OT: Fake News

[Tony Cooper]

Thiere is no truth the to rumor that the spellcheckers used by the
Associated Press reporters blew up when reporting that Poland's Deputy
Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek announced that Poland will
be granting asylum to the Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina
Tsimanouskaya and that her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, will be able to
join her.

Another Deputy Foreign Minister, Marcin Przydacz, echoed that
sentiment.



--

Tony Cooper Orlando Florida

[Peter Moylan]

Slightly related: names ending in -skaya are common in much of Eastern
Europe. It's the feminine form of -ski, and never (as far as I know)
appears in stressed position. Yet so many of our newsreaders pronounce
that ending as -SKY-ya. with the SKY having the primary stress of the
whole word.

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

[HVS]

On 03 Aug 2021, Peter Moylan wrote

Interesting point; where should the stress be?

--
Cheers, Harvey

[Peter Moylan]

In the case of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, I suspect that the stress is on
the ous, but it might equally be on the Tsi.

More generally, it seems to be a matter of native speaker intuition,
just as in English. I don't know of any rules.

[HVS]

Fair 'nuff; thanks.

--
Cheers, Harvey

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Just a few, I think, like the one you mentioned, that -sky and -skaya
are never stressed.

I've often been surprised by articles on learning Russia for English
speakers, which typically emphasize that stress is both heavy and
important, but don't mention, as you did, "just as in English".


--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Ross Clark]

(For Russian at least:) Same place as with the masculine (-sky); most
commonly on the syllable right before the suffix, but can be further back.
This suffix actually can be stressed, but then it's pronounced/spelled
-skóy. The only individual I can think of right now with such a name was
the famous linguist, Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetskoy. I'm guessing
that a female member of his family would have been Trubetskáya (like the
above mis-pronunciation of the more common form).

[charles]

In article <imskhd...@mid.individual.net>,

when I was taught Russian at school, our teacher often said "just as in
Polish". No help to us, but we discovered that his mother was Polish.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Very strange: One of the most obvious differences between Russian and
Polish is that Polish has predictable and regular stress and Russian
doesn't.

[Peter T. Daniels]

It differs among the Slavic languages -- since PM mentioned simply
"Eastern Europe," there are at least half a dozen to choose from.

This morning the BBC interviewed the Belarusian woman, from the
Polish embassy in Tokyo, in Russian, through a translator.

If TC wanted to mock East European orthography, he might have
recalled when Bill Clinton ordered the humanitarian dropping of
vowels on the combatant nations during the Yugoslav crisis.

[occam]

Funny, but it has been done before.

"Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President
Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war-torn
region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American
history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters
A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more
pronounceable. "

<https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html>

[Bill Day]

I've wanted for years to hear an attempt to translate Czech or
Bosnian into Hawaiian. Perhaps there could be an international barter
system of vowels and consonants.
--
remove nonsense for reply

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Or from Danish (with no consonants) into European Portuguese (with no
vowels). (Don't bother to point out that I'm exaggerating: I know.)

[CDB]

"Veselé Vánoce!" (6/6) is "Mele Kalikimaka!" (7/7), a tie.

HTH.

[Sam Plusnet]

Tony's original post had me wondering if there is a Polish Scrabble set,
and how the individual letters are scored.
Now you have me wondering how a game using an Hawaiian dictionary with a
Polish Scrabble set would work out.

--
Sam Plusnet
Wales, UK

[Mark Brader]

"Sam":

> Tony's original post had me wondering if there is a Polish Scrabble set,
> and how the individual letters are scored.

If Wikipedia is correct, you can read the article "Scrabble letter
distributions" there for the answer.

> Now you have me wondering how a game using an Hawaiian dictionary with a
> Polish Scrabble set would work out.

Definitely no comment!
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I'm not entirely convinced 115 is prime."
m...@vex.net | --Patrick Hamlyn

[Quinn C]

* CDB:

I've sung the latter with a choir. I'd definitely not have guessed what
it is a transcription of.

--
If this guy wants to fight with weapons, I've got it covered
from A to Z. From axe to... zee other axe.
-- Buffy s05e03

[Peter Moylan]

Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters. What I find more
interesting is its relatively large collection of one-letter words.
Off-hand I can think of oo, ya, v, s, k. There might be a couple I've
forgotten.

[Jerry Friedman]

There's i.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

Thanks. The most obvious one of all, and I missed it.

[Ken Blake]

On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 04/08/21 01:41, occam wrote:
>> On 03/08/2021 00:35, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> Thiere is no truth the to rumor that the spellcheckers used by the
>>> Associated Press reporters blew up when reporting that Poland's Deputy
>>> Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek announced that Poland will
>>> be granting asylum to the Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina
>>> Tsimanouskaya and that her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, will be able to
>>> join her.
>>>
>>> Another Deputy Foreign Minister, Marcin Przydacz, echoed that
>>> sentiment.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Funny, but it has been done before.
>>
>> "Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President
>> Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war-torn
>> region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American
>> history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters
>> A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more
>> pronounceable. "
>>
>> <https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html>
>
> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.

And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example   Щ

> What I find more
> interesting is its relatively large collection of one-letter words.
> Off-hand I can think of oo, ya, v, s, k. There might be a couple I've
> forgotten.
>


--

Ken

[Quinn C]

* Peter Moylan:

> On 04/08/21 01:41, occam wrote:
>> On 03/08/2021 00:35, Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> Thiere is no truth the to rumor that the spellcheckers used by the
>>> Associated Press reporters blew up when reporting that Poland's Deputy
>>> Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek announced that Poland will
>>> be granting asylum to the Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina
>>> Tsimanouskaya and that her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, will be able to
>>> join her.
>>>
>>> Another Deputy Foreign Minister, Marcin Przydacz, echoed that
>>> sentiment.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Funny, but it has been done before.
>>
>> "Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President
>> Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war-torn
>> region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American
>> history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters
>> A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more
>> pronounceable. "
>>
>> <https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html>
>
> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.

Undeservedly. I think it's by lumping together with other Slavic
languages, most of which are better examples of that. Russian has
retained a lot of vowels, and I find it eminently singable.

Between milk (eng), Milch (deu), mleko (pol/cze/srp...), mljako (bul),
moloko (rus), who's the consonant clusterer?

> What I find more
> interesting is its relatively large collection of one-letter words.
> Off-hand I can think of oo, ya, v, s, k. There might be a couple I've
> forgotten.

Some of them might become prefixes in the future.

--
Americans are not that comfortable with being uncomfortable.
-- Veronica Osorio

[Anders D. Nygaard]

Den 04-08-2021 kl. 05:14 skrev Jerry Friedman:
> On Tuesday, August 3, 2021 at 7:44:40 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:

>> [...]

>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters. What I find more
>> interesting is its relatively large collection of one-letter words.
>> Off-hand I can think of oo, ya, v, s, k. There might be a couple I've
>> forgotten.
>
> There's i.

And a.

/Anders, Denmark.

[Peter Moylan]

On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:

>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
>
> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example Щ

Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
collapsed it back to a single sound.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-05 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Moylan said:

> On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
>>
>> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example Щ
>
> Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
> collapsed it back to a single sound.

That's what I've been told -- more or less a lengthened ш

[Richard Heathfield]

On 05/08/2021 07:58, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2021-08-05 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
>> On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
>>> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>
>>>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
>>>
>>> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example       Щ
>>
>> Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
>> collapsed it back to a single sound.
>
> That's what I've been told -- more or less a lengthened ш

In the highly competitive category "least helpful Wikipedian sentence
ending" I have, I think, found a strong cadidate:

"The name in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was шта (šta) and is preserved
in modern Bulgarian; it is pronounced "штъ"."

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

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-08-05 08:04:14 +0000, Richard Heathfield said:

> On 05/08/2021 07:58, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2021-08-05 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>
>>> On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
>>>> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
>>>>
>>>> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example       Щ
>>>
>>> Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
>>> collapsed it back to a single sound.
>>
>> That's what I've been told -- more or less a lengthened ш
>
> In the highly competitive category "least helpful Wikipedian sentence
> ending" I have, I think, found a strong cadidate:
>
> "The name in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was шта (šta) and is preserved
> in modern Bulgarian; it is pronounced "штъ"."

I don't know about the least helpful Wikipedian sentence ending, but
yesterday I found a candidate for least helpful Wikipedian article,
which said

"This list contains a list of Enzyme Commission numbers for the seventh
group, EC 7, translocases, placed in numerical order as determined by
the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry
and Molecular Biology."

The only problem is that there is no list of any sort. The "list" was
created on 23rd March of this year, and subsequently edited by five
editors, at least one of whom is a sensible person, and none of them
noticed that there was no list -- at least there wasn't until
yesterday, when I made a start on adding a list.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 05/08/2021 09:23, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> This list contains a list of Enzyme Commission numbers for the seventh group

Notably omitted from all these lists are Head district, Bishopsgate,
Fenchurch Street, and Fleet Street. How am I supposed, if EC2R is not
there (as indeed it is not), to get translocases to the Bank of England?

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, August 4, 2021 at 11:48:12 AM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter Moylan:
...

> > Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.

> Undeservedly. I think it's by lumping together with other Slavic
> languages, most of which are better examples of that. Russian has
> retained a lot of vowels, and I find it eminently singable.
>
> Between milk (eng), Milch (deu), mleko (pol/cze/srp...), mljako (bul),
> moloko (rus), who's the consonant clusterer?

...

On the other hand, another of the very few Russian words I know is
"vzrivat'", meaning 'explode'.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2021 07:33:48 -0700 (PDT)
Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> vzrivat

Not quite a rot13:
imeving

vzntvat
would be OK!
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Quinn C]

* Kerr-Mudd, John:

> On Thu, 5 Aug 2021 07:33:48 -0700 (PDT)
> Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> vzrivat
>
> Not quite a rot13:
> imeving
>
> vzntvat
> would be OK!

Vzriveting! Explosive!

--
We say, 'If any lady or gentleman shall buy this article _____ shall
have it for five dollars.' The blank may be filled with he, she, it,
or they; or in any other manner; and yet the form of the expression
will be too vulgar to be uttered. -- Wkly Jrnl of Commerce (1839)

[Ken Blake]

On 8/4/2021 5:49 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
>
>>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
>>
>> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example Щ
>
> Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
> collapsed it back to a single sound.

Interesting, thanks. I didn't know that.


--
Ken

[Peter Moylan]

My large Russian-English dictionary has two and a half pages of words
starting with vz-, many of them having a consonant as the third letter.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I had any idea that Здравствуйте (zdravstvuytye - Hello!) began with
vz-, but I was wrong. On the other hand it does contain two consonant
clusters. It's a word one needs quite a lot.

[Dingbat]

On Thursday, August 5, 2021 at 12:28:37 PM UTC+5:30, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2021-08-05 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
> > On 05/08/21 02:03, Ken Blake wrote:
> >> On 8/3/2021 5:44 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >
> >>> Russian is sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.
> >>
> >> And sometimes those clusters are in a single letter, for example Щ
> >
> > Traditionally, yes, but apparently today's speakers of Russian have
> > collapsed it back to a single sound.
> That's what I've been told -- more or less a lengthened ш
> --

It's not particularly long in Щи; it seems domed whereas ши, can be approximated with a retroflex sibilant.

[Ken Blake]

It's one of the handful of Russian words I know.


--
Ken

[Jerry Friedman]

Can't one get away with "Pri vet"?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Probably, but Здравствуйте was what I learned in Russian lessons in
1957. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.

I first wrote 1961, but then I realized it must be 1957 because it was
the centenary of The Origin of Species, and the Academy of Sciences of
the USSR sent the school (which was Darwin's school as well as mine) a
commemorative medal. The school authorities didn't know what to do with
it, so they passed it on to my Russian teacher, who passed it around
the class. Darwin was _much_ less honoured, even in his own school, in
1957 than one might have guessed. I was puzzled by my recollection, and
wrote to my old chemistry teacher, who was still alive in his 90s a few
years ago and still teaching chemistry. (He has since died.) He
confirmed my impression that the 1957 centenary passed almost unnoticed
in Shrewsbury. There was a lot more activity in 2007.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, August 6, 2021 at 10:52:03 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2021-08-06 14:05:44 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:
>
> > On Friday, August 6, 2021 at 12:48:40 AM UTC-6, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >> On 2021-08-06 00:42:27 +0000, Peter Moylan said:>> > On 06/08/21 01:33,
> >> Jerry Friedman wrote:> >> On Wednesday, August 4, 2021 at 11:48:12 AM
> >> UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:> >>> * Peter Moylan:> >> ...> >>> >>>> Russian is
> >> sometimes mocked for its consonant clusters.> >>> >>> Undeservedly. I
> >> think it's by lumping together with other Slavic> >>> languages, most
> >> of which are better examples of that. Russian has> >>> retained a lot
> >> of vowels, and I find it eminently singable.> >>>> >>> Between milk
> >> (eng), Milch (deu), mleko (pol/cze/srp...), mljako> >>> (bul), moloko
> >> (rus), who's the consonant clusterer?> >> ...> >>> >> On the other
> >> hand, another of the very few Russian words I know is> >> "vzrivat'",
> >> meaning 'explode'.> >> > My large Russian-English dictionary has two
> >> and a half pages of words> > starting with vz-, many of them having a
> >> consonant as the third letter.
> >> I had any idea that Здравствуйте (zdravstvuytye - Hello!) began with>
> >> vz-, but I was wrong. On the other hand it does contain two consonant>
> >> clusters. It's a word one needs quite a lot.

Too bad the "enzyme kineticist" can't handle line breaks.

> > Can't one get away with "Pri vet"?
>
> Probably, but Здравствуйте was what I learned in Russian lessons in
> 1957. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.
>
> I first wrote 1961, but then I realized it must be 1957 because it was
> the centenary of The Origin of Species, and the Academy of Sciences of
> the USSR sent the school (which was Darwin's school as well as mine) a
> commemorative medal. The school authorities didn't know what to do with
> it, so they passed it on to my Russian teacher, who passed it around
> the class. Darwin was _much_ less honoured, even in his own school, in
> 1957 than one might have guessed. I was puzzled by my recollection, and
> wrote to my old chemistry teacher, who was still alive in his 90s a few
> years ago and still teaching chemistry. (He has since died.) He
> confirmed my impression that the 1957 centenary passed almost unnoticed
> in Shrewsbury. There was a lot more activity in 2007.

So, there was a St. Petersburg preprint, two years in advance of the
actual publication of the book?

Any fule know the date of *The Origin of Species*: 1859.

[Peter Moylan]

I didn't know about that one. I've gotten away wit hдобрий день (dobriy
dyen), which is easy to pronounce.