ghoti = fish
Adrian Goodall
I'm not sure if this is the correct newsgroup to ask but i'll ask anyway.
The thing is that i've come across the word "ghoti"
Now if you take the GH from the word tough. GH = F
Take the o from women so that O = I
take the TI from mention so that TI = SH
Thus ghoti is prounced fish.
The question I now put forth is does anyone out there know of other
examples or of a book that explains this rather weird side of English ?
Daan Sandee
In article <55o0d8$t...@mercury.kingston.ac.uk>, Adrian Goodall <LR_...@Kingston.ac.uk> writes:
|> I'm not sure if this is the correct newsgroup to ask but i'll ask anyway.
|>
|> The thing is that i've come across the word "ghoti"
|> The question I now put forth is does anyone out there know of other
|> examples or of a book that explains this rather weird side of English ?
No, but I know of a newsgroup that tells you where to find the FAQ of a
newsgroup. It's called news.announce.newusers.
# What is "ghoti"? (notes by Jim Scobbie)
# ----------------
#
# It's an alternate spelling of "chestnut". :-) O.K., it's "fish",
# re-spelled by George Bernard Shaw to demonstrate the inconsistency
# of English spelling ("gh" as in "cough", "o" as in "women", "ti" as
# in "nation").
#
# In the same vein is "ghoughpteighbteau":
# P hiccough
# O though
# T ptomaine
# A neigh
# T debt
# O bureau
#
# Supposedly, this is an example of how awful English spelling is,
# and why it ought to be reformed. In fact, it argues that English
# spelling is kind and considerate, and easy. Why? Because "potato"
# *isn't* spelled "ghoughpteighbteau". It's spelled "potato"! O.K,
# O.K., "neigh" isn't spelt "ne", and we can get into all the old
# arguments, but these really fun examples overstate the case and
# strike those of us opposed to spelling reform as self-defeating.
(end quote from FAQ)
Daan Sandee
Burlington, MA Use this email address: san...@cmns.think.com
N.R. Mitchum
Adrian Goodall wrote:
--------
> The question I now put forth is does anyone out there know of other
> examples or of a book that explains this rather weird side of English ?
It's the most famous example from the Shavian spelling reform, though
I can't believe even a professional crackpot like Shaw could have meant
it to be taken seriously (which guaranteed that the half-educated would
do just that). As I recall, it was meant instead as an example of the lack
of system in current practices, not as a proposal to sustitute those
particular letter combinations for the spelling of "fish."
A foolish consistency was his hobgoblin.
Nathan Mitchum [Post&Mail]
Bob Cunningham
san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) said:
>Adrian Goodall <LR_...@Kingston.ac.uk> writes:
>|> I'm not sure if this is the correct newsgroup to ask but i'll ask anyway.
>|>
>|> The thing is that i've come across the word "ghoti"
>
>[redundant explanation deleted]
>
>|> The question I now put forth is does anyone out there know of other
>|> examples or of a book that explains this rather weird side of English ?
>
>No, but I know of a newsgroup that tells you where to find the FAQ of a
>newsgroup. It's called news.announce.newusers.
It's okay to tell people to read the FAQ when the answers they want
are there. In this case, the questions Adrian Goodall asked are not
well answered in the a.u.e. FAQ. (There's probably no reason why they
should be; the questions probably have not come up in a.u.e. before.)
He's asking for other examples; the a.u.e. FAQ gives one other example.
He's asking for a reference to a book that treats the topic; the a.u.e.
FAQ gives no such specific reference. (There may not be such a book.
Come to think of it, though, the questions could conceivably be answered
in a rec.puzzles FAQ.)
I'd like to know the answers to those questions myself. Has anyone
compiled a list of interesting contrived words, like "ghoti", that are
based on the oddities of English spelling? Does anyone know of a book
that systematically analyzes English orthography in terms of listing all
the different spellings that have been used for each sound?
One approach to a thorough analysis would be to take each sound
represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet and to try to find
all the different ways that sound is spelled. For example, in the case
of /t/ a list could start with "Th" in "Thames", "pt" in "ptomaine",
"ed" in "walked", and "t" in "time". There may not be any way to do a
systematic analysis except to take each word in an unabridged dictionary
and assign each of its sounds to the corresponding phoneme. All of the
words in the dictionary could be thus processed in a finite amount of
time, and the result would be a list of all orthographic symbols that
are used to spell each phoneme.
(By the way, I find the spelling "och ach" amusing. Can anyone
deduce what English term it represents? It's one I've heard a lot,
though not in recent years, and it's listed in _Webster's Third New
International Dictionary_. If you figure it out, please keep it to
yourself for a while. If you give up, e-mail me for the answer.)
If a scholar--one who is motivated by pristine academic goals and
is completely aloof from mundane considerations--should ever attempt
such an analysis as I have outlined, one suitable goal might be to find
a spelling that can be pronounced as either the source word or a word
that bears a contradictory or humorous relation to the source word.
(Let me hasten to say that I don't know of an example.)
I'm cross-posting this to rec.puzzles. I apologize if some of the
things I've mentioned are covered in a FAQ there. I'm taking a chance
on posting it there because I think it's unlikely that the "och ach"
question and the contrived spelling that has both the original
pronunciation and an amusing alternative have previously been
considered.
I haven't read the entire rec.puzzles FAQ, but I can say, at least,
that I've searched several files that are parts of the rec.puzzles FAQ
--and may represent the entire FAQ--without finding any reference to
"ghoti".
Chuck Rothman
Adrian Goodall wrote:
>
> I'm not sure if this is the correct newsgroup to ask but i'll ask anyway.
>
> The thing is that i've come across the word "ghoti"
>
>
> Take the o from women so that O = I
> take the TI from mention so that TI = SH
>
> Thus ghoti is prounced fish.
>
> examples or of a book that explains this rather weird side of English ?
This "example" was put forth by George Bernard Shaw, I believe. It is
wrong. "Ghoti" would never be pronounced "fish," according to the rules
of English pronunciation (such as they are).
Shaw ignored context. "gh" is always prounounced like a hard "g" (i.e.,
ghost) when >it is at the beginning of the word< (as in this case) "Ti"
is only pronounced "sh" if it's followed by "on". And there's only one
word in the language where the "o" is pronounced like "i"; the general
rule would be to pronounce it like (what we called in grammar school)
the long or short "o".
Thus the pronuciations of "ghoti" that follow the rules would be either
"goatee" or "Gotti."
Just because it's spelled "Luxury Yacht" doesn't mean it's pronounced
"Throatwarbler Mangrove."
--
Chuck Rothman
http://www.sff.net/people/Rothman/
news://news.sff.net/sff.people.rothman
Join Albacon '97! E-mail for info.
N.R. Mitchum
Chuck Rothman wrote:
-----------
> Thus the pronuciations of "ghoti" that follow the rules would be either
> "goatee" or "Gotti."
I'd love to hear whether the much-honored British mystery writer
H.R.F. Keating had "ghoti" in mind when he named his Indian detective
"Ghote." For all I know, this is a common name on the subcontinent,
but I can't see the name without wanting to say "Fishy" or somesuch.
Gotti is the Teflon Don -- use his name bad, you get your kneecaps broke.
The Teflon Donald Duck,
Nathan Mitchum [Post&Mail]
snopes
Mark Israel (mis...@scripps.edu) wrote:
> Has anyone a pointer to the original passage where George Bernard
> Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
> It doesn't seem to be in the anthology _Shaw on Language_, and Shaw's
> complete works are a bit daunting to plough through.
I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
- snopes
C. Ramko
Possibly Edwin Newman? I don't have the time to look it up now but
if no one finds it by the time I get back, I 'll hnt it down.
Melanie "running ragged" Ramko
On 7 Nov 1996, Mark Israel wrote:
> Has anyone a pointer to the original passage where George Bernard
> Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
> It doesn't seem to be in the anthology _Shaw on Language_, and Shaw's
> complete works are a bit daunting to plough through.
>
> Note cross-posting and "Followup-To".
>
> --
> mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel
>
>
Ray Depew
snopes (sno...@netcom.com) wonders:
: Mark Israel (mis...@scripps.edu) wrote:
:
: > Has anyone a pointer to the original passage where George Bernard
: > Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
:
: I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
: offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
: as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
: the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
I first saw it as part of a game in the "Reader's Digest Treasury For
Young Readers, back in the Lasnerian 1960s. No author was listed.
The game also included a dumb spelling for "potato."
R
R
Phil Edwards
r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
> snopes (sno...@netcom.com) wonders:
> : I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
> : offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
> : as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
> : the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
> I first saw it as part of a game in the "Reader's Digest Treasury For
> Young Readers, back in the Lasnerian 1960s. No author was listed.
> The game also included a dumb spelling for "potato."
Snap! (Makes a change from "me too"). As I remember the "potato"
spelling hinged on some really obscure spelling "rules" - "'phth'
pronounced 't' as in 'phthisis'", that sort of thing.
I've never seen "ghoti" attributed to anyone, which tends to support
snopes' point. Shaw would have been appropriate because of his
support for spelling reform; Churchill just had a reputation for not
taking any shit from anyone.
Phil "not even the English language" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards amr...@zetnet.co.uk
"[We need] the promotion of seasonal crops, not
the celebration of proleptic chimeras" - George Monbiot
alice faber
>r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
>> snopes (sno...@netcom.com) wonders:
>> : I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
>> : offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
>> : as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
>> : the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
>> I first saw it as part of a game in the "Reader's Digest Treasury For
>> Young Readers, back in the Lasnerian 1960s. No author was listed.
>> The game also included a dumb spelling for "potato."
>Snap! (Makes a change from "me too"). As I remember the "potato"
>spelling hinged on some really obscure spelling "rules" - "'phth'
>pronounced 't' as in 'phthisis'", that sort of thing.
>I've never seen "ghoti" attributed to anyone, which tends to support
>snopes' point. Shaw would have been appropriate because of his
>support for spelling reform; Churchill just had a reputation for not
>taking any shit from anyone.
The "ghoti" = _fish_ anecdote commonly appears in introductory linguistics
books, always attributed to Shaw. I've just spent the last few minutes
double-checking in the not-so-random sample of texts that I just happen to
have at home. The first thing I learned is that Shaw appears much more
frequently than I might have expected in the indices of said books.
Several of them indeed do mention "ghoti", but none with any particular
source. The discussion in V. Fromkin & R. Rodman _An Introduction to
Language_ (2nd, long since superceded, ed), p. 57, implies that the source
might be Shaw's will; the will included a provision supporting spelling
reform.
Another book, Roger Brown's _Words and Things: An Introduction to
Language_, Macmillan, 1958, p. 64, quotes from Shaw's introduction to R.A.
Wilson's _Miraculous Birth of Language_ a passage disparaging the spelling
of _debt_ with a silent _b_ just because Julius Caesar pronounced the /b/
in the Latin equivalent word. Suspiciously, there is no mention of
_ghoti_, in a passage where it certainly would be appropriate.
If I were inclined to track this down (not absolutely precluded), I expect
the best place to start would be an authoritative biography of Shaw.
Alice "is it the reign in Spain or the Rhine in spine" Faber
Mark Shaw
In article b...@riscsm.scripps.edu, mis...@scripps.edu (Mark Israel) writes:
> Has anyone a pointer to the original passage where George Bernard
>Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
GH as in TOUGH
O as in WOMEN
TI as in CONDITION
---
Mark Shaw
My opinions only
PGP public key available at ftp.netcom.com:/pub/ms/mshaw
Mark Israel
Has anyone a pointer to the original passage where George Bernard
Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
David Swanson
It's quoted, unreferenced, in a book called "How to Learn a Foreign
Language," by Graham E. Fuller.
David
I probably love you.
Michele Tepper
In article <55u6t8$g...@panix2.panix.com>, alice faber <afa...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>If I were inclined to track this down (not absolutely precluded), I expect
>the best place to start would be an authoritative biography of Shaw.
Not that I'm volunteering to do the research, but the a.b. of Shaw is
Michael Holroyd's, which is is a four-volume job. Supposedly quite good,
too.
M "even if it does turn out to be a UL, I'm not giving up the .sig" T
--
Michele Tepper "In the immortal words of George Bernard Shaw,
mte...@panix.com 'ghoch agh.'" -- Harry Teasley
Ray Depew
S.C.Sprong (s.c.s...@student.utwente.nl) wrote:
: Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
: obvious ROT1 ? As far as I know, fish has Germanic roots (Dutch 'vis',
: German 'Fisch') and obeys a simple pronunciation scheme. Why ghoti? Why not?
Youbetcha.
"gh" = "f" as in "laugh"
"o" = short "i" as in "women"
"ti" = "sh" as in "ambition
Now you can spell it "ghoti" and pronounce it "fish."
esso si que es!
Ray
Robert M. Wilson
In article <E0K1x...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
If someone else hasn't already mentioned it (I don't seem to get
all posts) it is also attributed to Shaw on p. 214 of David Crystal:
*The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language*, again without a
reference.
In the 16 lines of discussion, there is included G. Dewey's (1971)
example of "taken" spelled as "phtheighchound."
S.C.Sprong
In article <199611072...@zetnet.co.uk>, amr...@zetnet.co.uk says...
[ghoti=fish]
>Snap! (Makes a change from "me too"). As I remember the "potato"
>spelling hinged on some really obscure spelling "rules" - "'phth'
>pronounced 't' as in 'phthisis'", that sort of thing.
Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
obvious ROT1 ? As far as I know, fish has Germanic roots (Dutch 'vis',
German 'Fisch') and obeys a simple pronunciation scheme. Why ghoti? Why not?
regards,
rbroqnof
Edward Killeen
I hope I didn't miss most of this thread .... this is how I've had it
explained :
GH as in enouGH F
O as in wOmen I
TI as in naTI on SH
N.R. Mitchum
snopes wrote:
------
> I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
> offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
> as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
> the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
I've believed in the Shaw attribution for so long that I'd hate to give it up
now, but even Mario Pei (in *The Story of Language*) can manage nothing
stronger than, "Shaw is said to be responsible for the statement that 'fish'
could be spelled 'ghoti' [...]" I wonder if it mightn't be traceable to a
newspaper article, an interview, or even a radio broadcast. Shaw died in
1950; it would help to know whether the statement was credited to him
during his lifetime.
"Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends."
---- Oscar Wilde
Nathan Mitchum
[post&mail]
Bill Bedford
Michele Tepper <mte...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <55u6t8$g...@panix2.panix.com>, alice faber <afa...@panix.com>
> wrote:
> >If I were inclined to track this down (not absolutely precluded), I
> >expect the best place to start would be an authoritative biography of
> >Shaw.
>
> Not that I'm volunteering to do the research, but the a.b. of Shaw is
> Michael Holroyd's, which is is a four-volume job. Supposedly quite good,
> too.
>
I seem to remember a film/TV clip of Shaw himself refering to this - but
don't ask for chapter and verse.
--
Bill Bedford bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk Shetland
Brit_Rail-L list auto...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Looking forward to 2001 -
When the world is due to start thinking about the future again.
David A. Kaye
S.C.Sprong wrote the quoted material below:
" Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
" obvious ROT1 ?
If you pronounce "gh" as in "rough", and "o" as in "women", and "ti" as
in "nation" you get "ghoti" pronounced as "fish".
--
Copyright 1996 "The Way of the Nerd is Tech."
David Kaye
Charles Bishop
In article <55tjvv$g...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>, Ray Depew <r...@fc.hp.com> wrote:
>snopes (sno...@netcom.com) wonders:
>
>: Mark Israel (mis...@scripps.edu) wrote:
>:
>: > Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
>:
>: I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
>: offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
>: as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
>: the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
>
>Young Readers, back in the Lasnerian 1960s. No author was listed.
>The game also included a dumb spelling for "potato."
I knew of it somewhere '56-59, and used it as an example in school. I
probably got it from RD, but don't remember if they gave a source.
Charles
Geoff Butler
In article <55tjod$2...@spock.asic.sc.ti.com>, Mark Shaw
<ms...@asic.sc.ti.com> writes
>>Shaw (or whoever it was) suggested that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti"?
>
>
> GH as in TOUGH
> O as in WOMEN
> TI as in CONDITION
No, you've got the wrong end of the stick. It's
G as in GNOMON
H as in HONOUR
O as in PEOPLE
T as in CASTLE
I as in AIGLET
so it's pronounced .
-ler
Kevin Wald
[Descriptions of how to pronounce "ghoti" as "fish" or as "" omitted.]
The most exotic variant of this I've seen is
G as in LASAGNA (/l@zAnj@/)
H as in HAT (/h&t/)
O as in DO (/du/)
T as in TAO (/daU/)
I as in SOLDIER (/soldZ@r/)
which is thus pronounced "huge" /hjudZ/.
Kevin Wald
wa...@math.uchicago.edu
j...@os2bbs.com
In <55tjvv$g...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>, r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
>snopes (sno...@netcom.com) wonders:
>: I've never been able to find a reference to when or where Shaw supposedly
>: offered this example, and I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill
>: as well. I wonder if this might be another case of words being put in
>: the mouth of the person thought most likely to have said them.
>
>I first saw it as part of a game in the "Reader's Digest Treasury For
>Young Readers, back in the Lasnerian 1960s. No author was listed.
>The game also included a dumb spelling for "potato."
For what it's worth, Mario Pei, in _The Story of Language_ [Lippincott,
1965], says "Shaw is said to be responsible for the statement that `fish'
could be spelled `ghoti'...".
On the other hand, Peter Farb in his book _Word Play_ [Knopf, 1974; how come
none of my books have ISBN's?] cites the ghoti example in the same paragraph in
which he mentions Shaw (among others) as an advocate of spelling reform,
*without* attributing the example to Shaw.
On yet another hand, Anthony Burgess in _A Mouthful of Air_ [Morrow, 1992, ISBN
0-68-11935-2. Ah! There's one!] says, "As George Bernard Shaw delighted in
saying, you can write `fish' as `ghoti'... (Another whimsical Irishman, James
Joyce, has, in his _Finnegan's Wake_, a poetic extension of this: `ghoti smells
fish,' where the goat and the finned swimmer combine into the Christian
symbol--a scapegoat and Christ as the Greek fish ichthus. Forgive the
irrelevance.)"
Me too.
--------------------------------------------
----- John Varela j...@os2bbs.com -----
--------------------------------------------
Simon Read
Not so long ago, on the last page of "New Scientist", there was a
spelling of "potato" which I'm sure used something similar.
It was about 30 letters long, and I think that "phtheigh" would have
been the way the "ta" was written.
Al Gore, eat your heart out.
Simon
Dean Stretton
On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, Phil Edwards wrote:
> Snap! (Makes a change from "me too"). As I remember the "potato"
> spelling hinged on some really obscure spelling "rules" - "'phth'
> pronounced 't' as in 'phthisis'", that sort of thing.
You may be thinking of G. Dewey's (1971) spelling of 'taken' as
'phtheighchound' (as in '_phth_isic', 'w_eigh_', 's_ch_ool', 'glam_our_',
and 'ha_nd_some').
> I've never seen "ghoti" attributed to anyone, which tends to support
> snopes' point. Shaw would have been appropriate because of his
> support for spelling reform; Churchill just had a reputation for not
> taking any shit from anyone.
_The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language_ attributes it to Shaw...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dean Stretton (de...@pcug.org.au)
'Lately, there has been a tiny little miniscule bit too much excessive
repetitive tautology going on at the moment.'
'...then shape the shrubs into small, round spheres.'
Steve Hutton
wlkn...@unix.asb.com wrote:
: See David Kahn's "Codebreakers" (1st edition). It talks about how ancient
: scribes used less-common pronounciation rules to 'encrypt' their texts, and
: gives "ghoti" as an example.
Does he claim that ancient scribes used "ghoti" for fish, or just say
that "ghoti" illustrates uncommon pronunciation rules?
--
Steve Hutton [speaking only for himself]
Mike Wright
Surely you mean Dan Quayle?
--
Mike Wright
____________________________________
email: dar...@scruznet.com
WWW: http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/
snopes
Truly Donovan <tr...@lunemere.com> wrote:
> Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
> did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
> the period 1974-1992.
According to the book _Reading the Numbers_, "The International Standard
Book Number, often printed on book covers and always on the copyright
page, was adopted by American book publishers in 1967 and by the
International Standards Organization in 1969 to facilitate ordering by
computer."
- snopes
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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| If the header does not fit fully into your newsreader, reverse the |
| header. Do not attempt to defeat this safety feature. |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Truly Donovan
>
> On the other hand, Peter Farb in his book _Word Play_ [Knopf, 1974; how come
>
> On yet another hand, Anthony Burgess in _A Mouthful of Air_ [Morrow, 1992, ISBN
Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
the period 1974-1992.
--
Truly Donovan
"Industrial-strength SGML," Prentice Hall 1996
ISBN 0-13-216243-1
http://www.prenhall.com
Truly Donovan
snopes wrote:
>
> Truly Donovan <tr...@lunemere.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
> > did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
> > the period 1974-1992.
>
> Book Number, often printed on book covers and always on the copyright
> page, was adopted by American book publishers in 1967 and by the
> International Standards Organization in 1969 to facilitate ordering by
> computer."
So much for my narrowed period. Looks like some guys didn't get the word
right away. . . .
Simon Read
Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> wrote:
>Simon Read wrote:
>> Al Gore, eat your heart out.
>
>Surely you mean Dan Quayle?
That is, of course, the alternative spelling of "Dan Quayle". Anyway,
see one vice-president, you've seen them all.
Simon
Daan Sandee
In article <E0sn7...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
>
>English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
>regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
>article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
>"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
>sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
>nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
>Scorsese's name.
Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
"Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
"que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
Daan Sandee
Burlington, MA Use this email address: sandee (at) cmns . think . com
Paul J Kriha
In article <3288DB...@scruznet.com>, Mike Wright
>> spelling of "potato" which I'm sure used something similar.
>> It was about 30 letters long, and I think that "phtheigh" would
have
>> been the way the "ta" was written.
>>
>
>Surely you mean Dan Quayle?
Or should it be Dan Quayloe?
Paul JK.
--
93.468% of all statistics is inaccurate or totally made up.
David Swanson
In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
> "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
>
> Daan Sandee
> Burlington, MA Use this email address: sandee (at) cmns . think . com
Yeah, must be Spanish. Maybe I'm thrown off by the fact that all the
gondoliers in Venice sing it.
David
"When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the
apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person
could have written them. When you find an answer, . . . when these
passages make sense, then you may find that more central passages,ones
you previously thought you understood, have changed their meaning."
Kuhn
Larry Kubicz
Truly Donovan <tr...@lunemere.com> wrote:
> Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
> did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
> the period 1974-1992.
The Soviets started making ISBNs in the fifties. That's what led to the
"Missile Gap" and subsequent arms race.
Larry "I wanted to get an ICBM line for my Internet access, but I found something
faster and cheaper" Kubicz
lku...@earthlink.net
Bob Schmertz
On 13 Nov 1996, Daan Sandee wrote:
> In article <E0sn7...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
> >
> >English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
> >regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
> >article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
> >"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
> >sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
> >nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
> >Scorsese's name.
>
> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
> "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
>
> I think this is right. Que sera, sera would be Latin, and the thing
> starting with "Che" (but pronounced the same as "que," I think) looks
> like Italian. I don't know either language, though...
Bob Schmertz
Daan Sandee
In article <Pine.SOL.3.95.96111...@modula3.eng.umd.edu>, Bob Schmertz <schm...@Glue.umd.edu> writes:
|> On 13 Nov 1996, Daan Sandee wrote:
|>
|> > In article <E0sn7...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
|> > >
|> > >English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
|> > >regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
|> > >article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
|> > >"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
|> > >sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
|> > >nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
|> > >Scorsese's name.
|> >
|> > Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
|> > "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
|> > "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
|> >
(Quoting corrected)
|> I think this is right. Que sera, sera would be Latin, and the thing
The Latin would be "quod erit, erit." "Que sera, sera", with acute
accents on the a's, is a well-known phrase in Spanish, but it could
theoretically (without the accents) be French. Or maybe Portuguese.
|> starting with "Che" (but pronounced the same as "que," I think) looks
|> like Italian. I don't know either language, though...
I can't produce the 3rd pers ind fut of "to be" in Italian either, but
"che" /ke/ could indeed be the neuter relative pronoun.
Daan Sandee
In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>, san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
|> In article <E0sn7...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
|> >
|> >English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
|> >regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
and get especially discombobulated when they try to use the rules of
one language when interpreting another.
|> >article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
|> >"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
|> >sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
|> >nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
|> >Scorsese's name.
|>
|> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
|> "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
|> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
|>
|> Daan Sandee
Further research has established (the above was from memory):
- The phrase is "Que será, será" (that's an a-acute, for the 8-bit deprived)
- it is a popular phrase in Spanish
- without the acute accents, it is a song by Doris Day from the 1950s. I
didn't know I was that old. I probably can reproduce the lyrics from
memory (apart from the title, the song is in English.)
Of course, it's purely my hypothesis that this is the reason for the title
of the article in the New Republic.
David Swanson
In article <32888...@news.cranfield.ac.uk>
Simon Read <s.r...@cranfield.ac.uk> writes:
> Not so long ago, on the last page of "New Scientist", there was a
> spelling of "potato" which I'm sure used something similar.
> It was about 30 letters long, and I think that "phtheigh" would have
> been the way the "ta" was written.
>
> Al Gore, eat your heart out.
>
> Simon
English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
Scorsese's name.
Keith C. Ivey
san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) wrote:
>dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu (David Swanson) writes:
>>English speakers are so discombobulated that they can't even follow the
>>regular rules of other languages. The New Republic magazine has an
>>article titled "K sera'." I take the K to be a play on K Street and
>>"Che," but unless I'm overlooking the joke, sera' is just a mistake for
>>sara'. Sara' means it will be. Sera means evening. Sera' means
>>nothing I know of. These are the same people who cannot spell
>>Scorsese's name.
>Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
>"Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
>"que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
Yes. What David Swanson seems to be missing is that the
sentence is in Spanish, not Italian. "Que sera sera" (with
accents over the "a"s) is correct.
Keith C. Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org> Washington, DC
Contributing Editor/Webmaster
The Editorial Eye <http://www.eeicom.com/eye/>
Patrick Gavin
In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.961112212115.20791B-100000@supreme>, Dean
Stretton <de...@pcug.org.au> wrote:
>
> _The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language_ attributes it to Shaw...
I seem to remember an essay by Shaw in an appendix to Pygmalion on the
international phonetic alphabet in which he gives the ghoti=fish comment.
I remember thinking it was clever and using it in school shortly there
after.
--
This message was sent from a locally-networked Macintosh. Yale University takes no responsibility for its contents.
Michael B. Quinion
In article: <3288D9...@lunemere.com> Truly Donovan
> Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
> did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
> the period 1974-1992.
My own memories are muddled by the fact that here in Britain we had SBNs
before we had ISBNs, since the whole system was invented by Whittakers
and first used in the UK. I can remember doing an interview with someone
from that firm in about 1968 in which we discussed SBNs, but they had
been around for a little while before that.
A quick look at my shelves shows one book dated 1971 with no ISBN and
two dated 1972 which have them. I have spotted a number of paperbacks
bought in the period 1968-72 with SBNs but not ISBNs.
That ties it down a bit!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B Quinion <mic...@quinion.demon.co.uk> Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Web: <http://clever.net/quinion/> and <http://www.quinion.demon.co.uk/>
World Wide Words: */words/ : MQA: */mqa/ : Interpret Britain: */sibh/
Alex Gelfenbain
In article <56ar47$n...@nntp1.best.com>,
snopes <sno...@best.com> writes:
> Truly Donovan <tr...@lunemere.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, you're starting to zero in on one of my questions, which is when
>> did ISBNs enter the scene? We've now narrowed the field of inquiry to
>> the period 1974-1992.
>
> Book Number, often printed on book covers and always on the copyright
For some reason I always believed ISBN stood for "International Standard
Bibliographical Number". Did they change it to "Book"?
I saw ISBN on some magazines, and if B in ISBN is "Book" it's absurd.
Magazines can't have "book" numbers because they aren't books.
--alex
---
Alex D. Gelfenbain, SunSoft, Inc.
ge...@Eng.Sun.COM
(415) 786-9047 / (415) 786-9553 fax
Steve MacGregor
> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my
youth,
> "Que será, será" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be",
where
> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
Are sure that the title isn't really "Che serà, serà"?
--
===================================================================
Hi, I'm the Good Times signature virus. Copy me into your sig
file!
===================================================================
Alex Gelfenbain
In article <56gbmm$m...@engnews2.eng.sun.com>,
ge...@Eng.Sun.COM (Alex Gelfenbain) writes:
> For some reason I always believed ISBN stood for "International Standard
> Bibliographical Number". Did they change it to "Book"?
> I saw ISBN on some magazines, and if B in ISBN is "Book" it's absurd.
> Magazines can't have "book" numbers because they aren't books.
Ooops. I think it was ISSN on the magazine. No idea what that means...
Keith C. Ivey
ge...@Eng.Sun.COM (Alex Gelfenbain) wrote:
>Ooops. I think it was ISSN on the magazine. No idea what that means...
International Standard Serial Number, in which "serial number"
means not "number in a series" (as it usually does), but "number
for a serial". A serial is a publication (such as a newspaper,
magazine, or journal) that is issued in a series.
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
"Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> wrote:
>In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
>san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
>> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my
>youth,
>> "Que será, será" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be",
>where
>> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
> Are sure that the title isn't really "Che serà, serà"?
Pretty sure. Que será, será is Spanish. Italian is che sarà, sarà.
The way DD sings it, it's impossible to tell which is meant.
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Avi Jacobson
Steve MacGregor wrote:
> Are sure that the title isn't really "Che serà, serà"?
If it were Italian, as you seem to suggest, wouldn't it have to be
"sarà"?
Regards,
Avi
--
Avi Jacobson, email: avi_...@netvision.net.il | When an idea is
Home Page (Israel): | wanting, a word
http://www.netvision.net.il/php/avi_jaco | can always be found
Mirror Home Page (U.S.): | to take its place.
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4034 | -- Goethe
Ray Depew
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
: In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
: san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
: > Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
: > "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
: > "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
:
: Yeah, must be Spanish. Maybe I'm thrown off by the fact that all the
: gondoliers in Venice sing it.
In that case, you have to listen for the accent. If the gondoliers
put the emphasis on the first syllable, then it's evening, as in "Buona
sera." If they put the emphasis on the last syllable, then maybe
they're just putting a Venetian sound on that first syllable, so
that what's written "sara'" sounds like "sera'".
Next time a gondolier sings it for you, ask him to stop and write
down the title of the song. That should clear up everything.
Regards
Ray "sherrrrrrrrrrr..." D.
(Besides, why shouldn't they sing it? They sing "Jingle-a Bells-a", too!)
Meredith Tanner
In article <56hcqp$l...@halley.pi.net>,
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <m...@pi.net> wrote:
>"Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> wrote:
>
>>In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
>>san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
>
>>> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my
>>youth,
>>where
>>> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
>
>
>The way DD sings it, it's impossible to tell which is meant.
i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
argue some more?
m
mystified as to why some people are so desperate to translate it into italian
--
"and if I die before I learn to speak
can money pay for all the days i lived awake but half asleep"
-- primitive radio gods
Sean Weintz
simple:
"gh" in the word "tough" is pronounced like "F"
"o" in "women" pronounced like "i"
"ti" in "damnation" (or any other "tion" word) sounds like "sh"
Thus "gh"+"o"+"ti" could be pronounced "fish"
On 8 Nov 1996 10:08:38 GMT, s.c.s...@student.utwente.nl (S.C.Sprong)
wrote:
>In article <199611072...@zetnet.co.uk>, amr...@zetnet.co.uk says...
>[ghoti=fish]
>
>>Snap! (Makes a change from "me too"). As I remember the "potato"
>>spelling hinged on some really obscure spelling "rules" - "'phth'
>>pronounced 't' as in 'phthisis'", that sort of thing.
>
>Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
>obvious ROT1 ? As far as I know, fish has Germanic roots (Dutch 'vis',
>German 'Fisch') and obeys a simple pronunciation scheme. Why ghoti? Why not?
>
>regards,
>rbroqnof
>
David Swanson
In article <56i7ev$8...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>
r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
> David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
>
> : In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
> : san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
>
> : > Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
> : > "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
> : > "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
> :
> : Yeah, must be Spanish. Maybe I'm thrown off by the fact that all the
> : gondoliers in Venice sing it.
>
> In that case, you have to listen for the accent. If the gondoliers
> put the emphasis on the first syllable, then it's evening, as in "Buona
> sera." If they put the emphasis on the last syllable, then maybe
> they're just putting a Venetian sound on that first syllable, so
> that what's written "sara'" sounds like "sera'".
>
> Next time a gondolier sings it for you, ask him to stop and write
> down the title of the song. That should clear up everything.
>
> Regards
> Ray "sherrrrrrrrrrr..." D.
> (Besides, why shouldn't they sing it? They sing "Jingle-a Bells-a", too!)
What makes you think a Venetian 'a' sounds like an 'e'? What they
sing, sounds like Che sara', and probably would be written Che sara'.
Matter of fact they sing the whole dern thing in Italian, and not
Spanish or Venetian or English.
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
me...@crl.com (Meredith Tanner) wrote:
>In article <56hcqp$l...@halley.pi.net>,
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <m...@pi.net> wrote:
>>"Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
>>>san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
>>
>>>> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my
>>>youth,
>>>> "Que será, será" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be",
>>>where
>>>> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
>>
>>> Are sure that the title isn't really "Che serà, serà"?
>>
>>Pretty sure. Que será, será is Spanish. Italian is che sarà, sarà.
>>The way DD sings it, it's impossible to tell which is meant.
>i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
>in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
>argue some more?
>m
>mystified as to why some people are so desperate to translate it into italian
I seem to recall an Italian song (che sara` che sara` della mia vita,
chi lo sa? or words that effect), but I have no idea who sang it, or
when, and there might even be a Spanish version of it as well, I vaguely
recall. Jose Feliciano?
Guy Kay
> In article <56hcqp$l...@halley.pi.net>,
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <m...@pi.net> wrote:
> >"Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com> wrote:
> >
> >>In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
> >>san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
> >
> >>> Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my
> >>youth,
> >>> "Que será, será" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be",
> >>where
> >>> "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
> >
> >> Are sure that the title isn't really "Che serà, serà"?
> >
> >Pretty sure. Que será, será is Spanish. Italian is che sarà, sarà.
> >The way DD sings it, it's impossible to tell which is meant.
>
> i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
> in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
> argue some more?
>
> m
>
> mystified as to why some people are so desperate to translate it into italian
> --
What? You want the FACTS to stop people from ARGUING? What are you doing on
usenet??
GGK
Kai Henningsen
d...@crl.com (David A. Kaye) wrote on 10.11.96 in <564cr9$6...@crl4.crl.com>:
> S.C.Sprong wrote the quoted material below:
> " Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
> " obvious ROT1 ?
ROT1? Lessee ...
fgnsh? You can't have meant that.
hipuj? Neither.
Let's try the other end.
ehrg? Nope.
gjti? No fun.
Obviously, your definition of ROT1 doesn't match mine.
Kai
--
Internet: k...@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!khms.westfalen.de!kai
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
Torkel Franzen
me...@crl.com (Meredith Tanner) writes:
>i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
>in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
>argue some more?
As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
Francis Muir
Torkel Franzen writes:
Meredith "Merde" Tanner writes:
i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
argue some more?
As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
Quite beside the point. I presented Alta Vista with "che sera
sera doris day" and, lo, Doris Day's recording of "What will be,
will be (que sera)" was No. 3 on the hit parade for the Month
of August in the Year of Our Lord, 1956. I wonder whether the
present hateful response "whatever" to almost any statement is
a lineal descendent of "Que sera, sera". My guess is that the
denizens of 42nd St. preferred general comprehensiveness over
linguistic correctness.
Fido
Madeleine Page
fra...@pangea.stanford.edu (Fido) woofed:
>Torkel Franzen writes:
>
> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>
>Quite beside the point.
[hypothesis docked]
>My guess is that the
>denizens of 42nd St. preferred general comprehensiveness over
>linguistic correctness.
Ahem. Do you not mean "comprehensibility"?
Madeleine "full of linguistic correctitude" Page
--
Please note: If you are failing to understand postings because of the absence of smileys then AFU is probably not a good newsgroup for you at this time. --Steven Cherry proffers kindly advice in afu
Truly Donovan
Francis Muir wrote:
>
> Quite beside the point. I presented Alta Vista with "che sera
> sera doris day" and, lo, Doris Day's recording of "What will be,
> will be (que sera)" was No. 3 on the hit parade for the Month
> of August in the Year of Our Lord, 1956. I wonder whether the
> present hateful response "whatever" to almost any statement is
> denizens of 42nd St. preferred general comprehensiveness over
> linguistic correctness.
In the 50s, the denizens of 42nd Street preferred gin to just about
anything else.
--
Truly Donovan
"Industrial-strength SGML," Prentice Hall 1996
ISBN 0-13-216243-1
http://www.prenhall.com
Francis Muir
Madeleine Page writes:
Fido woofed:
Torkel Franzen writes:
As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
Quite beside the point. My guess is that the denizens
of 42nd St. preferred general comprehensiveness over
linguistic correctness.
Ahem. Do you not mean "comprehensibility"?
Curiously, I meant what I said. "Scholarly comprehensiveness" is
a quality associated with those who have attended the English
Comprehensive Schools.
Madeleine "full of linguistic correctitude" Page
Should I anticipate a paddlin' from Madeleine?
Fido
Briac Pilpre
Kai Henningsen wrote:
>
> d...@crl.com (David A. Kaye) wrote on 10.11.96 in <564cr9$6...@crl4.crl.com>:
>
> > S.C.Sprong wrote the quoted material below:
> > " Can someone explain the connection between ghoti and fish, besides the
> > " obvious ROT1 ?
My english teacher once wrote "GHOTI" on the blackboard and asked us to
pronounce it, so everybody said "GOTI", and he said no you've got to
pronounce it "FISH" because, in "pure" phonetical english you've got to
pronounce it like that, he explained that during about 5 minutes, but
unfortunately, I don't remembera word he said... I'll try to ask him
the problem this week...
Seeya!
--
---** Hey ho! Lets Go! **---
Briac PILPRE
email : br...@orbital.fr
homepage: http://www.orbital.fr/~briac
---** Gabba Gabba Hey! **---
Peggy O.Dolter
> me...@crl.com (Meredith Tanner) writes:
>
> >i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
> >in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
> >argue some more?
Do you mean that it actually says, on the sheet music, that the phrase is
Spanish -- or simply that it is "que" rather than "che"?
Torkel Franzen wrote:
>
> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
I believe that it is French.
Peggy
Billy Chambless
In article <328FC7...@icon-stl.net>, "Peggy O.Dolter" <peg...@icon-stl.net> writes:
|> > me...@crl.com (Meredith Tanner) writes:
|> > >i've seen the sheet music. the phrase in the song is
|> > >in Spanish. is everyone satisfied now, or shall we
|> > >argue some more?
|> Do you mean that it actually says, on the sheet music, that the phrase is
|> Spanish -- or simply that it is "que" rather than "che"?
somgs is always QUITE accurate.
|> Torkel Franzen wrote:
|> > As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
|> I believe that it is French.
Perhaps.
Billy "won't point out the unfortunate French word here" Chambless
Keith C. Ivey
"Peggy O.Dolter" <peg...@icon-stl.net> wrote:
>Torkel Franzen wrote:
>>
>> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>I believe that it is French.
In French, isn't "que" pronounced /k@/ rather than /ke/
(roughly, "kuh" rather than "kay")? In Spanish, on the
other hand, "que" is /ke/ (as is "che" in Italian).
"Odd Spot: A Case of Knowing Too Little?" on the MacGuffin Web
site (http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/fourth_page_c.html at
the bottom of the page) says
But what's odd about Doris Day's song is how it ever came to
be called 'Que Sera, Sera', a *French*-language title used
by John Michael Hayes's screenplay, when Day so clearly
gives it the *Italian* pronunciation: 'Che sarà, sarà'.
Moreover, the latter is just what you'd expect, because
Italian provides the traditional form of the expression.
(See, for example, lines 75-76 of Christopher Marlowe's 'Dr
Faustus', 1604.)
For further confusion, see any of several copies of early
editions of Roget's thesaurus on the Web (for example,
http://home.navisoft.com/entisoft/roget5.htm), which list
"che sara sara" but identify the phrase as French.
Ruby
Briac Pilpre <br...@orbital.fr> wrote:
>
>My english teacher once wrote "GHOTI" on the blackboard and asked us to
>pronounce it, so everybody said "GOTI", and he said no you've got to
>pronounce it "FISH" because, in "pure" phonetical english you've got to
>pronounce it like that, he explained that during about 5 minutes, but
>unfortunately, I don't remembera word he said... I'll try to ask him
>the problem this week...
He is very wrong. GHOTI is pronounced fish is UNphonetic english.
'gh' is never pronounced 'f' in the beginning of a word. 'o' is not
phonetically the same as the 'i' in 'fish'. It is pronouced that way in the word
'women' because that word is a contraction of the words 'wife + man' (about 800
years ago). And in case where 'ti' is pronounced 'sh', for example in the
suffix -tion which comes from French, it wasn't always pronounced 'sh', as it is
not in French. It is just due to the fact the a high front vowel follows the 't'
which causes phonetic changes. So if one sees a word "GHOTI" he should pronounce
it something like 'gahtee' since that's what the spelling suggests. Feel free to
print this letter and show it to your teacher.
By the way, places where English uses 'gh' in the spelling, it is because at
one time it used to be pronounced as the sound in German 'ach' or Scottish
'loch'. Anyway, when George Bernard Shaw said that he could spell FISH as
GHOTI, he was just trying to make fun of our spelling system which does not
reflect modern pronunciation.
Ulo Melton
kci...@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) wrote:
>"Peggy O.Dolter" <peg...@icon-stl.net> wrote:
>>Torkel Franzen wrote:
>>>
>>> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>>I believe that it is French.
>In French, isn't "que" pronounced /k@/ rather than /ke/
>(roughly, "kuh" rather than "kay")? In Spanish, on the
>other hand, "que" is /ke/ (as is "che" in Italian).
[snip]
Yes, but it should be noted that most Americans also pronounce the
French "le" and "de" as /le/ and /de/, rather than /l@/ and /d@/.
Even the great cartoons of Pepe Le Pew featured cats who said "/le/
meow, /le/ meow."
In any case, my French instructor used to love to cite the song as an
example of egregious mispronunciation of French.
Ulo "ah, I spy une skunk femme" Melton
Bill Fisher
I'm willing to bet anyone a sixpack that they will never find a
bona fide citation proving that either Shaw or Churchill is
responsible for this. It maligns English in an essentially stupid
way, as Briac points out, and I'll bet those two didn't do very many
stupid things.
- billf
p.s. Only the first one to prove me wrong wins.
David Patterson
Bill Fisher wrote in re: ghoti=fish
> I'm willing to bet anyone a sixpack that they will never find a
>bona fide citation proving that either Shaw or Churchill is
>responsible for this. It maligns English in an essentially stupid
>way, as Briac points out, and I'll bet those two didn't do very many
>stupid things.
Bill, if you are a fan of Shaw and Churchill, do you know this alleged
exchange of messages between the two?
Shaw sends a message to Churchill:
Have reserved two tickets for opening night of my new play. Come
and bring a friend. If you have one.
To which Churchill replies:
Sorry. Cannot attend opening night. Will attend second night.
If you have one.
regards,
David Patterson dav...@mindspring.com
Ray Depew
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
: In article <56i7ev$8...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>
: r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
: > David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
: >
: > : In article <56cg8l$c...@bone.think.com>
: > : san...@think.com.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
: >
: > : > Presumably a play on a song which was popular in the days of my youth,
: > : > "Que sera, sera" (Doris Day?). This means "what will be, will be", where
: > : > "que" is pronounced "kay" (in the song).
: > :
: > : Yeah, must be Spanish. Maybe I'm thrown off by the fact that all the
: > : gondoliers in Venice sing it.
: >
: > In that case, you have to listen for the accent. If the gondoliers
: > put the emphasis on the first syllable, then it's evening, as in "Buona
: > sera." If they put the emphasis on the last syllable, then maybe
: > they're just putting a Venetian sound on that first syllable, so
: > that what's written "sara'" sounds like "sera'".
: >
: > Next time a gondolier sings it for you, ask him to stop and write
: > down the title of the song. That should clear up everything.
: >
: > Regards
: > Ray "sherrrrrrrrrrr..." D.
: > (Besides, why shouldn't they sing it? They sing "Jingle-a Bells-a", too!)
:
: What makes you think a Venetian 'a' sounds like an 'e'?
It was a guess, based on my experiences with Italians from other regions.
Pronunciations vary.
: What they
: sing, sounds like Che sara', and probably would be written Che sara'.
: Matter of fact they sing the whole dern thing in Italian, and not
: Spanish or Venetian or English.
You know, it sounds to me like you're trying to pick a fight with
someone. I'm not interested.
Ray
Mikko Levanto
Peggy O.Dolter wrote:
> Torkel Franzen wrote:
> > As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
> I believe that it is French.
Not with the same sounds.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mikko J. Levanto ! Tel. +358 8 551 2448
VTT Electronics ! Fax +358 8 551 2320
P.O.Box 1100 !
FIN-90571 Oulu, Finland ! Internet: Mikko....@vtt.fi
----------- VTT - Technical Research Centre of Finland -----------
Bob Gore
On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Keith C. Ivey wrote:
> "Peggy O.Dolter" <peg...@icon-stl.net> wrote:
>=20
> >Torkel Franzen wrote:
> >> =20
> >> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>=20
> >I believe that it is French.=20
>=20
> In French, isn't "que" pronounced /k@/ rather than /ke/
> (roughly, "kuh" rather than "kay")? In Spanish, on the=20
> other hand, "que" is /ke/ (as is "che" in Italian).
>=20
> "Odd Spot: A Case of Knowing Too Little?" on the MacGuffin Web
> site (http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/fourth_page_c.html at
> the bottom of the page) says
>=20
> But what's odd about Doris Day's song is how it ever came to
> be called 'Que Sera, Sera', a *French*-language title used
> by John Michael Hayes's screenplay, when Day so clearly
> gives it the *Italian* pronunciation: 'Che sar=E0, sar=E0'.
> Moreover, the latter is just what you'd expect, because
> Italian provides the traditional form of the expression.
> (See, for example, lines 75-76 of Christopher Marlowe's 'Dr
> Faustus', 1604.)
>=20
Keep in mind that French, when sung, follows slightly different rules
of pronunciation than when spoken. Which doesn't mean, of course, that
Tin Pan Alley got it right.
Bob Gore
Jitze Couperus
In article <56ofvb$d...@NNTP.MsState.Edu>, bi...@cast.msstate.edu (Billy
Chambless) wrote:
>
> |> Torkel Franzen wrote:
>
> |> > As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>
>
> |> I believe that it is French.
>
> Perhaps.
>
> Billy "won't point out the unfortunate French word here" Chambless
Doesn't anybody read the newspapers anymore? Che Sera Sera is a
Latin-American revolutionary who is angling for the job currently held
by that Boutros Boutros fellow.
No?
Oh...
Jitze
Sylvie Lachize
> > "Peggy O.Dolter" <peg...@icon-stl.net> wrote:
> >
> > >Torkel Franzen wrote:
> > >>
> > >> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
> >
> > >I believe that it is French.
"que" and "sera" are french words indeed (I'm french). "Que"
meaning "what" or "that" and "sera", "will be". But the sentence
"que sera sera" is definitely ungrammatical and nonsensical in french.
The closest sentence which I can think of is "Ce qui sera,
sera" which means "what will be, will be".
--
Sylvie,
Montréal----------------"l'éléphant est irréfutable"--------------
(A Vialatte)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Stian Oksavik
In article <56q0pg$1...@dove.nist.gov>, bi...@jaguar.ncsl.nist.gov wrote:
[snip]
> I'm willing to bet anyone a sixpack that they will never find a
> bona fide citation proving that either Shaw or Churchill is
> responsible for this. It maligns English in an essentially stupid
> way, as Briac points out, and I'll bet those two didn't do very many
> stupid things.
I don't know who invented ghoti, and I'm not going to attempt to win that
six-pack. But I do disagree with you that it maligns English, and
especially that it does so in a stupid way. On the contrary, it points out
a trait of the English language, namely the non-phonetic spelling it uses,
in a rather brilliant way. I didn't see the term explain earlier, so I'll
explain it below the way it was explained to me:
gh - as the gh in "enough"
o - as the o in "women"
ti - as the ti in "nation"
-Stian
--
"If pro and con are opposites, is Congress the opposite of progress?
-- Richard Lederer
Francis Muir
Sylvie Lachize writes:
"que" and "sera" are french words indeed (I'm french).
"Que" meaning "what" or "that" and "sera", "will be".
But the sentence "que sera sera" is definitely
ungrammatical and nonsensical in french. The closest
sentence which I can think of is "Ce qui sera,
sera" which means "what will be, will be".
In le patois des pieds noirs the "ce" would be thrown away
and "qui" (rather high-falutin') would most certainly be
replaced by "que". "Que sera, sera" is recognizeably le
Francais deguerlasse du Sud (Algerien).
Fido
Richard Kaulfuss
Peggy O.Dolter (peg...@icon-stl.net) wrote:
: > As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
:
:
: I believe that it is French.
:
Then it would have to be "ce que..."
--
Dick
David Christopher Swanson
> >>
> >> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>
> >I believe that it is French.
>
> (roughly, "kuh" rather than "kay")? In Spanish, on the
>
> site (http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/fourth_page_c.html at
> the bottom of the page) says
>
> be called 'Que Sera, Sera', a *French*-language title used
> by John Michael Hayes's screenplay, when Day so clearly
> Moreover, the latter is just what you'd expect, because
> Italian provides the traditional form of the expression.
> (See, for example, lines 75-76 of Christopher Marlowe's 'Dr
> Faustus', 1604.)
Hu-hem, may I feel less stupid now? Or do I just have lots of
company?
DS
Jonathan Mason
coup...@cdc.com (Jitze Couperus) wrote:
>In article <56ofvb$d...@NNTP.MsState.Edu>, bi...@cast.msstate.edu (Billy
>
>>
>> |> Torkel Franzen wrote:
>>
>> |> > As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
>>
>>
>> |> I believe that it is French.
>>
>>
>> Billy "won't point out the unfortunate French word here" Chambless
>
>Doesn't anybody read the newspapers anymore? Che Sera Sera is a
>Latin-American revolutionary who is angling for the job currently held
>by that Boutros Boutros fellow.
>
Koo, Sarah, Sorrow is the title of the Duchess of York's poignant new
autobiography.
(It is well known that her husband, the Grand Old Duke of York would
rather have wed soft porn actress Koo Stark, but for the disapproval of
his family (or was it her family?)
David Swanson
In article <56q01m$l...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>
r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
> : What makes you think a Venetian 'a' sounds like an 'e'?
>
> It was a guess, based on my experiences with Italians from other regions.
> Pronunciations vary.
OK, but you guessed wrong.
>
> : What they
> : sing, sounds like Che sara', and probably would be written Che sara'.
> : Matter of fact they sing the whole dern thing in Italian, and not
> : Spanish or Venetian or English.
>
> You know, it sounds to me like you're trying to pick a fight with
> someone. I'm not interested.
Huh? Now you've really lost me. I'm EXPLAINING my mistake. My
explanation is this: there are Italian versions of the song. It's now,
if it wasn't always, a common saying in Italy. That's why I thought
"sera'" was wrong and expected "sara'." That's all. I speak Italian.
And I speak Venetian. I do not speak Spanish or French. I have never
heard the song in Venetian, and in any case a Venetian 'a' sounds like
an Italian 'a'. This information is my small contribution to the
on-going babble. I can't tell you about Spanish or French or about
printed lyrics. As they say in Venetian:
Per voler saver de tuto, se sa anca de mona.
>
> Ray
David
"When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the
apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person
could have written them. When you find an answer, . . . when these
passages make sense, then you may find that more central passages,ones
you previously thought you understood, have changed their meaning."
Kuhn
Bill Fisher
In article <stian-18119...@slip-103-39.ots.utexas.edu>, st...@mail.utexas.edu (Stian Oksavik) writes:
> In article <56q0pg$1...@dove.nist.gov>, bi...@jaguar.ncsl.nist.gov wrote:
> [snip]
>
> > I'm willing to bet anyone a sixpack that they will never find a
> > bona fide citation proving that either Shaw or Churchill is
> > responsible for this. It maligns English in an essentially stupid
> > way, as Briac points out, and I'll bet those two didn't do very many
> > stupid things.
>
> I don't know who invented ghoti, and I'm not going to attempt to win that
> six-pack. But I do disagree with you that it maligns English, and
> especially that it does so in a stupid way. On the contrary, it points out
> a trait of the English language, namely the non-phonetic spelling it uses,
> in a rather brilliant way. I didn't see the term explain earlier, so I'll
> explain it below the way it was explained to me:
>
> gh - as the gh in "enough"
> o - as the o in "women"
> ti - as the ti in "nation"
>
O.K., here's why I think it wrongly underestimates the
genius of English (well, maybe "stupid" and "malign" were
a leetle bit strong):
It implies that English uses only context-free letter-to-sound
rules; that because "gh" is pronounced /f/ in "enough",
English says that we can pronounce "gh" as /f/ anywhere we
see it. And that's simply not true; English letter-to-sound
correlations are context sensitive, not context free. It's
a fact that "gh" is *never* pronounced /f/ at the beginning
of a word or morpheme, as with "ghoti". Not crediting
English with context-sensitivity in this area is an underestimation.
And it's a stupid underestimation because (1) anyone who
thinks for more than 10 minutes about English letter-to-sound
correlations must surely realize they depend on context;
and (2) the simplest and easiest of experiments will show
you that no native speaker would pronounce "ghoti" with an
initial /f/ sound (unless they had been told in advance about
the trick in the question).
Likewise "ti" as /sh/, but I'm not so sure about the "o".
- billf
Mark Israel
Michael Holroyd, in _Bernard Shaw: Volume III: 1918-1950: The
Lure of Fantasy_ (Chatto & Windus, 1991), p. 501, writes that Shaw
"knew that people, 'being incorrigibly lazy, just laugh at spelling
reformers as silly cranks'. So he attempted to reverse this
prejudice and exhibit a phonetic alphabet as native good sense
[...]. But when an enthusiastic convert suggested that 'ghoti'
would be a reasonable way to spell 'fish' under the old system (_gh_
as in 'tough', _o_ as in 'women' and _ti_ as in 'nation'), the
subject seemed about to be engulfed in the ridicule from which Shaw
was determined to save it."
Holroyd's notes are all in vol. 5, which the library here doesn't
have, so I can't tell you the name of the "enthusiastic convert" or
anything else.
Anyone?
--
mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel
alice faber
> Anyone?
Nothing about the notes, alas. But, I find it interesting that the
canonical version of the _ghoti_ story attributes it to Shaw rather than
to some anonymous convert. Of course, the story packs more punch when
attributed to a known curmudgeon than when attributed to a COAC (convert
of a curmudgeon)...Could you tell from Holroyd just when this occurred (or
is that in the notes too)? It would be interesting to determine when this
was first attributed to Shaw.
Alice "shawt of credibility?" Faber
Stian Oksavik
> O.K., here's why I think it wrongly underestimates the
> genius of English (well, maybe "stupid" and "malign" were
> a leetle bit strong):
>
> It implies that English uses only context-free letter-to-sound
> rules; that because "gh" is pronounced /f/ in "enough",
> English says that we can pronounce "gh" as /f/ anywhere we
> see it. And that's simply not true; English letter-to-sound
> correlations are context sensitive, not context free. It's
> a fact that "gh" is *never* pronounced /f/ at the beginning
> of a word or morpheme, as with "ghoti". Not crediting
> English with context-sensitivity in this area is an underestimation.
This may be true, but it is also a fact that there is no one set of rules
that determines the correct pronunciation of any English word. Which rule
would you use, for example, to determine the different pronunciation of
the vowels in "car" and "can," respectively?
> And it's a stupid underestimation because (1) anyone who
> thinks for more than 10 minutes about English letter-to-sound
> correlations must surely realize they depend on context;
> and (2) the simplest and easiest of experiments will show
> you that no native speaker would pronounce "ghoti" with an
> initial /f/ sound (unless they had been told in advance about
> the trick in the question).
Also true, but the point of this was not to imply that a native speaker
would pronounce "ghoti" as fish. It was merely intended to show that
English is not a syllabic language. After all, if it *had* been a syllabic
language (keeping in mind that syllabic spellings are by definition
context insensitive,) "ghoti" should've been pronounced as "fish".
Let me point out that I am in no way trying to malign the English
language. Its richness fascinates me, and I was amazed to discover that it
enables me to express myself more precisely than does my native language.
However, one of the things that amaze me in English are apparent
inconsistencies such as this one, and I intend no offense in pointing
these out.
Harry MF Teasley
Bill Fisher bequeathed:
> It implies that English uses only context-free letter-to-sound
> rules; that because "gh" is pronounced /f/ in "enough",
> English says that we can pronounce "gh" as /f/ anywhere we
> see it. And that's simply not true; English letter-to-sound
> correlations are context sensitive, not context free. It's
> a fact that "gh" is *never* pronounced /f/ at the beginning
> of a word or morpheme, as with "ghoti". Not crediting
> English with context-sensitivity in this area is an underestimation.
Methinks you miss the point, regardless of who came up with it originally.
The point is that the rules of English spelling and pronounciation are, to
one ignorant of them, seemingly arbitrary and pointless. The rules of the
game are only explicable to those who already know them.
Harry "explain the word 'slough' to a non-native English speaker" Teasley
--
"Once you've played in a band with a guy named Hank, you're not gonna play
in any symphony." -BB
Phil Gustafson
Stian Oksavik <st...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>This may be true, but it is also a fact that there is no one set of rules
>that determines the correct pronunciation of any English word. Which rule
>would you use, for example, to determine the different pronunciation of
>the vowels in "car" and "can," respectively?
Dan
far fan
gar
har
jar
LAN
mar man
Nan
par pan
san
tar tan
van
war*
There seems to be a pattern there, nu?
How would one pronounce "xar" and Xan"?
Ph.
*oops.
Doug Reade
Francis Muir wrote:
>
> In le patois des pieds noirs the "ce" would be thrown away
> and "qui" (rather high-falutin') would most certainly be
> replaced by "que". "Que sera, sera" is recognizeably le
> Francais deguerlasse du Sud (Algerien).
>
And, since the movie is set in French Morocco, which is right next door
to Algeria, we have justified the movie writer's linguistic abilities and
successfully brought this thread to a close.
Wow.
Doug "or do I have to mention Hitler" Reade
Siggy would have liked to ask if he was the first to note that the song
was the only one from a Hitchcock movie to win the Oscar.
Edward Rice
In article <56sjjc$a...@dove.nist.gov>,
bi...@osi.ncsl.nist.gov (Bill Fisher) wrote:
> It implies that English uses only context-free letter-to-sound
> rules; that because "gh" is pronounced /f/ in "enough",
> English says that we can pronounce "gh" as /f/ anywhere we
> see it. And that's simply not true; English letter-to-sound
> correlations are context sensitive, not context free. It's
> a fact that "gh" is *never* pronounced /f/ at the beginning
> of a word or morpheme, as with "ghoti". Not crediting
> English with context-sensitivity in this area is an underestimation.
>
> And it's a stupid underestimation because (1) anyone who
> thinks for more than 10 minutes about English letter-to-sound
> correlations must surely realize they depend on context;
> and (2) the simplest and easiest of experiments will show
> you that no native speaker would pronounce "ghoti" with an
> initial /f/ sound (unless they had been told in advance about
> the trick in the question).
Context isn't everything. I was curious whether context /did/ define the
"-gh" sounding like "f" and made up a small table which grew (like Topsy)
into the following...
*ow *ow *row *row *ough *ough
short long short long "-ow" "-owe"
bow brow bough
cow crow cough
dow dough
how hough
(huf or hok)
low
mow
now
pow prow
row rough
sow sough
tow trow tough
vow
wow
yow
zow
There are certainly some missing entries for Scottish-derived words, I
didn't bother looking them all up.
But, if context controlled, then why bow->brow and cow->crow? Why
row->rough and sow->sough, but dow->dough?
Derivation, etymology, is what controls these. Context provides a clue:
although there is no word "drow," probably most speakers of English would
agree on how to pronounce it if they saw it written out. (Or would they?)
Far enough out of experience, though, and it's entirely undefined in
English, no matter how many letters you place around the n-graph in
question.
Keith C. Ivey
Torkel Franzen <tor...@sm.luth.se> wrote:
> As Spanish, "que sera, sera" is ungrammatical.
Do you mean that it must be "Lo que sera' sera'"? Is the "lo"
never dropped in informal speech or certain dialects?
If "Que sera' sera'" is ungrammatical, I'm surprised Miguel
Carrasquer Vidal, who is (I believe) a native speaker of Spanish
as well as Dutch, hasn't mentioned that in either of his
contributions to this thread.
Evan Kirshenbaum
In article <stian-18119...@slip-103-39.ots.utexas.edu>,
Stian Oksavik <st...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>gh - as the gh in "enough"
>o - as the o in "women"
>ti - as the ti in "nation"
Do you suppose that people raise such idiocies in other languages.
Do Spanish speakers claim that you can spell, say, "Caracas,
Venezuela" as "Quarakac, Benécüelah" based on
Qu - as in "que" (ignoring that "qu" is /k/ only before front
vowels)
ara
k - as in "kilómetro" (ignoring that "k" only occurs in a few loan
words, and IIRC only word-initially)
a
c - as in "cielo" (ignoring that "c" is /s/ only before front
vowels)
B - as in "ambos" (this one's legit, "b" and "v" are
completely equivalent)
en
é - as in "¿Qué?" (the accent is there for no reason other
than to distinguish this word from "que")
c - as in "cielo" (ignoring that "c" is /s/ only before front
vowels)
ü - as in "vergüenza" (ignoring that "ü" is only written following
"g" when it is sounded as a vowel)
ela
h - as in "hoy" (ignoring that "h" is only written
word-initially)
That's only off the top of my head, as a non-native speaker, thinking
about some of the ambiguities/rules of Spanish orthography. I'm sure
a native speaker who knew some of the weirder words could do a lot
better. [Other rules that you can exploit are that "ll" and "y" and
"hi" are identical in most dialects (which leads to "hierba buena",
but "yerbabuena"); "g" before front vowels and "j" (and in some places
"x") are all /x/; "s" and "z" and "c" (before front vowels) are all
/s/, except in dialects in which one or more of "z" and "c" are /T/ or
in which "s" is silent in some situations; "n" is /m/ (or at least
[m])before "b" or "v".]
----
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The body was wrapped in duct tape,
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |weighted down with concrete blocks
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and a telephone cord was tied
|around the neck. Police suspect
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |foul play...
(415)857-7572
David Swanson
Reply to an e mail that said it would appear here, and probably will:
Yes, Venetian is a langauge or dialect (take your pick). It's been
influenced by Italian, but does not derive from Italian. Rather,
Italian more or less derives from old Tuscan, though Tuscan is now a
"dialect" just like "Venetian" and all the others.
alan auerbach F
Nonsense! It's cue Sarah Sarah.
In respect of her making the US talk-shows,
hoping for a good cue-tip.
What ever did happen to Koo Starkers?
--
Al.
Torkel Franzen
kci...@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) writes:
>Do you mean that it must be "Lo que sera' sera'"? Is the "lo"
>never dropped in informal speech or certain dialects?
It would be foolhardy indeed to make any claims about Spanish
dialects in general. My only claim is that in the Spanish of
Spain, "lo" is required if a majority of speakers are to accept
the sentence as correct. Indeed I remember my Spanish teacher
claiming on this basis that the phrase in the song is not
Spanish.
Terry Smith
> From: "Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com>
> Date: 14 Nov 1996 03:59:44 GMT
> Are sure that the title isn't really "Che sera, sera"?
I knew it! It was a coded revolutionary song.
Terry
Dave Budd
> > From: "Steve MacGregor" <Stev...@GoodNet.Com>
> > Date: 14 Nov 1996 03:59:44 GMT
> > Are sure that the title isn't really "Che sera, sera"?
Oh! I thought it was a Pascal programmer complaining about a Case Error
-- If Replying to my post, delete the leading x from the To: field
Dave Budd D.B...@mcc.ac.uk http://www.man.ac.uk/~zlsiida +44 161 275 6033
JUNK EMAIL: Storage costs money. I charge for spool space: rates on web page
Stian Oksavik
> Stian Oksavik <st...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >
> >This may be true, but it is also a fact that there is no one set of rules
> >that determines the correct pronunciation of any English word. Which rule
> >would you use, for example, to determine the different pronunciation of
> >the vowels in "car" and "can," respectively?
> bar ban
> Dan
> far fan
> gar
> har
> jar
> LAN
> mar man
> Nan
> par pan
> san
> tar tan
> van
> war*
>
> There seems to be a pattern there, nu?
Maybe so, but with exceptions as always. I certainly don't use the same
vowel in "car" and "war". Taking an example from British English, how
about "lorry" and "worry". Lead consonant is all that changes in spelling;
if English spellings were phonetic, you'd see a vowel change as well. And
if the leading w is what causes the vowel change, why are "well" and
"hell" pronounced using the same vowel?
Ray Depew
David Swanson (dc...@darwin.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
: r...@fc.hp.com (Ray Depew) writes:
: > : What makes you think a Venetian 'a' sounds like an 'e'?
: >
: > It was a guess, based on my experiences with Italians from other regions.
: > Pronunciations vary.
:
: OK, but you guessed wrong.
Cool. I learned something new. I've been wrong before. I spent
enough time in Piemonte, Lombardia, Liguria and Como to pick up
the accents and some dialects. I knew enough Napolitani, Siciliani
and Calabresi to learn their dialect as well. I spent a few days
in Florence and Rome, but I never got to Venice.
When Doris Day sings the song, she sings that one line in Spanish,
and the rest is in English. Maybe the Italian version sings that
one line in Spanish, and the rest in Italian.
Regards
Ray
Michele Tepper
In article <56toqd$b...@panix2.panix.com>,
Harry MF Teasley <he...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>Methinks you miss the point, regardless of who came up with it originally.
>The point is that the rules of English spelling and pronounciation are, to
>one ignorant of them, seemingly arbitrary and pointless. The rules of the
>game are only explicable to those who already know them.
And thus we see how the English language resembles the New York City
subway system.
>Harry "explain the word 'slough' to a non-native English speaker" Teasley
Michele "or try to plough through rough dough..." Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "In the immortal words of George Bernard Shaw,
mte...@panix.com 'ghoch agh.'" -- Harry Teasley