SPD election poster
Alwyn
page:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/>
On the right-hand poster it says: _Dumpingl�hne w�rden CDU w�hlen._
Can anyone explain what _Dumpingl�hne_ means? Is it wages going down
the dump? And how could wages vote?
Alwyn
Joachim Pense
>
> Can anyone explain what _Dumpinglöhne_ means? Is it wages going down
> the dump? And how could wages vote?
>
A Dumpingpreis is a price that is below production cost; such prices are
offered that price to drive competition out of business.
Dumpinglöhne are the analogous concept on the wages side. They are lower
than the cost of living.
Joachim
Adam Funk
> A Dumpingpreis is a price that is below production cost; such prices are
> offered that price to drive competition out of business.
>
> Dumpinglöhne are the analogous concept on the wages side. They are lower
> than the cost of living.
Am I right in guessing that "Dumpingpreis" is borrowed from English?
--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
Einde O'Callaghan
> On 2009-05-17, Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>> A Dumpingpreis is a price that is below production cost; such prices are
>> offered that price to drive competition out of business.
>>
>> Dumpinglöhne are the analogous concept on the wages side. They are lower
>> than the cost of living.
>
> Am I right in guessing that "Dumpingpreis" is borrowed from English?
>
>
business-speak - but Dumpingl�hne is a German coinage.
Gru�, Einde O'Callaghan
Joachim Pense
> On 2009-05-17, Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>> A Dumpingpreis is a price that is below production cost; such prices are
>> offered that price to drive competition out of business.
>>
>> Dumpinglöhne are the analogous concept on the wages side. They are lower
>> than the cost of living.
>
> Am I right in guessing that "Dumpingpreis" is borrowed from English?
>
>
I am not sure, as neither Leo nor WP offer it directly. (Leo has nothing,
and WP has "Dumping (pricing policy)").
"Dumpingprice" is pronunced as "Dampingpreis" for sure.
Joachim
Alwyn
Einde O'Callaghan <ein...@freenet.de> wrote:
>
> Yes, there's a lot of borrowing from English in modern German
> business-speak - but Dumpingl�hne is a German coinage.
In my opinion, it isn't a very happy coinage. You dump goods by setting
a low price on them, whereas labour is dumped by lay-offs. The two are
not comparable in this respect.
Alwyn
Einde O'Callaghan
specific connotation in German, the "dumping" prefix just means "very
low, under value".
Anyway, regardless of the origins "Dumpinglohn" has entered the German
language meaning a wage that is too low to live on.
This is the way languages develop and words continually take on new
connotations and meanings. There are several other words of English
appearance in German with meanings that are quite different from the
corresponding word in English and some of them may even have come from
English, although otehrs may be of French or Latin origin and come into
both German and English independently.
Adam Funk
Do you mean 'as ... "Dumpingpreis"'? (I mean, is the "a" in
"Dampingpreis" a typo?)
--
I could show them the ansible, but it didn't make a very convincing
Alien Artifact, being so incomprehensible as to fit in with hoax as
well as with reality. (LeGuin 1969)
Andy
Alwyn <al...@dircon.co.uk> wrote
I know a Commercial Person and have asked him.
--
Andy Taylor [Editor, Austrian Philatelic Society].
Visit <URL:http://www.austrianphilately.com>
Joachim Pense
> On 2009-05-17, Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>>
>> "Dumpingprice" is pronunced as "Dampingpreis" for sure.
>
> Do you mean 'as ... "Dumpingpreis"'? (I mean, is the "a" in
> "Dampingpreis" a typo?)
>
>
I wanted to say that the "u" is not pronounced like a German u but like a
German a, and I was too lazy to look up some ASCII IPA table.
Joachim
Helmut Richter
> > > Yes, there's a lot of borrowing from English in modern German
> > > business-speak - but Dumpingl�hne is a German coinage.
> This is the way languages develop and words continually take on new
> connotations and meanings. There are several other words of English appearance
> in German with meanings that are quite different from the corresponding word
> in English
Yes, German (and AFAIK Japanese as well) is particular productive in
coining pseudo-anglicisms: words that look English and that are formed
from English constituents but which do not exist as such in English.
See: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Scheinanglizismen .
--
Helmut Richter
Florian Diesch
> On 2009-05-17, Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>> A Dumpingpreis is a price that is below production cost; such prices are
>> offered that price to drive competition out of business.
>>
>> Dumpingl�hne are the analogous concept on the wages side. They are lower
>> than the cost of living.
>
> Am I right in guessing that "Dumpingpreis" is borrowed from English?
Yes. <http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping> tells a bit about the usage
of "Dumping" in German.
Florian
--
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>
Andy
<Pine.LNX.4.64.09...@lxhri01.lrz.lrz-muenchen.de>, Helmut
Richter <hh...@web.de> wrote
I'm sure I've seen 'beauty farm' in a British newspaper, referring to
somewhere people go to pay large amounts of money for meagre food and
vicious massages, not 'spa' treatment in the sense of immersion in
impure water.
The commercial colleague whose wisdom I promised to pass on knows less
than we do :)
Lothar Frings
> And how could wages vote?
You shouldn't expect much sense from election babble.
Joachim Pense
Actually, I meant to write:
"Dumpingpreis" is pronunced like "Dampingpreis" for sure.
Joachim
Adam Funk
OK, thanks. I've never before come across a German word where "u" is
pronounced "a", so you can understand my confusion.
Why in the world is it like that? The German "u" sound that I would
expect there is (IMHO) much closer to English versions of "dump" than
a German "a".
--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren. "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos." (McMullen 2001)
Joachim Pense
> On 2009-05-18, Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>> "Dumpingpreis" is pronunced like "Dampingpreis" for sure.
>
> OK, thanks. I've never before come across a German word where "u" is
> pronounced "a", so you can understand my confusion.
>
> Why in the world is it like that? The German "u" sound that I would
> expect there is (IMHO) much closer to English versions of "dump" than
> a German "a".
>
100 years ago, students of English were taught to pronounce English short u
as ö; later the ö was replaced by a. I heard the real pronounciation only
when I was in England years later.
"To bluff" (as in Poker) was "bluffen", pronounced "blöffen" until recently
(still understood), now it's pronounced "blaffen".
Joachim
Ekkehard Dengler
> Adam Funk (in alt.usage.german):
>
>> On 2009-05-18, Joachim Pense wrote:
>>>
>>> "Dumpingpreis" is pronunced like "Dampingpreis" for sure.
>>
>> OK, thanks. I've never before come across a German word where "u" is
>> pronounced "a", so you can understand my confusion.
>>
>> Why in the world is it like that? The German "u" sound that I would
>> expect there is (IMHO) much closer to English versions of "dump" than
>> a German "a".
>>
>
> 100 years ago, students of English were taught to pronounce English
> pronounciation only when I was in England years later.
What do you mean by "the real pronunciation"? The pronunciation of the vowel
in "dump" is extremely variable, and an open central unrounded vowel as in
Germ. "Lampe" is one possibility. Cf. http://tinyurl.com/ows947, p. 291-292.
> "To bluff" (as in Poker) was "bluffen", pronounced "bl�ffen" until
> recently (still understood), now it's pronounced "blaffen".
Or "bl�ffen".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Karsten Düsterloh
> "To bluff" (as in Poker) was "bluffen", pronounced "bl�ffen" until recently
> (still understood), now it's pronounced "blaffen".
I very much doubt the latter (and in fact never heard it yet) -
"blaffen" is already a (moderately) common German verb, meaning
unfriendly shouting (like a dog's bark).
Karsten
--
Freiheit stirbt | Fsayannes SF&F-Bibliothek:
Mit Sicherheit | http://fsayanne.tprac.de/
Alwyn
"Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>
> What do you mean by "the real pronunciation"? The pronunciation of the vowel
> in "dump" is extremely variable, and an open central unrounded vowel as in
> Germ. "Lampe" is one possibility. Cf. http://tinyurl.com/ows947, p. 291-292.
RP has [å], northern dialect has [ä] central/northern accents have [ø]
to [œ]. it seems to me; Wales and Scotland have [Y]. None of these are
particularly similar to sound in German _Lampe_, which is similar to
that in 'lamp' in most British accents today.
Alwyn
Joachim Pense
> Joachim Pense aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> "To bluff" (as in Poker) was "bluffen", pronounced "blöffen" until
>> recently (still understood), now it's pronounced "blaffen".
>
> I very much doubt the latter (and in fact never heard it yet) -
> "blaffen" is already a (moderately) common German verb, meaning
> unfriendly shouting (like a dog's bark).
>
On second thought, you might be right, and the already existing verb
prevented the change from a to ö. So this was a bad example. What about
others?
Cutter (Film editor) - Old people have ö
Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it must
be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
, city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
Joachim
Karsten Düsterloh
> others?
>
> Cutter (Film editor) - Old people have �
> Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it must
> be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
> , city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
> Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
I'd say the German "a"-pronunciation in these cases is part of the
dialect en-DE. ;-)
And yes, I've got a German "English" book of the late 30s (I think,
can't find it atm) where "cut" is transkribed as "k�t"...
Marco Pagliero
> > In my opinion, it isn't a very happy coinage. You dump goods by setting
> > a low price on them, whereas labour is dumped by lay-offs.
Well, if you can dump your goods by setting a (much too) low price on
them, then you can dump your labour as well just by accepting (much
too) low wages for it. Methinks.
Marco P
Christian Weisgerber
> > What do you mean by "the real pronunciation"? The pronunciation of the vowel
> > in "dump" is extremely variable,
>
> RP has [å], northern dialect has [ä] central/northern accents have [ø]
> to [œ]. it seems to me; Wales and Scotland have [Y]. None of these are
> particularly similar to sound in German _Lampe_, which is similar to
> that in 'lamp' in most British accents today.
Weren't northern accents supposed to have [ʊ]? And what sound is
[å]?
The fact is, there is a well established way certain English vowels
are mapped to German vowels, both by Germans actually trying to
pronounce English and in particular when English loanwords are
integrated into German phrases and the speaker doesn't codeswitch.
Notably:
* The "cut" vowel /ʌ/ is nowadays mapped to /a/ "Katze".
* In German, [æ] is an allophone of /ɛ/, so "bat" and "bet" are
mapped homophonously to "Bett" /ɛ/.
* The "bird" vowel /ɜ/ is mapped to /œ/.
* Less reliably: The diphthongs /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ are mapped to /o:/ and
/e:/, respectively.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Joachim Pense
> * In German, [æ] is an allophone of /ɛ/, so "bat" and "bet" are
> mapped homophonously to "Bett" /ɛ/.
Indeed. I am currently reading Robin Hood stories to my daughter ad bedtime
(in German of course). At a time, there is an Ellen that wants to marry an
Allan. These names sound exactly alike in German.
Joachim
Adam Funk
> Alwyn <al...@dircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> > What do you mean by "the real pronunciation"? The pronunciation of the vowel
>> > in "dump" is extremely variable,
>>
>> RP has [å], northern dialect has [ä] central/northern accents have [ø]
>> to [œ]. it seems to me; Wales and Scotland have [Y]. None of these are
>> particularly similar to sound in German _Lampe_, which is similar to
>> that in 'lamp' in most British accents today.
>
> Weren't northern accents supposed to have [ʊ]? And what sound is
> [å]?
I'd say the "u" in "dump", "mush", &c., in the East Midlands and
Yorkshire at least (and probably other areas of northern England ---
note: not my native dialect) is about the same as the German "u" in
"pumpen".
> The fact is, there is a well established way certain English vowels
> are mapped to German vowels, both by Germans actually trying to
> pronounce English and in particular when English loanwords are
> integrated into German phrases and the speaker doesn't codeswitch.
>
> Notably:
> * The "cut" vowel /ʌ/ is nowadays mapped to /a/ "Katze".
That one surprises me. I'd have expected it to map to "u" as in
"pumpen".
--
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Adam Funk
> On second thought, you might be right, and the already existing verb
> prevented the change from a to ö. So this was a bad example. What about
> others?
>
> Cutter (Film editor) - Old people have ö
> Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it must
> be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
> , city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
> Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
You mean "Funkmusik" doesn't have the same first syllable as
"Funkturm" (never mind the illustrious surname)?
--
In the 1970s, people began receiving utility bills for
-£999,999,996.32 and it became harder to sustain the
myth of the infallible electronic brain. (Stob 2001)
Joachim Pense
Alan, of course.
Joachim
Joachim Pense
>
> I'd say the "u" in "dump", "mush", &c., in the East Midlands and
> Yorkshire at least (and probably other areas of northern England ---
> note: not my native dialect) is about the same as the German "u" in
> "pumpen".
I remember from the time when I was in Coventry (West Midlands) - they
pronounce most vowels just like in German.
>> Notably:
>> * The "cut" vowel /ʌ/ is nowadays mapped to /a/ "Katze".
>
> That one surprises me. I'd have expected it to map to "u" as in
> "pumpen".
>
That would be perceived as a spelling pronounciation.
Joachim
Joachim Pense
> On 2009-05-19, Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>> Cutter (Film editor) - Old people have ö
>> Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it
>> must be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
>> , city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
>> Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
>
> You mean "Funkmusik" doesn't have the same first syllable as
> "Funkturm" (never mind the illustrious surname)?
>
Definitely not. People would laugh at that pronounciation. That
pronounciation would be expected by old people who had never any English
lessons.
Joachim
Andy
<sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote
>Adam Funk (in alt.usage.german):
>
>> On 2009-05-19, Joachim Pense wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it
>>> must be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
>>> , city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
>>> Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
>>
>> You mean "Funkmusik" doesn't have the same first syllable as
>> "Funkturm" (never mind the illustrious surname)?
>>
>
>Definitely not. People would laugh at that pronounciation. That
>pronounciation would be expected by old people who had never any English
>lessons.
>
(hello!) trying to pronounce English words that appear in a German
sentence.
Joachim Pense
> In message <gv1npp$69j$03$3...@news.t-online.com>, Joachim Pense
> <sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote
>>Adam Funk (in alt.usage.german):
>>
>>>
>>> You mean "Funkmusik" doesn't have the same first syllable as
>>> "Funkturm" (never mind the illustrious surname)?
>>>
>>
>>Definitely not. People would laugh at that pronounciation. That
>>pronounciation would be expected by old people who had never any English
>>lessons.
>>
> There's another set of people-with-problems: native English speakers
> (hello!) trying to pronounce English words that appear in a German
> sentence.
I think it is accepted if a native English speaker uses correct English
pronounciation for English loans in German. They might not be understood,
though. It took me some time to understand when an Irish lady was talking
German with me, and pronounced "Dublin" her native way.
Joachim
Helmut Richter
> Notably:
> * The "cut" vowel /?/ is nowadays mapped to /a/ "Katze".
Of the sounds produced with
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_vowels_fbmp3.html, the "cut"
vowel http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/snd/IPA314.mp3 is the one I feel
is closest to what is pronounced in German "Katze". Insofar the mapping is
not astonishing.
It is, however, so that all dictionaries have a tendency to prefer
"normal" letters over special "phonetic" ones. The COD uses [e] for "bet"
although it is not the same as in German "Beet" -- just because the "real"
[e] does not exist in British English. In the same spirit, German
dictionaries would use [a] (or even [A] as Siebs does) instead of [V]
because [a] does not exist in standard German.
Moreover, there is some confusion anyway. I am not sure everyone would
note the vowels in the above website exactly as they do.
> * In German, [�] is an allophone of /?/, so "bat" and "bet" are
> mapped homophonously to "Bett" /?/.
I am not sure there are no two regions A und B in the English-speaking
world such that "bat" pronounced without context by a speaker of A would
be understood as "bet" by a speaker of B, and two other regions vice
versa. Same for "bat" and "but".
In my observarion, American English tends more towards e-sounds: BE "bat"
could be AE "but", and BE "bet" could be AE "bat". Not quite but as a
trend. Insofar, the German pronunciation of vowels is more American,
except for words linke "dance" and "fast" (where now AE pronunciation
slowly gets a higher share as well).
> * The "bird" vowel /?/ is mapped to /oe/.
Which is not too wrong either in my ears, as long as it is not /�/.
> * Less reliably: The diphthongs /o?/ and /e?/ are mapped to /o:/ and
> /e:/, respectively.
Only in words that have been loaned into German for a very long time, such
as "baby".
Moreover, /eI/ and /oU/ sound very AE in my ears, BE would be /EI/ and
/EU/.
--
Helmut Richter
Helmut Richter
> I think it is accepted if a native English speaker uses correct English
> pronounciation for English loans in German.
One word that disturbs me is "software" pronounced by German news
speakers. Yes, English "w" is more u-like than any German consonant but
the pronunciation "softooare" is so typical for German speakers who want
to do it right.
> They might not be understood,
> though. It took me some time to understand when an Irish lady was talking
> German with me, and pronounced "Dublin" her native way.
Baile �tha Cliath?
--
Helmut Richter
Joachim Pense
> Baile Átha Cliath?
>
No, I don't think there are many native speakers of Irish in Dublin.
Joachim
Christian Weisgerber
> > There's another set of people-with-problems: native English speakers
> > (hello!) trying to pronounce English words that appear in a German
> > sentence.
>
> I think it is accepted if a native English speaker uses correct English
> pronounciation for English loans in German. They might not be understood,
> though.
Yes. Code-switching tends to sound affected, but not if you have
the foreign accent to go with it. And of course this problem applies
to any pair of languages. Don't pronounce "Potemkin" the Russian
way if you want to be understood.
Joachim Pense
>
> When Germans say “candle-light dinner”, the “candl” often has
> two vowels, like ['kæn dəl], while [1] gives ['kæn dl], and
> nearly every German gets “Iron Man” wrong, which should be
> ['ɑɪən] without a German r-consonant, a schwa and no actual
> pronunciation of the “o”.
Really? It would take me a lot of effort to pronounce the syllable "del"
with an e instead of the standard German syllabic l, be it in "Kandel"
(city in South Palatine) or in "candle" or in "Handel" (trade).
Joachim
Adam Funk
> In message <gv1npp$69j$03$3...@news.t-online.com>, Joachim Pense
><sn...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote
>>Adam Funk (in alt.usage.german):
>>
>>> On 2009-05-19, Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Cutter (Film editor) - Old people have ö
>>>> Null (Empty Database value) - here an opposite effect seems to work, it
>>>> must be differentiated from the German number Null (zero) - a
>>>> , city and person names starting "Hunt-" - a,
>>>> Funk, Punk (the music genres) - a (rhymes with "krank")
>>>
>>> You mean "Funkmusik" doesn't have the same first syllable as
>>> "Funkturm" (never mind the illustrious surname)?
>>>
>>
>>Definitely not. People would laugh at that pronounciation. That
>>pronounciation would be expected by old people who had never any English
>>lessons.
>>
> There's another set of people-with-problems: native English speakers
> (hello!) trying to pronounce English words that appear in a German
> sentence.
Bingo.
--
hmmmm: sounds like the same DLL hell problem my cousin had. try
deleting all DLLs in your Windows/system32 directory and see what
happens. (Bryce Utting)
Ekkehard Dengler
> In article <guseo5$msj$01$1...@news.t-online.com>,
> "Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>>
>> What do you mean by "the real pronunciation"? The pronunciation of
>> the vowel in "dump" is extremely variable, and an open central
>> unrounded vowel as in Germ. "Lampe" is one possibility. Cf.
>> http://tinyurl.com/ows947, p. 291-292.
>
>
> to [o]. it seems to me; Wales and Scotland have [Y].
What does your first symbol mean? It's not an IPA (or ASCII-IPA) symbol, as
far as I know.
RP is actually quite variable and the [a] pronunciation does exist. Did you
try the link I posted? Wells is not exactly known for making up vowels.
Unfortunately, the IPA lacks an unambiguous symbol for an open central
unrounded vowel, which is why, in practice, [a] can mean either "open front
unrounded vowel" or "open central unrounded vowel". While a centralised
version of the vowel in Fr. "neuf" occurs in the speech of self-conscious
northerners as an approximation of a typical southern or RP vowel (William
Hague is a good example), [�] (the vowel in Fr. "feu") is probably unheard
of in the history of English as a realisation of the vowel in "dump".
> None of these are
> particularly similar to sound in German _Lampe_,
Actually, [�] (i.e. a centralised open front unrounded vowel) wouldn't sound
unusual at all in Germ. "Lampe". I admit that [�] is no longer the default
RP pronunciation of the "dump" vowel, but it was quite common as late as the
1970s and still occurs today. If you can, listen to how Basil Fawlty (John
Cleese) says "There is too much butter on those trays" in the first episode
of "Fawlty Towers". His pronunciation of "much butter" is a perfect (or
near-perfect) rhyme with Germ. "Matsch Natter".
> which is similar to
> that in 'lamp' in most British accents today.
I agree with you there. The key word is "most".
Regards,
Ekkehard
Ekkehard Dengler
> On Wed, 20 May 2009, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>
>> Notably:
>> * The "cut" vowel /?/ is nowadays mapped to /a/ "Katze".
>
> Of the sounds produced with
> http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ipachart_vowels_fbmp3.html, the
> "cut" vowel http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/snd/IPA314.mp3 is the
> one I feel is closest to what is pronounced in German "Katze".
> Insofar the mapping is not astonishing.
>
> It is, however, so that all dictionaries have a tendency to prefer
> "normal" letters over special "phonetic" ones. The COD uses [e] for
> "bet" although it is not the same as in German "Beet" -- just because
> the "real" [e] does not exist in British English.
You could be right, but another possible reason is that it did exist at one
point. You can sometimes hear [bet] "bet" in early-twentieth-century RP.
>> * In German, [�] is an allophone of /?/, so "bat" and "bet" are
>> mapped homophonously to "Bett" /?/.
Exactly.
> I am not sure there are no two regions A und B in the English-speaking
> world such that "bat" pronounced without context by a speaker of A
> would be understood as "bet" by a speaker of B, and two other regions
> vice versa. Same for "bat" and "but".
I'm fairly sure many northern Irish speakers would mistake a broad
Australian or New Zealand pronunciation of "bat" for "bet" or even "bit".
Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_English#The_short_front_vowels
Regards,
Ekkehard
Christian Weisgerber
> > It is, however, so that all dictionaries have a tendency to prefer
> > "normal" letters over special "phonetic" ones. The COD uses [e] for
> > "bet" although it is not the same as in German "Beet" -- just because
> > the "real" [e] does not exist in British English.
>
> You could be right, but another possible reason is that it did exist at one
> point. You can sometimes hear [bet] "bet" in early-twentieth-century RP.
The fact that all southern hemisphere accents have or had [e] makes
me wonder if RP hasn't lowered the vowel since the 19th century.
> I'm fairly sure many northern Irish speakers would mistake a broad
> Australian or New Zealand pronunciation of "bat" for "bet" or even "bit".
> Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_English#The_short_front_vowels
North Americans will do. The TV comedy show "The Flight of the
Conchords"--about two hapless musicians from New Zealand trying to
make it in New York--based some jokes on Americans misunderstanding
the characteristic NZ accent, e.g. "dead" sounds like "did":
Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: He maybe did what?
Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: I know, but what did he maybe do?
Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: Yeah, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. What did he maybe do?
Bret: No, he may be dead.
Dave: Are you guys fucking with me?
Ekkehard Dengler
> Ekkehard Dengler <ED...@t-online.de> wrote:
>
>>> It is, however, so that all dictionaries have a tendency to prefer
>>> "normal" letters over special "phonetic" ones. The COD uses [e] for
>>> "bet" although it is not the same as in German "Beet" -- just
>>> because the "real" [e] does not exist in British English.
>>
>> You could be right, but another possible reason is that it did exist
>> at one point. You can sometimes hear [bet] "bet" in
>> early-twentieth-century RP.
>
> The fact that all southern hemisphere accents have or had [e] makes
> me wonder if RP hasn't lowered the vowel since the 19th century.
I would say since about 1940. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear: [e] did
exist but that needn't be the reason for the tendency Helmut referred to.
>> I'm fairly sure many northern Irish speakers would mistake a broad
>> Australian or New Zealand pronunciation of "bat" for "bet" or even
>> "bit". Cf.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_English#The_short_front_vowels
>
> North Americans will do. The TV comedy show "The Flight of the
> Conchords"--about two hapless musicians from New Zealand trying to
> make it in New York--based some jokes on Americans misunderstanding
> the characteristic NZ accent, e.g. "dead" sounds like "did":
>
> Murray: He may be dead.
> Dave: He maybe did what?
> Murray: He may be dead.
> Dave: I know, but what did he maybe do?
> Murray: He may be dead.
> Dave: Yeah, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. What did he maybe do?
> Bret: No, he may be dead.
> Dave: Are you guys fucking with me?
Brilliant, thanks.
Regards,
Ekkehard