomsky-i---additional-views.html

--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 5:30:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 7:33:04 PM UTC-5, Ross wrote:

> >> You may need to have that "b" key exorcised. It's been messing up your posts
> >> for a while now.
> > A few days ago I pried up my space bar to blow the dirt out from under, as I've
> > done with other keys. Normally they've just snapped back on, but tbe space bar
> > is built differently and won't go back, so I have to press the middle button.
> > So my index finger (mostly the rigbt one) is discombobulated. When I hit b
> > instead of n it's obvious, but much less so for h.
> > A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
> > of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.
>
> That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
> to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
> black stickers over all the letters. It worked.

I managed to learn without either doing that or having typing class in school.

> When I was a student in the laste 1980s, we discovered that the IBM
> PS/2 keyboard had movable keycaps. Those of us who could touch-type
> occasionally liked to swap 2 or 3 of them around on our own
> keyboards....

And the outgoing Clinton team allegedly removed the W's from White House
keyboards.

> > NB I don't like "pried my space bar up."
>
> Hmm, "pried my space bar off", maybe; "out" doesn't seem right for
> that. But I don't see anything wrong with "up".

Look at what I did write.

[Peter T. Daniels]

It's one of several phonetic, sub-phonemic, features of Hebrew orthography.

> Because the patach is not usually written?

None of the vowel points are usually written.

> > which intervenes between a non-low vowel
> >and a syllable-final "guttural."
>
> I'm sure you're right that the o is a non-low vowel, and I know you're
> right about the rest, but what difference does it make that between
> these particular things it intervenes?

Noah has two consonants, Nun and Heth. Noam has three consonants, Nun `Ayin
Mem (the same root as Naomi). There are no vowel-initial syllables in Hebrew,
except for some instances of 'and', which is wa- or w- except before a vowelless
consonant in some circumstances, when it is pointed as u-.

> What's similar is that they are both two syllables in Hebrew.

Furtive patach doesn't make a new syllable. If "Noah" occurred in Hebrew
poetry, it would scan as one syllable.

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 5:30:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 7:33:04 PM UTC-5, Ross wrote:
>
>> >> You may need to have that "b" key exorcised. It's been messing up your posts
>> >> for a while now.
>> > A few days ago I pried up my space bar to blow the dirt out from under, as I've
>> > done with other keys. Normally they've just snapped back on, but tbe space bar
>> > is built differently and won't go back, so I have to press the middle button.
>> > So my index finger (mostly the rigbt one) is discombobulated. When I hit b
>> > instead of n it's obvious, but much less so for h.
>> > A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
>> > of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.
>>
>> That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
>> to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
>> black stickers over all the letters. It worked.
>
> I managed to learn without either doing that or having typing class in school.

Then you don't need readable keycaps!

...

>> > NB I don't like "pried my space bar up."
>>
>> Hmm, "pried my space bar off", maybe; "out" doesn't seem right for
>> that. But I don't see anything wrong with "up".
>
> Look at what I did write.

OK.


--
The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency.
Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at
the same time? [Gerald Ford, 1978]

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 10:15:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 5:30:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
> >> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >> > A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
> >> > of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.
> >> That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
> >> to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
> >> black stickers over all the letters. It worked.
> > I managed to learn without either doing that or having typing class in school.
>
> Then you don't need readable keycaps!

When typing prose. But if I just need to drop an i or an o somewhere, I
often grab the wrong one. Plus it doesn't look nice.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 2:17:52 AM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> Dr Nick skrev:
>
> >> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> >> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?
>
> > I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
> > making that (entirely logical) analogy.
>
> Not so logical. "Noah" can hardly be pronounced with only one
> syllable - not in any plausible way.

No, it can. The exclamation that sounds like "woe" is sometimes spelled
"woah".

> > I'd taken it as "gnome", despite having (a) come across "Noah" and (b)
> > knowing how to pronounce it.
>
> Ditto.

And you were both right.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 7:35:38 AM UTC-7, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 3:44:01 AM UTC-5, bu...@bubba.com wrote:...
...

> Noah has two consonants, Nun and Heth. Noam has three consonants, Nun `Ayin
> Mem (the same root as Naomi). There are no vowel-initial syllables in Hebrew,
> except for some instances of 'and', which is wa- or w- except before a vowelless
> consonant in some circumstances, when it is pointed as u-.

Likewise before b, p, and m.

> > What's similar is that they are both two syllables in Hebrew.
>
> Furtive patach doesn't make a new syllable. If "Noah" occurred in Hebrew
> poetry, it would scan as one syllable.

I'll take your word that it was one syllable in pre-modern Hebrew poetry.
However, in my limited experience of modern popular song, the furtive
patach generally counts as a syllable.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 1:44:01 AM UTC-7, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

...

> You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
> grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
> probably all the time.

I think it's wrong in English.

> Especially if you slur it. If you slur the two
> syllables together, as I'm sure many people do much of the time, it's
> almost nome. My name is MAY-ir, spelled like Golda Meir but
> pronounced like Meir Kahane. But in practice the name usually gets
> slurred, including by me, into mayor, as the mayor of a city.

I pronounce "Meir" and "mayor" the same, but in two syllables, and I
don't think I slur anything. "Mare" and "prayer" are one syllable for me.

> I'm sure because I see his first name twoo is not angicized, Avram, not
> Abram. Parents who give a kid two Hebrew names don't plan on
> anglicizing the pronunciation either. Wikip, "Living at home, he
> funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew."
>
> The name means "pleasantness"

Which is what the ways of wisdom are ways of.

> >> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome.
>
> Wikip says "'noum" with a u that first showed up as a ? Are you sure
> that's not two syllables?

...

That's how they represent the GOAT vowel. For most English speakers,
it's a diphthong that ends in an "oo" sound.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:41:37 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 2:17:52 AM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Dr Nick skrev:
>>
>> >> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
>> >> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?
>>
>> > I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
>> > making that (entirely logical) analogy.
>>
>> Not so logical. "Noah" can hardly be pronounced with only one
>> syllable - not in any plausible way.
>
>No, it can. The exclamation that sounds like "woe" is sometimes spelled
>"woah".
>

Or "whoa".

>> > I'd taken it as "gnome", despite having (a) come across "Noah" and (b)
>> > knowing how to pronounce it.
>>
>> Ditto.
>
>And you were both right.

--

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

[Jerry Friedman]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 12:16:58 PM UTC-7, PeterWD wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:41:37 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 2:17:52 AM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> >> Dr Nick skrev:
> >>
> >> >> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
> >> >> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?
> >>
> >> > I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
> >> > making that (entirely logical) analogy.
> >>
> >> Not so logical. "Noah" can hardly be pronounced with only one
> >> syllable - not in any plausible way.
> >
> >No, it can. The exclamation that sounds like "woe" is sometimes spelled
> >"woah".
> >
> Or "whoa".

...

Yes. I'm not clear on whether they're the same thing or whether people
think of them as the same thing. Is "woah" just a misspelling of
"whoa"?

A kid once asked me how to spell /woU/ as an exclamation of surprise.
I suggested "whoa", like telling a horse to stop. He thought that
wasn't the word he wanted. And that's all the data I have.

--
Jerry Friedman

[musika]

Perhaps that's how he pronounced "wow".

--
Ray
UK

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 11:42:31 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman

<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 12:16:58 PM UTC-7, PeterWD wrote:
>> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:41:37 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
>> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 2:17:52 AM UTC-7, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> >> Dr Nick skrev:
>> >>
>> >> >> Had the OP really never come across the name Noah (nonidentical but
>> >> >> obviously related) or did not know it is pronounced with two vowel sounds?
>> >>
>> >> > I don't think that follows. Until this thread I'd never thought of
>> >> > making that (entirely logical) analogy.
>> >>
>> >> Not so logical. "Noah" can hardly be pronounced with only one
>> >> syllable - not in any plausible way.
>> >
>> >No, it can. The exclamation that sounds like "woe" is sometimes spelled
>> >"woah".
>> >
>> Or "whoa".
>...
>
>Yes. I'm not clear on whether they're the same thing or whether people
>think of them as the same thing. Is "woah" just a misspelling of
>"whoa"?
>

This suggest so:
https://www.wordnik.com/words/woah

from Wiktionary

interj. Common misspelling of whoa.

In many of the examples on that page "woah" seems to mean the same as
"wow".

The OED has an entry for "woa":

Forms: Also woah.
Etymology: Variant of whoa int.

One quotation is:

1856 Putnam's Monthly Mag. Nov. 530/1 With a loud ‘woah!’ the
man stopped the beast [sc. ass].

>A kid once asked me how to spell /woU/ as an exclamation of surprise.
>I suggested "whoa", like telling a horse to stop. He thought that
>wasn't the word he wanted. And that's all the data I have.

--

[Adam Funk]

How about "oops" & "w(h)oops"? For me, those have different vowels,
although I can't explain why.


--
I take no pleasure in being right in my dark predictions about the
fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world. It
is immensely depressing to me. Nobody likes to be betting against the
Home team, no matter how hopeless they are. --- Hunter S Thompson

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 10:15:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 5:30:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>> >> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> >> > A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
>> >> > of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.
>> >> That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
>> >> to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
>> >> black stickers over all the letters. It worked.
>> > I managed to learn without either doing that or having typing class in school.
>>
>> Then you don't need readable keycaps!
>
> When typing prose. But if I just need to drop an i or an o somewhere, I
> often grab the wrong one.

Fair enough.

> Plus it doesn't look nice.

Well, I think an all-blank keyboard would look pretty cool (like a
musical keyboard). But I do need some of the markings.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Modern Hebrew bears little resemblance to Classical Hebrew. In phonology
and syntax it's basically Yiddish, and in vocabulary it's to a considerable
extent Standard Average European. Ben Yehuda then and the Academy now try
to make new words from ancient roots, but no one pays attention.

[Tony Cooper]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:46:18 +0000, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
wrote:

>Well, I think an all-blank keyboard would look pretty cool (like a
>musical keyboard). But I do need some of the markings.

I don't need labels on the keys for the letters, but I certainly need
labels on the top row. That's where the symbols are that I now have
to include in my passwords.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

[Peter Moylan]

On 31/01/15 06:42, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> A kid once asked me how to spell /woU/ as an exclamation of surprise.
> I suggested "whoa", like telling a horse to stop. He thought that
> wasn't the word he wanted. And that's all the data I have.

My word for telling a horse to stop is more like "woo". It's not the
same as the expression of surprise, although I now realise that I spell
both of them the same way.

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

[Helen Lacedaemonian]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 12:44:49 PM UTC-8, Justin Thyme wrote:

> J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > Peter T. Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >

> >> On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 11:44:59 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:
> >>
> >>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that

> >>> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> >>> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently

> >>> still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
> >>> me how his name should really be pronounced.
> >>
> >> In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.
> >
> > In Dutch I would have two, in English one,
> >
> > Jan
>
> In reply to both Jan and Peter: the point is what would Chomsky say were
> I able to ask him?

You are able to ask him. Why don't you, and then report back?

Best,
Helen

[Tony Cooper]

Possibly, if both are on Facebook, he could "friend" him.

[Jerry Friedman]

Clyth is in Scotland too. I haven't looked for "Dlyth".

--
Jerry Friedman

[Dingbat]

On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 2:19:18 PM UTC-5, J. J. Lodder wrote:

> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.
>
> In Dutch I would have two,

Know em? (English pronunciation)

Homsky or Gomsky? (Dutch pronunciation) That is, which fricative is used for the last name?

[charles]

In article <mahj8e$hqc$1...@news.albasani.net>,

not that it's relevant, but Moscow is in Scotland, too.

[micky]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:46:18 +0000, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>

wrote:

>On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 10:15:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>>> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> > On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 5:30:06 AM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>>> >> On 2015-01-30, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>> >> > A while ago I tried to get a new set of keycaps because the print on several
>>> >> > of them is worn off, and there's no such thing available.
>>> >> That's a good opportunity to learn to touch-type. When my wife wanted
>>> >> to learn, but found it hard to resist looking at the keys, I put think
>>> >> black stickers over all the letters. It worked.
>>> > I managed to learn without either doing that or having typing class in school.
>>>
>>> Then you don't need readable keycaps!
>>
>> When typing prose. But if I just need to drop an i or an o somewhere, I
>> often grab the wrong one.
>
>Fair enough.
>
>> Plus it doesn't look nice.
>
>Well, I think an all-blank keyboard would look pretty cool (like a
>musical keyboard). But I do need some of the markings.

The markings are wearing off my table radio. And if I actually cleaned
the radio well, for the first time since I bought it almost 30 years
ago, most of them would be gone. And I need them Sometimes I have to
turn on the light to see where Set Alarm is. Or what the button in the
uppper right corner is.

It was expensive, $160 and does very well with FM, so I'm truly afraid
to clean the radio.

--
Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[Jerry Friedman]

And Idaho.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Tobin]

In article <548e85ab...@charleshope.demon.co.uk>,

charles <cha...@charleshope.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>not that it's relevant, but Moscow is in Scotland, too.

There's a Peru in Indiana and an Indiana in Peru.

-- Richard

[Mike L]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:41:04 +1100, "John Holmes" <jh...@tpg.com.au>
wrote:

>Justin Thyme wrote:
>> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
>> that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
>> heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
>> More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
>> knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.
>
>Just say gnome, as it says here:
>http://www.justsaygnome.net/gnome-chomsky-i---additional-views.html

I just can't just say "gnome": it sounds incompetent. But we're in a
world where some children named "Naomi" correct you if you don't
pronounce it "Nye-omi", so it's politic to tag along where need is.

--
Mike.

[Jack Campin]

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that
> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.

I have only met him once, at a meeting where he didn't need to
introduce himself. I think everybody there said no-am and he
seemed okay with that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k
Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland
mobile 07800 739 557 <http://www.campin.me.uk> Twitter: JackCampin

[Jack Campin]

>>> In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.
>> In Dutch I would have two,
> Know em? (English pronunciation)
> Homsky or Gomsky? (Dutch pronunciation) That is,
> which fricative is used for the last name?

There is a dance about that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tp3NpVjkyw

and a song:

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=35871

Come to think of it, transformational grammar rules have
potential as material for morris dance choreography.

[David Kleinecke]

On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 7:47:29 PM UTC-8, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> Clyth is in Scotland too. I haven't looked for "Dlyth".

Minnesota

[bu...@bubba.com]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:12:42 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 1:44:01 AM UTC-7, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>...
>
>> You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
>> grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
>> probably all the time.
>
>I think it's wrong in English.

I don't think there is any obligation to pronounce a name in any special
way just because one is speaking English. After all, English seems to
have a broader range of vowels, if not consonants, than any other
language I know about. AIUI, even the 2 or so vowel sounds closely
identified with French can be reproduced in English by those who are
capable of doing so.

AIUI, people can spell and prounce their names any way they want, and
they can even coin new names, like Shenaiya, Could someone not name
his child Yehezkel or Tsiporah,, even in English. English doesn't have
any words that start with "ts".

>
>> Especially if you slur it. If you slur the two
>> syllables together, as I'm sure many people do much of the time, it's
>> almost nome. My name is MAY-ir, spelled like Golda Meir but
>> pronounced like Meir Kahane. But in practice the name usually gets
>> slurred, including by me, into mayor, as the mayor of a city.
>
>I pronounce "Meir" and "mayor" the same, but in two syllables,

Yes, me too. Two syllables.

> and I
>don't think I slur anything.

Maybe slur is not the right word but I meant saying it so the hiriq, the
single dot, in Meir (the i) is shortened and turned into a shva. Like
No-am could remain two syllables but the patach, the a, could get
shortened and changed into a shva. So Noam could just about rhyme with
poem. That's what I meant by *almost* like (g)nome. (I said nome but
I should have said gnome.)

> "Mare" and "prayer" are one syllable for me.
>
>> I'm sure because I see his first name twoo is not angicized, Avram, not
>> Abram. Parents who give a kid two Hebrew names don't plan on
>> anglicizing the pronunciation either. Wikip, "Living at home, he
>> funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew."
>>
>> The name means "pleasantness"
>
>Which is what the ways of wisdom are ways of.
>
>> >> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome.
>>
>> Wikip says "'noum" with a u that first showed up as a ? Are you sure
>> that's not two syllables?
>...
>
>That's how they represent the GOAT vowel. For most English speakers,
>it's a diphthong that ends in an "oo" sound.

The GOAT vowel??

[Paul Wolff]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2015, bu...@bubba.com posted:

>On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:12:42 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman

>>On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 1:44:01 AM UTC-7, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
>>
>>> You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
>>> grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
>>> probably all the time.
>>
>>I think it's wrong in English.
>
>I don't think there is any obligation to pronounce a name in any special
>way just because one is speaking English. After all, English seems to
>have a broader range of vowels, if not consonants, than any other
>language I know about. AIUI, even the 2 or so vowel sounds closely
>identified with French can be reproduced in English by those who are
>capable of doing so.
>
>AIUI, people can spell and prounce their names any way they want, and
>they can even coin new names, like Shenaiya, Could someone not name
>his child Yehezkel or Tsiporah,, even in English. English doesn't have
>any words that start with "ts".

Tsk, tsk.

--
Paul

[Justin Thyme]

Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...

--
Sorrow in all lands, and grievous omens.
Great anger in the dragon of the hills,
And silent now the earth's green oracles
That will not speak again of innocence.
David Sutton -- Geomancies

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:49:46 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:

> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...

Look at the map of Upstate New York. Those placenames that aren't Native
American are almost entirely Classical.

Or by "North East of the US" do you simply mean New England?

Speaking of Native American, as you drive up NY-17 from the NYC suburbs
toward Ithaca, you can watch the town names alternate between Algonquian
and Iroquois.

[the Omrud]

Or, you can drive around the Chester ring road and watch the road signs
change from English to Welsh.

--
David

[Jack Campin]

> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...

I don't think they'd let anyone call a town Scunthorpe or Penistone.
They don't seem to have a Condom either.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2015 16:35:28 +0000, Jack Campin
<bo...@purr.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
>> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
>
>I don't think they'd let anyone call a town Scunthorpe or Penistone.
>They don't seem to have a Condom either.

Well, there is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercourse,_Pennsylvania

[Peter T. Daniels]

Do they alternate, or is there simply a boundary?

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2015 16:35:28 +0000, Jack Campin <bo...@purr.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

>> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
>> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
>
>I don't think they'd let anyone call a town Scunthorpe or Penistone.
>They don't seem to have a Condom either.
>

They do have lots of "condominiums" which, sadly, are abbreviated to
"condo(s)".

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

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Peter Duncanson [BrE] skrev:

>>I don't think they'd let anyone call a town Scunthorpe or Penistone.
>>They don't seem to have a Condom either.

> They do have lots of "condominiums" which, sadly, are abbreviated to
> "condo(s)".

And very shy people say "condominiums" istead of "condoms". At
least one person does (seen on tv with dr. Ruth and an actress).

--
Bertel, Denmark

[the Omrud]

Yes, I wasn't clear. About a third of the Chester ring road is in
Wales. There are two boundaries; there may be "Welcome to
Wales/England" signs, but the main clue that you've moved from one
country to the other is that the language on the road signs changes.

The quickest driving route from my home in Cheshire to my parents' home
in Shropshire (two counties which share a border) includes 15 miles
through Wales. The border wanders rather a lot.

--
David

[Peter T. Daniels]

Why sadly? You lot seem to do a lot more abbreviating than we do (though
you don't hold a candle to the Ozzies.)

[Justin Thyme]

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:49:46 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:
>
>> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
>> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
>
> Look at the map of Upstate New York. Those placenames that aren't Native
> American are almost entirely Classical.
>
> Or by "North East of the US" do you simply mean New England?

Yes, probably.

> Speaking of Native American, as you drive up NY-17 from the NYC suburbs
> toward Ithaca, you can watch the town names alternate between Algonquian
> and Iroquois.
>

[Jerry Friedman]

On 1/31/15 7:41 PM, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:12:42 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 1:44:01 AM UTC-7, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
>>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>> You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
>>> grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
>>> probably all the time.
>>
>> I think it's wrong in English.
>
> I don't think there is any obligation to pronounce a name in any special
> way just because one is speaking English. After all, English seems to
> have a broader range of vowels, if not consonants, than any other
> language I know about. AIUI, even the 2 or so vowel sounds closely
> identified with French can be reproduced in English by those who are
> capable of doing so.
>
> AIUI, people can spell and prounce their names any way they want,

Exactly, and since Chomsky doesn't object when people introduce him as
Nome, that's how I thought he pronounced his name in English. In that
case pronouncing it differently in English would be wrong. However,
Jack Campin says he's heard Chomsky introduced as No-am without
objecting, so maybe NC doesn't care, in which case I was wrong to say
that pronunciation is wrong.

There was apparently a movie called /The Newsreel/ in which our man
said, "I'm Noam Chomsky, I'm on the faculty at MIT, and I've been
getting more and more heavily involved in anti-war activities for the
last few years." I can find transcripts, but I can't find the video on
the Web.

http://www.vidqt.com/id/I9uC2VOmLmQ?lang=en

> and
> they can even coin new names, like Shenaiya, Could someone not name
> his child Yehezkel or Tsiporah,, even in English. English doesn't have
> any words that start with "ts".

I knew someone named Tsiporah (not sure about the spelling) when I was a
kid.

>>> Especially if you slur it. If you slur the two
>>> syllables together, as I'm sure many people do much of the time, it's
>>> almost nome. My name is MAY-ir, spelled like Golda Meir but
>>> pronounced like Meir Kahane. But in practice the name usually gets
>>> slurred, including by me, into mayor, as the mayor of a city.
>>
>> I pronounce "Meir" and "mayor" the same, but in two syllables,
>
> Yes, me too. Two syllables.
>
>> and I
>> don't think I slur anything.
>
> Maybe slur is not the right word but I meant saying it so the hiriq, the
> single dot, in Meir (the i) is shortened and turned into a shva.

Got it. When I accent "Meir" on the first syllable, in Ashkenazic, I
probably do use a schwa or shva.

> Like
> No-am could remain two syllables but the patach, the a, could get
> shortened and changed into a shva. So Noam could just about rhyme with
> poem. That's what I meant by *almost* like (g)nome.

Sure, it could. I didn't think it does.

> (I said nome but I should have said gnome.)

...

I don't see the difference.

>>>>> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome.
>>>
>>> Wikip says "'noum" with a u that first showed up as a ? Are you sure
>>> that's not two syllables?
>> ...
>>
>> That's how they represent the GOAT vowel. For most English speakers,
>> it's a diphthong that ends in an "oo" sound.
>
> The GOAT vowel??

Yep. Your mouth closes as you say it.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-01-30, Tony Cooper wrote:

> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:46:18 +0000, Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Well, I think an all-blank keyboard would look pretty cool (like a
>>musical keyboard). But I do need some of the markings.
>

> I don't need labels on the keys for the letters, but I certainly need
> labels on the top row. That's where the symbols are that I now have
> to include in my passwords.

Yup, the markings I need are most of the non-letter ones. I could
probably do without the digits, but I'd need some of the shift-digit
symbols. Also, some of the other symbols vary slightly between
different computers that I use.


--
'...and Tom [Snyder] turns to him and says, "so Alice [Cooper], is it
true you kill chickens on stage?" That was the opening question, and
Alice looks at him real serious and goes, "Oh no, no no. That's
Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders kills chickens."'

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-01-31, charles wrote:

> Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Clyth is in Scotland too. I haven't looked for "Dlyth".
>
> not that it's relevant, but Moscow is in Scotland, too.

Moscow is in Virginia, near Bridgewater.

[Joe Fineman]

Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:

> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some
> place in the US? The North East of the US looks like England:
> Biddeford, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland,
> Northampton,...

I've often thought that English visitors to New England must find the
experience dizzying. The suburbs of Boston, MA, are all over the map in
England.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Repentence is like taking out the garbage: once is :||
||: not enough. :||

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-02-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:49:46 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:
>
>> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
>> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
>
> Look at the map of Upstate New York. Those placenames that aren't Native
> American are almost entirely Classical.

Cf. Vonnegut's fictional Ilium, NY (_Player Piano_).

> Or by "North East of the US" do you simply mean New England?
>
> Speaking of Native American, as you drive up NY-17 from the NYC suburbs
> toward Ithaca, you can watch the town names alternate between Algonquian
> and Iroquois.

I don't know how to tell the difference --- is it straightforward?


--
svn ci -m 'come back make, all is forgiven!' build.xml

[Mark Brader]

> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
> in the US?

The largest untainted example seems to be Kiev.

Scanning by hand through the top 200 metropolitan areas in the world
according to http://www.citypopulation.de, I find 21 that are wholly
in Europe and one more that is partly in Europe.

I searched for US examples of each name, using the Geographic Names
Information System on the USGS web site, looking only for populated
places and not other forms of place name. Where I give the number
of examples of each name below, those are the result counts with
"exact match" and "exclude variants" set. Of course most of these
places are going to be tiny and quite likely unincorporated.

The left-hand column is the world rank of of the European metropolitan
area according to the web site.

17. Moscow, Russia 24 examples
22. Istanbul, Turkey none (no Constantionople either)
23. London, Great Britain 19 examples
28. Paris, France 23 examples
63. Madrid, Spain 9 examples plus one in Puerto Rico
72. St. Petersburg, Russia 3 examples
74. The Ruhr, Germany none
75. Milan, Italy 16 examples
89. Barcelona, Spain 3 examples plus one in Puerto Rico
96. Cologne/Dusseldorf, Germany 4 examples of Cologne but no Dusseldorf
99. Berlin, Germany 29 examples
101. Naples, Italy 12 examples
127. Rome, Italy 25 examples
130. Athens, Greece 24 examples
139. Kiev, Ukraine none
148. Frankfurt, Germany none (but 17 examples of Frankfort)
151. Birmingham, UK 17 examples
151. Rotterdam, Netherlands 1 example (New York)
162. Manchester, UK 36 examples
191. Hamburg, Germany 29 examples
191. Lisbon, Portugal 20 examples
195. Budapest, Hungary 2 examples (Georgia and Missouri)

Istanbul is not entirely in Europe; "Ruhr" names a district and not a
city; and I think Frankfort was intended to be the American English
spelling of Frankfurt. And Dusseldorf is self-tainted by being just
one of two cities named for its metro area, so that by itself it doesn't
deserve its indicated rank.

That leaves Kiev as the one untainted example in this set of European
cities.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "This is as 'real' as your so-called life gets!"
m...@vex.net | "Q Who", ST:TNG, Maurice Hurley

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Sam Plusnet]

In article <maiqt9$507$1...@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>, ric...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk
says...

<Postman throws his hat to the floor and goes looking for another job>


--
Sam

[Sam Plusnet]

In article <Daszw.377626$Lr2.3...@fx30.am4>, usenet...@gmail.com
says...

Calling at Gwasanaethau?

--
Sam

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 5:45:05 PM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
> On 2015-02-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:49:46 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:

> >> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
> >> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
> >> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
> >
> > Look at the map of Upstate New York. Those placenames that aren't Native
> > American are almost entirely Classical.
>
> Cf. Vonnegut's fictional Ilium, NY (_Player Piano_).

Troy is sort of a suburb of Albany, and somehow it's where Renssalaer
Polytechnic Institute is, whereas Renssalaer is clear on the other side
of Albany.

> > Or by "North East of the US" do you simply mean New England?
> >
> > Speaking of Native American, as you drive up NY-17 from the NYC suburbs
> > toward Ithaca, you can watch the town names alternate between Algonquian
> > and Iroquois.
>
> I don't know how to tell the difference --- is it straightforward?

In a word, yes. All the Finger Lakes, for instance, are named for Iroquois
tribes (well, I'm not sure about Skaneateles, but that one's horizontal so
it doesn't really count.) Algonquian place names tend to end with consonants
and be longer because they're polysynthetic or incorporating languages.

[Tony Cooper]

Skaneateles is so named because it is on Skaneateles Lake, and
Skaneateles is an Iroquoian name meaning "long lake".

I've been to Skaneateles Falls NY. As a Florida distributor of Welch
Allyn medical products, I was invited to their offices there. Part of
the tour included an explanation of the origin of the name of the
town.

Interesting company. Their products are used world-wide, but they are
a privately-held family company. Unusual these days.

Many reading this have had a Welch Allyn otoscope stuck in their ear
by their doctor. That's a minor product in Welch Allyn's line, but
one that most patients have had used on them.

[Eric Walker]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 16:44:54 +0000, Justin Thyme wrote:

> When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason) that

> his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have heard it
> pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know. More recently
> still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually knows please tell
> me how his name should really be pronounced.

Don't know, but how would you pronounce the name of the ark builder?


--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

[J. J. Lodder]

Dingbat <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 2:19:18 PM UTC-5, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > > In English, one syllable. In Hebrew, two syllables.
> >
> > In Dutch I would have two,
>
> Know em? (English pronunciation)
>
> Homsky or Gomsky? (Dutch pronunciation) That is, which fricative is used
> for the last name?

Neither.
Unlike popular belief in the English speaking world
there is not just the notorious harsh ch.

The Dutch ch in words like chimpnasee, chocolade,
differs little from the English ch.

Pronouncing Dutch chimp with the same ch as in Dutch chrome,
or chloor is an is an error.
No easy rule for it I'm afraid.

Noam Chomsky obviously get the same ch in Dutch
as Nim Chimpsky,

Jan

[Peter T. Daniels]

Oh, for Christ's sake. READ THE THREAD before commenting and flaunting your
ignorance.

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-02-02, Mark Brader wrote:

>> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> in the US?
>
> The largest untainted example seems to be Kiev.

...

> That leaves Kiev as the one untainted example in this set of European
> cities.

The chicken recipe is ubiquitous, though.


--
I used to be better at logic problems, before I just dumped
them all into TeX and let Knuth pick out the survivors.
-- plorkwort

[Justin Thyme]

I would pronounce the 'oa' in 'Noah' as two vowel sounds. But that
tells us nothing about 'Noam', does it?

[Adam Funk]

On 2015-02-02, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 5:45:05 PM UTC-5, Adam Funk wrote:
>> On 2015-02-01, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> > On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:49:46 AM UTC-5, Justin Thyme wrote:
>
>> >> Is there any European place name that isn't also the name of some place
>> >> in the US? The North East of the US looks like England: Biddeford,
>> >> Portsmouth, Gloucester, Manchester, Exeter, Rutland, Northampton,...
>> >
>> > Look at the map of Upstate New York. Those placenames that aren't Native
>> > American are almost entirely Classical.
>>
>> Cf. Vonnegut's fictional Ilium, NY (_Player Piano_).
>
> Troy is sort of a suburb of Albany, and somehow it's where Renssalaer
> Polytechnic Institute is, whereas Renssalaer is clear on the other side
> of Albany.

(Well, I do know about the "Iliad".)

>> > Or by "North East of the US" do you simply mean New England?
>> >
>> > Speaking of Native American, as you drive up NY-17 from the NYC suburbs
>> > toward Ithaca, you can watch the town names alternate between Algonquian
>> > and Iroquois.
>>
>> I don't know how to tell the difference --- is it straightforward?
>
> In a word, yes. All the Finger Lakes, for instance, are named for Iroquois
> tribes (well, I'm not sure about Skaneateles, but that one's horizontal so
> it doesn't really count.) Algonquian place names tend to end with consonants
> and be longer because they're polysynthetic or incorporating languages.

Thanks. The distribution maps for Algic & Iroquoian languages on
Wikipedia are interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algic_languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquoian_languages


--
Master Foo once said to a visiting programmer: "There is more
Unix-nature in one line of shell script than there is in ten
thousand lines of C." --- Eric Raymond

[bu...@bubba.com]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote:

>On Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 3:42:01 PM UTC-5, Joe Fineman wrote:

>> Justin Thyme <Justi...@nowhere.com> writes:
>>
>> > When I first came cross Noam Chomsky I assumed (for no good reason)
>> > that his first name was pronounced like gnome. More recently I have
>> > heard it pronounced like no-am by people who I thought might know.
>> > More recently still I have heard gnome. Can somebody who actually
>> > knows please tell me how his name should really be pronounced.
>>

>> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome. I was startled
>> to see that; I had always followed the analogy of Noah.
>
>that's different, because the a in Noah isn't "real" -- it's a "furtive
>patach"

And why is that not real? Everyone I've ever heard pronounce the word
Noah, and that is many people, pronounces the a, and for that matter,
puts it in a separate syllable from the o. How is that not real? How
could it not be real when they pronounce it?

(For those who don't recognize the term furtive in the context of
Hebrew, it refers to cases of words ending in heh (pronounced like an
H), het (prounced like a guttural H) or ayin, (also with a weak guttural
sound) which are written with a patach underneath the final consonant.
In most cases, all other cases I t hink, a vowel is sounded AFTER the
consonant it is under, but not with a final heh, het, or ayin. Then
it's sounded BEFORE the consonant. So Noach is not pronounced Nocha,
ruach is not pronounced rucha, and poteach is not pronounced potecha,
Instead what looks like cha is pronounced ach. Because that is how
the words are pronounced. This is, I'm 99% sure, the only exception
in Hebrew to words not being pronounced as they are written. )

> (usually said in Latin), which intervenes between a non-low vowel
>and a syllable-final "guttural."

And the same thing with the name Noach. Everyone I've ever heard
pronounces the a in Noach, not as part of a dipthong, but as a separate
vowel in a separate syllable. That is also many people,

What difference does it make that the patach is placed under the last
letter of Noach? Instead of being under a blank space preceding the
last letter?. Writing represents sounds, not the other way around.

In another post you say wrt Noah, and I'm sure wrt Noach:
>Furtive patach doesn't make a new syllable. If "Noah" occurred in Hebrew
>poetry, it would scan as one syllable.

I sort of agree that a furtive patach doesn't make a new syllable. It's
the other way around. There IS a second syllable, because that is how
everyone pronounces it. If someone thinks the furtive patach doesn't
adequately represent that, the problem is in the way the word is
written, but it doesn't change the way the word is pronounced.

WRT the second sentence: Can you give me an example of Noah or Noach in
Hebrew poetry where it's scanned as one syllable? I doubt it, but
maybe you can find one squeezed into one syllable in the same way that
even and ever are respelled and then scanned as one syallble in English

So, can you show me that it's not scanned as two much more often than
it's scanned as one?

Everyone I know but you thinks Noah in English and Noach in Hebrew and
Noam in Hebrew are two syllables,

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, February 2, 2015 at 5:15:12 PM UTC-5, bu...@bubba.com wrote:

> WRT the second sentence: Can you give me an example of Noah or Noach in
> Hebrew poetry where it's scanned as one syllable? I doubt it, but
> maybe you can find one squeezed into one syllable in the same way that
> even and ever are respelled and then scanned as one syallble in English
>
> So, can you show me that it's not scanned as two much more often than
> it's scanned as one?

People have been studying Hebrew poetry scientifically for some 250 years
now. No, I'm not going to open a BHS and look through all the poetic passages
to find one containing a word with a patach furtivum for you.

> Everyone I know but you thinks Noah in English and Noach in Hebrew and
> Noam in Hebrew are two syllables,

Then you seem not to have read the thread. "Nome" and "gnome" have been
invoked multiple times.

[Wayne Brown]

I once went to a basketball tournament at a Children's Home in Kansas,
Oklahoma which had an Arkansas mailing address. Near the end of the
trip I crossed the Illinois River.

--
F. Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net>

Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg. ("That passed away, this also can.")
from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)

[Jerry Friedman]

As far as I can tell, PTD is helpfully using "Hebrew" to mean classical
Hebrew, even though he uses the present tense. I believe you can read
your quotation from another post as "Furtive patach didn't make a new
syllable in classical Hebrew. If 'Noah' occurred in classical Hebrew
poetry, it would have scanned as one syllable." Right, Mr. Daniels?


--
Jerry Friedman

[micky]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2015 15:08:25 -0700, Jerry Friedman

<jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 1/31/15 7:41 PM, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
>> On Fri, 30 Jan 2015 10:12:42 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman
>> <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 1:44:01 AM UTC-7, bu...@bubba.com wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:56:13 -0800 (PST), "Peter T. Daniels"
>>>> <gram...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> You can't go wrong with NO-am. I'm sure that's how his parents and
>>>> grandparents pronounced it at least some of the time (in shul, etc.),
>>>> probably all the time.
>>>
>>> I think it's wrong in English.
>>
>> I don't think there is any obligation to pronounce a name in any special
>> way just because one is speaking English. After all, English seems to
>> have a broader range of vowels, if not consonants, than any other
>> language I know about. AIUI, even the 2 or so vowel sounds closely
>> identified with French can be reproduced in English by those who are
>> capable of doing so.
>>
>> AIUI, people can spell and prounce their names any way they want,
>
>Exactly, and since Chomsky doesn't object when people introduce him as
>Nome, that's how I thought he pronounced his name in English. In that

Okay. I thought by "wrong in English" you meant that it was wrong for
anyone. , .

>case pronouncing it differently in English would be wrong. However,
>Jack Campin says he's heard Chomsky introduced as No-am without
>objecting, so maybe NC doesn't care, in which case I was wrong to say
>that pronunciation is wrong.
>
>There was apparently a movie called /The Newsreel/ in which our man
>said, "I'm Noam Chomsky, I'm on the faculty at MIT, and I've been
>getting more and more heavily involved in anti-war activities for the
>last few years." I can find transcripts, but I can't find the video on
>the Web.
>
>http://www.vidqt.com/id/I9uC2VOmLmQ?lang=en
>
>> and
>> they can even coin new names, like Shenaiya, Could someone not name
>> his child Yehezkel or Tsiporah,, even in English. English doesn't have
>> any words that start with "ts".
>
>I knew someone named Tsiporah (not sure about the spelling) when I was a
>kid.

Good. All of this related to trying to convince you of something you
weren't saying otherwise in the first place.

>>>> Especially if you slur it. If you slur the two
>>>> syllables together, as I'm sure many people do much of the time, it's
>>>> almost nome. My name is MAY-ir, spelled like Golda Meir but
>>>> pronounced like Meir Kahane. But in practice the name usually gets
>>>> slurred, including by me, into mayor, as the mayor of a city.
>>>
>>> I pronounce "Meir" and "mayor" the same, but in two syllables,
>>
>> Yes, me too. Two syllables.
>>
>>> and I
>>> don't think I slur anything.
>>
>> Maybe slur is not the right word but I meant saying it so the hiriq, the
>> single dot, in Meir (the i) is shortened and turned into a shva.
>
>Got it. When I accent "Meir" on the first syllable, in Ashkenazic, I
>probably do use a schwa or shva.

In Hebrew school the Israeli teacher pronounced it mayEAR or IR, and I
didn't like it for myself at all. Still don't. Only when another
Israeli told me that plenty of Israelis pronounce their names in
Ashkenazic did I start using my Hebrew name almost all the time. (not
where taxes or insurance is involved, for example.)

>
>> Like
>> No-am could remain two syllables but the patach, the a, could get
>> shortened and changed into a shva. So Noam could just about rhyme with
>> poem. That's what I meant by *almost* like (g)nome.
>
>Sure, it could. I didn't think it does.
>
>> (I said nome but I should have said gnome.)
>...
>
>I don't see the difference.

Just that nome could be pronounced more than one way and gnome is a
well-known word with a standard pronunciation.

>>>>>> Wikipedia, like others on this thread, makes it gnome.
>>>>
>>>> Wikip says "'noum" with a u that first showed up as a ? Are you sure
>>>> that's not two syllables?
>>> ...
>>>
>>> That's how they represent the GOAT vowel. For most English speakers,
>>> it's a diphthong that ends in an "oo" sound.
>>
>> The GOAT vowel??
>
>Yep. Your mouth closes as you say it.


--

Please say where you live, or what
area's English you are asking about.
So your question or answer makes sense.
. .
I have lived all my life in the USA,
Western Pa. Indianapolis, Chicago,
Brooklyn, Baltimore.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Well duh. The English Bible didn't get its names from Modern Hebrew. And
Modern Hebrew poetry doesn't work by counting syllables like biblical poetry.

[Oliver Cromm]

* Peter Moylan:

> On 31/01/15 06:42, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>> A kid once asked me how to spell /woU/ as an exclamation of surprise.
>> I suggested "whoa", like telling a horse to stop. He thought that
>> wasn't the word he wanted. And that's all the data I have.
>
> My word for telling a horse to stop is more like "woo". It's not the
> same as the expression of surprise, although I now realise that I spell
> both of them the same way.

You're not making it easier for me to read "whoa", now that I
finally thought I got it after years of hesitation.

Exclamations are pretty difficult when you're not familiar enough
with everyday culture. For decades, I didn't know what "tsk" is
supposed to sound like.

--
Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand.

[Oliver Cromm]

* Mark Brader:

> And Dusseldorf is self-tainted by being just
> one of two cities named for its metro area, so that by itself it doesn't
> deserve its indicated rank.

I don't think that argument is good, as it's mostly the result of
development patterns and naming traditions.

Minneapolis in the list could as well be called Minneapolis/Saint
Paul. Would that taint Minneapolis for you, or just Saint Paul?
Note that Minneapolis is smaller (in population) than Düsseldorf
absolutely and in relation to its metro area, and less different
from its partner.

--
XML combines all the inefficiency of text-based formats with most
of the unreadability of binary formats.
Oren Tirosh, comp.lang.python

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2015 13:35:17 -0500, Oliver Cromm
<lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

>* Peter Moylan:
>
>> On 31/01/15 06:42, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>
>>> A kid once asked me how to spell /woU/ as an exclamation of surprise.
>>> I suggested "whoa", like telling a horse to stop. He thought that
>>> wasn't the word he wanted. And that's all the data I have.
>>
>> My word for telling a horse to stop is more like "woo". It's not the
>> same as the expression of surprise, although I now realise that I spell
>> both of them the same way.
>
>You're not making it easier for me to read "whoa", now that I
>finally thought I got it after years of hesitation.

I pronounce "Whoa!" exactly as I would pronounce "woe", but maybe with
more emphasis.

>
>Exclamations are pretty difficult when you're not familiar enough
>with everyday culture. For decades, I didn't know what "tsk" is
>supposed to sound like.
--

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2015 13:35:17 -0500, Oliver Cromm
<lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

<smile> It's not actually supposed to sound like "t" followed by "sk"!

There is an example of the pronunciation here:
http://www.forvo.com/word/tsk/#en

Pronunciation by Jafsie (Female from Canada)

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

[Oliver Cromm]

* Peter Duncanson [BrE]:

Seriously, pages like forvo.com are a dream. I used to jot down
things to check on my next visit to the library in a small
notebook I was carrying - when I was carrying it -, but among
those libraries, none had an audio bank where I could have checked
sample pronunciations of "tsk" (and I'm not sure if I would have
been willing to wait 10 minutes for the desk to find me the right
tape even if there was one).

--
It gets hot in Raleigh, but Texas! I don't know why anybody
lives here, honestly.
-- Robert C. Wilson, Vortex (novel), p.220

[David Kleinecke]

On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 11:52:42 AM UTC-8, Tony Cooper wrote:

> I pronounce "Whoa!" exactly as I would pronounce "woe", but maybe with
> more emphasis.

But the initial consonant of "whoa" is voiceless for those of us
(nobody seems to know how many we are) who differentiate "w" and "wh".

PS: I observe that I don't use "between" between "w" and "wh" (or
"from"). But it seems the object of transitive "differentiate" must be
plural. Not just "and".
He doesn't differentiate Tom, Dick and Harry.
He doesn't differentiate terrorists.

[Mark Brader]

Mark Brader:
> > And Dusseldorf is self-tainted by being just
> > one of two cities named for its metro area, so that
> > by itself it doesn't deserve its indicated rank.

Oliver Cromm:

> I don't think that argument is good, as it's mostly the result of
> development patterns and naming traditions.

It wasn't exactly an argument. I was only addressing how good an
answer to the question each of the cities might be, where "good"
is based on the importance of the city.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto, m...@vex.net
"But even though they probably certainly know that you probably
wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably
wouldn't there's no probability that you certainly would."
-- Sir Humphrey Appleby ("Yes, Prime Minister") on nuclear deterrence

[Peter Moylan]

On 04/02/15 05:35, Oliver Cromm wrote:

> Exclamations are pretty difficult when you're not familiar enough
> with everyday culture. For decades, I didn't know what "tsk" is
> supposed to sound like.

I knew what "tut" sounded like, but wasn't sure about "tsk". It wasn't
until a year or two ago that I realised that they were alternative
spellings of the same word.

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

[Helen Lacedaemonian]

On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 8:00:49 PM UTC-8, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 04/02/15 05:35, Oliver Cromm wrote:
>
> > Exclamations are pretty difficult when you're not familiar enough
> > with everyday culture. For decades, I didn't know what "tsk" is
> > supposed to sound like.
>
> I knew what "tut" sounded like, but wasn't sure about "tsk". It wasn't
> until a year or two ago that I realised that they were alternative
> spellings of the same word.

Yeah, and remember when they dug up the grave of King Tsk? He must have tutted all the way to the tomb. You can't tsk it with you? I better stop.

Best,
Helen

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 7:46:57 PM UTC-5, David Kleinecke wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 3, 2015 at 11:52:42 AM UTC-8, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
> > I pronounce "Whoa!" exactly as I would pronounce "woe", but maybe with
> > more emphasis.
>
> But the initial consonant of "whoa" is voiceless for those of us
> (nobody seems to know how many we are) who differentiate "w" and "wh".

I suspect that's a spelling pronunciation.