Europeans and their bad pronunciation of foreign words
John Harrington
Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
>
> [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of ;-)'s
about American English pronunciation.
>
> We had a number of "How do you pronounce.." threads
> this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
> "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
> not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
> YOU pronounce it?
I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
is pretentious.
> Some time ago there was a thread with Bach jokes. Most
> of them were seemingly based upon a mispronunciation of
> the name.
It is not a mispronunciation. You were apparently ignorant of how the name
is commonly pronounced in American English.
I'm reminded of a German I met at a concert intermission years ago who
chastised me for my pronunciation of the word baroque. "Oh, you Americans
always mispronounce foreign words," he rudely ranted, in heavily accented
English. I was so startled by his ignorance, not to mention arrogance, that
I didn't give him the verbal drubbing he deserved, but instead tried to
politely explain to him that baroque is originally a French word, which, in
fact, Germans "mispronounce" not to mention "misspell". I don't think the
thick-skulled idiot listened to a word I said. I later looked the word up
to make sure I was right. I was, to a point, but I didn't go back far
enough, because it turns out that the French word baroque is, in turn, a
corruption of a Portuguese word. And so on....
> Other question: How should we teach the original
> pronunciation to those who don't know but want to?
First, don't assume they don't *know* the original pronunciation.
> I admit: Very few Germans pronounce \Lutoslawsky,
> Fricsay, van Gogh properly.
Having gone to school with Germans and worked with them, I can assure you
there are more than three names you guys don't pronounce "properly",
including a good percentage of English names. Trust me on that one.
John
Bernard Hill
<bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
>pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
>that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>is pretentious.
How do you pronounce loch?
Bradford?
Paris?
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Thomas Muething
>I assert
>that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>is pretentious.
>
No it isn't. It would be respectful of the language and culture the name
in question comes from. Something a complete asshead like you would
never understand.
It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
Thomas
Hamish Reid
John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> in article anev79$j77$05$1...@news.t-online.com, Hanns Krehbiel at
> Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
>
> >
> > [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
>
> I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of ;-)'s
> about American English pronunciation.
>
> >
> > We had a number of "How do you pronounce.." threads
> > this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
> > "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
> > not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
> > YOU pronounce it?
>
> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
> is pretentious.
Try as hard as I can, I can't rhyme "Bach" and "Bok". They don't even
have the same vowel sound, let alone ending. But then maybe I just don't
speak the One True Unpretentious American dialect. I'd hate to see what
you do with something like "Loch"... (does it rhyme with "Larch" for
you?!).
In this, the land where "Notre Dame" is pronounced so that it rhymes
with "Voter Maim", I've given up trying to correct pronunciation --
laissez faire and all that. And you don't want to hear what a mess the
average American makes of my name, even after hearing it repeatedly.
Hamish
grantco
"Thomas Muething" <tmuethingBUGGE...@t-online.de> wrote in
message news:3D9C7179...@t-online.de...
> John Harrington wrote:
>
> >I assert
> >that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language
context,
> >is pretentious.
> >
> No it isn't.
Yeah it is. Just like its pretentious when one says
Meh-hee-co for Mexico.
It would be respectful of the language and culture the name
> in question comes from. Something a complete asshead like you would
> never understand.
I see you continue to make friends here, Thomas.
> It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
> unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
You speak for ALL Germans, eh?
>
> Thomas
>
grantco
"Hamish Reid" <hami...@panxyzdemoniazyx.com> wrote in message
news:hamishxyz-9570A...@news.supernews.com...
The only one that really bugs me is saying "selltick" for Celtic.
>
> Hamish
mike
> In article <B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>,
> John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> in article anev79$j77$05$1...@news.t-online.com, Hanns Krehbiel at
>> Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
>>
>> >
>> > [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
>>
>> I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of
>> ;-)'s about American English pronunciation.
>>
>> >
>> > We had a number of "How do you pronounce.." threads
>> > this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
>> > "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
>> > not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
>> > YOU pronounce it?
>>
>> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
>> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I
>> assert that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English
>> language context, is pretentious.
>
> Try as hard as I can, I can't rhyme "Bach" and "Bok". They don't even
> have the same vowel sound, let alone ending. But then maybe I just
> don't speak the One True Unpretentious American dialect. I'd hate to
> see what you do with something like "Loch"... (does it rhyme with
> "Larch" for you?!).
he didn't indicate how he pronounces "knock". i think he means "Baak".
personally, i pronounce it to rhyme with "beach", which i pronounce to
rhyme with "botch"... as in, "The Bach concert will be held at Palm Bach".
>
> In this, the land where "Notre Dame" is pronounced so that it rhymes
> with "Voter Maim", I've given up trying to correct pronunciation --
> laissez faire and all that. And you don't want to hear what a mess the
> average American makes of my name, even after hearing it repeatedly.
>
> Hamish
>
mostly, you know, the parents wanted their children to only speak American,
so that they'd not be strangers here. i think it worked, but it means they
don't know how to pronounce words from the "old country". the kids don't
use the words much anyway until they become middle class and start
listening to opera.
Marcello Penso
> in article anev79$j77$05$1...@news.t-online.com, Hanns Krehbiel at
> Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
>
> >
> > [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
>
> I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of ;-)'s
> about American English pronunciation.
Italians in Italy (as opposed to 2nd generation descendants here) have
some good ones, like 'Giorgio Vahsheentohn' (George Washington), or
Riccardo Wanyr
(Richard Wagner). There are many others, but these come to mind.
Of course here we have Italian names whose pronounciation has been
corrupted over time, particularly names with the 'gli' (Battipaglia
should be pronounced Bahtipalya, not Bahtipaghleea)
Marcello
ralph gibbons
You make not like the tone of Mr. Harrington's remarks, but let me
remind you, we Americans now have a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and
we might just wake up one morning, and decide to bomb the crap out of
you.
Samuel Vriezen
Okay, folks, let's count the PURcell and the purCELL sayers in this
ng?
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
Alles is verfilmbaar, _zelfs_ een roman.
- Anton Haakman, in 'Achter de Spiegel'
Descartes
<tmuethingBUGGE...@t-online.de> wrote:
>It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
>unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
>
>Thomas
Did you ever hear a German chorus sing in Latin?
D.
Trystan
I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in the
middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter arrived
over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
kilOmeter. How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
Quite recently Adolf Hitler has been reincarnated as Aydolf Hitler.
Tryst
Mark K. Ehlert
etched the following:
> I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in
> the middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter
> arrived over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
> millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
> kilOmeter.
Which is the part you don't get, the heavy American "O" or the fact
that the word has an O? If the latter, blame the Greeks.
> How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
KILL-oh-lee-ter or KILL-uh-lee-ter. At least that's how I've heard
it.
--
Mark K. Ehlert
To reply via e-mail, X = 3
Brendan R. Wehrung
Out of curiosity, where does one find a paradigm of Latin pronuncialtion,
France perhaps? I have friend who swears by the Solemnes tradition. (Hope I
spelled that correctly.)
Brenan
Bernard Hill
<gra...@greenbaynet.com> writes
>
>The only one that really bugs me is saying "selltick" for Celtic.
The culture or the football team ? <g>
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Brendan R. Wehrung
>
> I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in the
> middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter arrived
> over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
> millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
> kilOmeter. How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
>
> Quite recently Adolf Hitler has been reincarnated as Aydolf Hitler.
>
> Tryst
We don't use them, we're still on pints, quarts and gallons.
Brendan
Peter T. Daniels
> Okay, folks, let's count the PURcell and the purCELL sayers in this
> ng?
The composer is PURcell; the former president of Cornell U is purCELL.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Peter T. Daniels
> Out of curiosity, where does one find a paradigm of Latin pronuncialtion,
> France perhaps? I have friend who swears by the Solemnes tradition. (Hope I
> spelled that correctly.)
I think it's Solesmes. There's a book whose title and editor I can never
remember, published ca. 1995 by Indiana University Press, on the
pronunciation of the various languages Early Music singers are likely to
have to deal with. The many varieties of Latin pronunciation across
Europe are the main topic. (Comes with a CD, too.)
Peter T. Daniels
> I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in the
> middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter arrived
> over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
> millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
> kilOmeter. How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
It isn't. What would you measure in kl, anyway?
Why do you spell Myany with an <ho> if you don't want them pronounced?
Michael Haslam
> With great skill and alacrity, Trystan of rec.music.classical fame
> etched the following:
>
> > I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in
> > the middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter
> > arrived over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
> > millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
> > kilOmeter.
>
> Which is the part you don't get, the heavy American "O" or the fact
> that the word has an O? If the latter, blame the Greeks.
The stress on the second syllable is completely illogical in the context
of the metric system/SI. Kilogram, kilofarad, kilocoulomb, kilohertz,
kilosecond, kilonewton, kilometre.
MJHaslam
ralph gibbons
[this is a corrected version of my previous post]
Y'all may not like the tone of Mr. Harrington's remarks, but let me
remind you, we Americans now have a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and
we might just wake up one morning, and decide to bomb the crap out of
you.
And, here's a link to a joke, that is certainly no sillier than
anything else in this thread: http://makeashorterlink.com/?P56B42FF1
Ray Hall
news:3D9CCB...@worldnet.att.net...
| Samuel Vriezen wrote:
|
| > Okay, folks, let's count the PURcell and the purCELL sayers in this
| > ng?
|
| The composer is PURcell; the former president of Cornell U is purCELL.
What is *really* the correct pronunciation of Purcell? This topic has always
been the source of heated debate between myself and my other half.
I'd like this backed up by references and sources. I always say PurCELL
incidentally.
Tia.
Regards,
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
< NEW Doris Day TV series news >
VIVE LA KAREN, as endorsed by El Toro de Taree
Ray, Taree, NSW
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Ray Hall
news:anhu26$ekqb1$1...@ID-19807.news.dfncis.de...
Well, as the correct pronunciation is Rangers, who cares <g>
Steven Forrest
Singing early music : the pronunciation of European languages in the Late
Middle Ages and Renaissance / edited by Timothy J. McGee with A.G. Rigg
and David N. Klausner.
Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1996.
-Steve
Margaret Mikulska
Bernard Hill wrote:
>
> grantco <gra...@greenbaynet.com> writes
> >
> >The only one that really bugs me is saying "selltick" for Celtic.
>
> The culture or the football team ? <g>
M-W gives both variants of pronunciation.
-MM
--
mikulska at silvertone dot princeton dot edu
Margaret Mikulska
Trystan of rec.music.classical fame etched the following:
"250 gallons", approximately.
Oh, you meant Canada.
-M
Steven Forrest
>I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in the
>middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter arrived
>over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
>millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
>kilOmeter.
Yeah, that's a strange one. I suspect that the stressed
second syllable is due to analogy with more familiar
English words such as thermometer and odometer.
(We stress the second syllable of those.)
>How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
I don't think I've ever heard the word spoken.
I would stress the first syllable.
We do stress the first syllable of 'kilobyte'.
-Steve
John Harrington
at hami...@panxyzdemoniazyx.com wrote on 10/3/02 10:00 AM:
> In article <B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>,
> John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> in article anev79$j77$05$1...@news.t-online.com, Hanns Krehbiel at
>> Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
>>
>>>
>>> [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
>>
>> I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of ;-)'s
>> about American English pronunciation.
>>
>>>
>>> We had a number of "How do you pronounce.." threads
>>> this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
>>> "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
>>> not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
>>> YOU pronounce it?
>>
>> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
>> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
>> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>> is pretentious.
>
> Try as hard as I can, I can't rhyme "Bach" and "Bok".
Then you're a fucking idiot or you have a serious speech impediment.
> They don't even
> have the same vowel sound, let alone ending. But then maybe I just don't
> speak the One True Unpretentious American dialect.
No, of course not. You speak the One True "Correct" dialect and, try as
hard as you can, you can't imagine how it could be any other way, and you've
given up on educating us all because it simply isn't worth your valuable
time.
> I'd hate to see what
> you do with something like "Loch"... (does it rhyme with "Larch" for
> you?!).
Excuse me, but what in the hell do you think you're talking about?
> In this, the land where "Notre Dame" is pronounced so that it rhymes
> with "Voter Maim",
No, this is the land where they pronounce clerk to rhyme with bark and
tête-à-tête to rhyme with "fate, ah fate". Apologies for daring to correct
your ignorance, but there are at least two ways to pronounce Notre Dame in
the American English, and both are correct.
> I've given up trying to correct pronunciation --
Good. Now that you've freed up so much of your valuable time, try shutting
up and listening to the way people uniquely pronounce foreign words in *all
countries*, not just the US.
> laissez faire and all that. And you don't want to hear what a mess the
> average American makes of my name, even after hearing it repeatedly.
Yes I do, and with pleasure. Frankly, I hope it annoys the hell out of you
on a constant basis.
John
John Harrington
ber...@braeburn.co.uk wrote on 10/3/02 8:18 AM:
> In article <B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>, John Harrington
> <bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>>
>> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
>> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
>> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>> is pretentious.
>
> How do you pronounce loch?
> Bradford?
> Paris?
How do you pronounce Berkeley?
Clerk?
Rodeo?
Hari-kari?
Kimono?
Foyer?
Tête-à-tête?
J
Trystan
My only problem is with kilOmeter.
On a more positive note, I believe Webster provides more accurate and
correct spelling than Oxford. But we are away OT. It is time to return
to the concert hall.
Tryst.
Mark K. Ehlert
rec.music.classical fame etched the following:
> "Mark K. Ehlert" wrote:
>
>> With great skill and alacrity, Trystan of rec.music.classical
>> fame etched the following:
>>
>> > I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O
>> > in the middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney.
>> > KilOmeter arrived over here about 30 years ago and it makes
>> > no sense: millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter,
>> > decameter;hectameter and kilOmeter.
>>
>> Which is the part you don't get, the heavy American "O" or the
>> fact that the word has an O? If the latter, blame the Greeks.
>
> The stress on the second syllable is completely illogical in the
> context of the metric system/SI. Kilogram, kilofarad,
> kilocoulomb, kilohertz, kilosecond, kilonewton, kilometre.
Ah, OK. The alternate (truer?) pronunciation completely slipped my
mind.
Bernard Hill
<bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>in article Y3f$+EAR$Fn9...@braeburn.demon.co.uk, Bernard Hill at
>ber...@braeburn.co.uk wrote on 10/3/02 8:18 AM:
>
>> In article <B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>, John Harrington
>> <bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>>>
>>> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
>>> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
>>> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>>> is pretentious.
>>
>> How do you pronounce loch?
>> Bradford?
>> Paris?
>
>How do you pronounce Berkeley?
Depends which one. The American one would be Berkley not Barclay. The
British one of course is Barclay.
>Clerk?
Since this is an English word also it's Clark.
>Rodeo?
RodEo.
>Hari-kari?
Harikiri - emphasis on the 1st and 3rd syllables. Have you got the word
right? I am not even sure we are talking the same word: I don't think
I've ever uttered it in my life.
>Kimono?
KimOno
>Foyer?
Foyay
>Tête-à-tête?
As the French: tet-a-tet (approx!)
If it's a foreign word we pronounce it usually as the inhabitants do.
The exception might be place names, eg Paris.
That's why I chose place names... but you have not replied to my
question... even within the UK we do not pronounce as the inhabitants
do. Bradford should be with a glottal stop: Bra'fud. Bath should have a
long a - Barth - even if spoken by a northerner. Cleackheaton has a
glottal stop and a silent h: Cleke'n but no southerner would say that I
am sure.
However loch would be pronounced throughout the UK as Bach, with the [x]
which is being discussed.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
<miku...@europe.com> writes
>
>Bernard Hill wrote:
>>
>> grantco <gra...@greenbaynet.com> writes
>> >
>> >The only one that really bugs me is saying "selltick" for Celtic.
>>
>> The culture or the football team ? <g>
>
>M-W gives both variants of pronunciation.
The football team has S: the culture has C. ALWAYS. Two different
meanings.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Samuel Vriezen
<hallr...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>news:3D9CCB...@worldnet.att.net...
>| Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>|
>| > Okay, folks, let's count the PURcell and the purCELL sayers in this
>| > ng?
>|
>| The composer is PURcell; the former president of Cornell U is purCELL.
>
>What is *really* the correct pronunciation of Purcell? This topic has always
>been the source of heated debate between myself and my other half.
>
>I'd like this backed up by references and sources. I always say PurCELL
>incidentally.
>
>Tia.
>
A deja archive search tells me that PURcell is probably correct, and
that PurCELL is an affectation; however, where I live it would be
terribly affectatious to in fact say PURcell!
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
Online Stuff: http://www.niwo.com/music/vriezen_weather_riots.m3u (thank you Steve Layton)
Michael Haslam
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:3D9CCB...@worldnet.att.net...
> | Samuel Vriezen wrote:
> |
> | > Okay, folks, let's count the PURcell and the purCELL sayers in this
> | > ng?
> |
> | The composer is PURcell; the former president of Cornell U is purCELL.
>
> What is *really* the correct pronunciation of Purcell? This topic has always
> been the source of heated debate between myself and my other half.
>
> I'd like this backed up by references and sources. I always say PurCELL
> incidentally.
In Britain, PUR-cell was the undisputed standard until at least the mid 1970's.
I remember Maurice Bevan, of St. Paul's Cathedral choir and the Deller Consort,
having no time for the pur-CELL sayers in the early eighties. There is a slight
element of humour with regard to the domestic detergent Persil of the "PUR-cell
washes whiter" kind which might influence the pur-CELL school. I can't get hold
of a colleague who attended the Purcell School to ask him what the staff and
pupils call it.
MJHaslam
Peter T. Daniels
> [this is a corrected version of my previous post]
It wasn't all that amusing the first time.
> Y'all may not like the tone of Mr. Harrington's remarks, but let me
> remind you, we Americans now have a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and
> we might just wake up one morning, and decide to bomb the crap out of
> you.
Peter T. Daniels
Only, it's a basketball team.
Peter T. Daniels
> If it's a foreign word we pronounce it usually as the inhabitants do.
> The exception might be place names, eg Paris.
You mean, like <garage>? Which in England is "garridge"?
Michael Haslam
> Bernard Hill wrote:
>
> > If it's a foreign word we pronounce it usually as the inhabitants do.
> > The exception might be place names, eg Paris.
>
> You mean, like <garage>? Which in England is "garridge"?
Not in my part of England it isn't; more like GA-rahzh [as in french
sauvage]. Garage is a bit of a class shibboleth in British English.
MJHaslam
Michael Haslam
> ralph gibbons wrote:
>
> > [this is a corrected version of my previous post]
>
> It wasn't all that amusing the first time.
Oh, yes it was.
> > Y'all may not like the tone of Mr. Harrington's remarks, but let me
> > remind you, we Americans now have a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and
> > we might just wake up one morning, and decide to bomb the crap out of
> > you.
MJHaslam
Vanya
> John Harrington wrote:
>
> >I assert
> >that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
> >is pretentious.
> >
> in question comes from. Something a complete asshead like you would
> never understand.
>
> It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
> unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
>
> Thomas
What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment. Due to their
geographical proximity to France and economic subjugation to America,
Germans tend to have a greater exposure to French and English than
Americans do to French and German. That's about all you can claim.
How well can you really pronounce the following -
"Guangzhou","Kurosawa","Dvorak","al-jazeera","Guadalajara, Lech
Walesa." It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
since the 1930s. Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society. Get
used to it (and learn Chinese or Hindi).
Vanya
John Harrington
ber...@braeburn.co.uk wrote on 10/4/02 1:32 AM:
I pronounce loch as lock, as do most Americans in my part of the US. Note
that this does not mean I'm ignorant of the pronunciation you describe: LOCK
Ness Monster, everyone says, not LO[x] Ness Monster. The only common
experience I have with Bradford is as the first name of my brother-in-law,
which he and I pronounce just as written. Paris is PAIR-iss, of course.
J
John Harrington
on 10/4/02 6:09 AM:
Sauvage, which is not, as far as I'm aware, a word that is common in or
adopted by English, is pronounced with an accent on the 2nd syllable, just
as is garage in the US.
Reminds me of a scene in an episode of The Simpsons:
HOMER: I'm going to the garage for a beer.
MO : Oh, listen to him: ga-RAHZH. ga RAHZH! Well, la-di-da, Mr.
Frenchman.
HOMER: Well, what do you call it?
MO : The car hole.
John
John Harrington
vany...@my-dejanews.com wrote on 10/4/02 7:56 AM:
> Thomas Muething <tmuethingBUGGE...@t-online.de> wrote in message
> news:<3D9C7179...@t-online.de>...
>> John Harrington wrote:
>>
>>> I assert
>>> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
>>> is pretentious.
>>>
>> No it isn't. It would be respectful of the language and culture the name
>> in question comes from. Something a complete asshead like you would
>> never understand.
>>
>> It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
>> unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
>>
>> Thomas
>
> What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment. Due to their
> geographical proximity to France and economic subjugation to America,
> Germans tend to have a greater exposure to French and English than
> Americans do to French and German.
It has nothing to do with exposure. Most educated Americans know the
correct pronunciation of French and German words. We have great exposure to
Mexico, but we still say "loss an-ji-lis", not "lohs ahn-heh-les" and
"meksiko", no "meh-hi-coh" as we use Anglicized pronunciations of words such
as rodeo, burrito, chili con carne, etc. Most of us also know the native
pronunciation of these words.
> That's about all you can claim.
> How well can you really pronounce the following -
> "Guangzhou","Kurosawa","Dvorak","al-jazeera","Guadalajara, Lech
> Walesa." It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
> some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
> should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
> longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
> since the 1930s. Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
> longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society. Get
> used to it (and learn Chinese or Hindi).
Excellent response.
J
Hamish Reid
John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> in article hamishxyz-9570A...@news.supernews.com, Hamish Reid
> at hami...@panxyzdemoniazyx.com wrote on 10/3/02 10:00 AM:
>
> > In article <B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>,
> > John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >> [...]
> >>> We had a number of "How do you pronounce.." threads
> >>> this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
> >>> "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
> >>> not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
> >>> YOU pronounce it?
> >>
> >> I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
> >> pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
> >> that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
> >> is pretentious.
> >
> > Try as hard as I can, I can't rhyme "Bach" and "Bok".
>
> Then you're a fucking idiot or you have a serious speech impediment.
Amazing. So anyone -- American or not -- who can't rhyme "Bach" and
"Bok" in their native dialects is "a fucking idiot or [has] a serious
speech impediment"?
You assert "that pronouncing it any other way [than rhyming with 'Bok'],
in an American English language context, is pretentious." Me, I'm merely
making the point that *not* taking into account the variety of English
dialects in America (not to say UnAmerica) where "Bach" and "Bok" don't
rhyme because of their different vowel sounds is guilty of what you seem
to be railing against.
> > They don't even
> > have the same vowel sound, let alone ending. But then maybe I just don't
> > speak the One True Unpretentious American dialect.
>
> No, of course not. You speak the One True "Correct" dialect and, try as
> hard as you can, you can't imagine how it could be any other way, and you've
> given up on educating us all because it simply isn't worth your valuable
> time.
WTF? My dialect (well, I have three, but my most native) is almost
universally derided as anything but "correct" (I've almost never lived
in a place where my dialect, accent -- or language, in some cases -- is
"correct" or even native). But you'd know that, right, because you're so
sure of yourself?
You rail against the One True Correct Dialect, but can't cope when
someone who doesn't speak *your* One True Correct Dialect pipes up and
points out that not rhyming "Bach" and "Bok" might actually, just
perhaps, be permissible in American English dialects? In fact, around
here, it's quite common, even among the edumacated (you do know, right,
that I'm in the US?).
> > I'd hate to see what
> > you do with something like "Loch"... (does it rhyme with "Larch" for
> > you?!).
>
> Excuse me, but what in the hell do you think you're talking about?
>
> > In this, the land where "Notre Dame" is pronounced so that it rhymes
> > with "Voter Maim",
>
> No, this is the land where they pronounce clerk to rhyme with bark and
> tête-à-tête to rhyme with "fate, ah fate". Apologies for daring to correct
> your ignorance, but there are at least two ways to pronounce Notre Dame in
> the American English, and both are correct.
"Excuse me, but what in the hell do you think you're talking about?"
> > I've given up trying to correct pronunciation --
>
> Good. Now that you've freed up so much of your valuable time, try shutting
> up and listening to the way people uniquely pronounce foreign words in *all
> countries*, not just the US.
This is both funnier and dumber than you're ever likely to know. Just
ask the English people I know about how much I made fun of their
pronunciations of "foreign" words when I lived there. Or the Germans,
for that matter. Or even the French.
Basically, you don't seem to understand that your own asertion that
there's only one correct way to pronounce "Bach" in American English (so
that it rhymes with "Bok") undercuts your broader argument (which I
agree with) about pronunciation and "correctness".
And you don't even seem to be able to understand that claiming -- in the
same paragraph -- that your pronunciation of "Bach" is only *a* correct
way to pronounce it, but that anyone who does it differently from you is
wrong, is incoherent and / or inconsistent.
> > laissez faire and all that. And you don't want to hear what a mess the
> > average American makes of my name, even after hearing it repeatedly.
>
> Yes I do, and with pleasure. Frankly, I hope it annoys the hell out of you
> on a constant basis.
Oh it does, it does. Anything to keep you happy.
Hamish
Thomas Muething
>What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment.
>
I anwered one generalization (Huffington's) with another generalization.
What's the big deal?
>Due to their geographical proximity to France and economic subjugation to America,
>Germans tend to have a greater exposure to French and English than
>Americans do to French and German. That's about all you can claim.
>How well can you really pronounce the following -
>"Guangzhou","Kurosawa","Dvorak","al-jazeera","Guadalajara, Lech
>Walesa."
>
Got no problem with any of those.
> It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
>some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
>should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
>longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
>since the 1930s.
>
Daydreaming. American lack of culture and respect has not become the
status quo in Europe.
>Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
>longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society. Get
>used to it (and learn Chinese or Hindi).
>
We'll have to learn Chinese sooner or later ...
Thomas
Trystan
PURcell has always been the pronunciation here (Ireland), both of the
composer and of people currently living. PARnell had changed to
ParNELL before my time..
The Irish(Gaelic) name of Cromwell is Cromail and I believe that the
English pronunciation at the time was Crummel
Tryst
Trystan
> John Harrington <bear...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<B9C1A575.8B4%bear...@earthlink.net>...
> > in article anev79$j77$05$1...@news.t-online.com, Hanns Krehbiel at
> > Hanns.K...@t-online.de wrote on 10/2/02 7:20 AM:
> >
> > >
> > > [This posting should be read with many :-) ;-) ;-b. ]
> >
> > I read it as such, but my response is serious, because I'm sick of ;-)'s
> > about American English pronunciation.
> >
> > >
> > > this week. We could as well continue the game and ask
> > > "How do you pronounce Bach?", by which question I do
> > > not mean: How should I pronounce...., but: How do
> > > YOU pronounce it?
> >
> > I pronounce it BOK (rhymes with knock), which is the *correct* way to
> > pronounce it in American English, or at least *a* correct way. I assert
> > that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
> > is pretentious.
> >
> > > of them were seemingly based upon a mispronunciation of
> > > the name.
> >
> > It is not a mispronunciation. You were apparently ignorant of how the name
> > is commonly pronounced in American English.
> >
> > I'm reminded of a German I met at a concert intermission years ago who
> > chastised me for my pronunciation of the word baroque. "Oh, you Americans
> > always mispronounce foreign words," he rudely ranted, in heavily accented
> > English. I was so startled by his ignorance, not to mention arrogance, that
> > I didn't give him the verbal drubbing he deserved, but instead tried to
> > politely explain to him that baroque is originally a French word, which, in
> > fact, Germans "mispronounce" not to mention "misspell". I don't think the
> > thick-skulled idiot listened to a word I said. I later looked the word up
> > to make sure I was right. I was, to a point, but I didn't go back far
> > enough, because it turns out that the French word baroque is, in turn, a
> > corruption of a Portuguese word. And so on....
> >
> > > Other question: How should we teach the original
> > > pronunciation to those who don't know but want to?
> >
> > First, don't assume they don't *know* the original pronunciation.
> >
> > > I admit: Very few Germans pronounce \Lutoslawsky,
> > > Fricsay, van Gogh properly.
> >
> > Having gone to school with Germans and worked with them, I can assure you
> > there are more than three names you guys don't pronounce "properly",
> > including a good percentage of English names. Trust me on that one.
> >
> >
> > John
>
> [this is a corrected version of my previous post]
>
> remind you, we Americans now have a doctrine of pre-emptive war, and
> we might just wake up one morning, and decide to bomb the crap out of
> you.
>
>
> anything else in this thread: http://makeashorterlink.com/?P56B42FF1
The pronunciation of Van Gogh depends on whether you are French or
Flemish/Dutch. Similarly with Chopin (Polish or French?)
Tryst
Trystan
> Trystan wrote:
>
> > I am Irish and notice that Americans tend to emphasise the O in the
> > middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney. KilOmeter arrived
> > over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
> > millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
>
> It isn't. What would you measure in kl, anyway?
>
> Why do you spell Myany with an <ho> if you don't want them pronounced?
The issue is not measurement but pronunciation of the word. The
addition of y to Irish Gaelic names is an anglicisation. Our
pronunciation is Ma-hon-ey with equal stress on each component ie
honey rather than hOney
Tryst
Bernard Hill
<bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>I pronounce loch as lock, as do most Americans in my part of the US. J
>
>
Then I suggest you use the correct pronunciation and encourage others to
do so. Your pronunciation is simply wrong.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Samuel Vriezen
<tmuethingBUGGE...@t-online.de> wrote:
>>"Guangzhou"
>Got no problem with any of those.
Are you absolutely sure? Can you transcribe, say, in German or English
what you say?
>> It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
>>some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
>>should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
>>longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
>>since the 1930s.
>>
>Daydreaming. American lack of culture and respect has not become the
>status quo in Europe.
Right, you are really displaying culture and respect here.
Randy Poe
> It has nothing to do with exposure. Most educated Americans know the
> correct pronunciation of French and German words. We have great exposure to
> Mexico, but we still say "loss an-ji-lis", not "lohs ahn-heh-les" and
> "meksiko", no "meh-hi-coh" as we use Anglicized pronunciations of words such
> as rodeo, burrito, chili con carne, etc. Most of us also know the native
> pronunciation of these words.
Inexplicably, many American newscasters lately seem to
attempt a Spanish accent on "Nicaragua" or "Colombia" but not
on "Mexico".
- Randy
Randy Poe
> > Hari-kari?
>
>
> Harikiri - emphasis on the 1st and 3rd syllables.
Growing up I heard people talk about "hairy-kairy". Later I
felt more sophisticated when I called it "hara-KIri" with
"ah" and "ee" sounds.
Then I read Shogun and learned the word "seppuku" and now I
have no idea if the Japanese ever said anything like "harakiri"
or "harikari".
> That's why I chose place names... but you have not replied to my
> question... even within the UK we do not pronounce as the inhabitants
> do. Bradford should be with a glottal stop: Bra'fud.
Baltimore, MD is called approximately "Balluhmer" by the
inhabitants, New York called "New Yawk" and New Orleans
something like "Nawlins". But anybody non-native attempting
to approximate those sounds would be considered rightly
either to be pretentious or more likely mocking the
natives.
- Randy
Randy Poe
> With great skill and alacrity, Trystan of rec.music.classical fame
> etched the following:
>
>
>>the middle of a word eg O' Mahoney becomes O' MahOney.
What is the correct emPHAsis?
>> KilOmeter
>>arrived over here about 30 years ago and it makes no sense:
>>millimeter;centimeter;decimeter;meter, decameter;hectameter and
>>kilOmeter.
>
>
> Which is the part you don't get, the heavy American "O" or the fact
> that the word has an O? If the latter, blame the Greeks.
>
>
>>How is kiloliter pronounced in America?.
>
>
> KILL-oh-lee-ter or KILL-uh-lee-ter. At least that's how I've heard
> it.
>
Strangely, kilogram, kilohertz, kiloliter, kilobyte all have
the emphasis on the first syllable. As do millimeter, centimeter,
and decimeter. Kilometer stands alone in having the emphasis
on the second.
- Randy
Margaret Mikulska
Vanya wrote:
> What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment. Due to their
> geographical proximity to France and economic subjugation to America,
> Germans tend to have a greater exposure to French and English than
> Americans do to French and German. That's about all you can claim.
> How well can you really pronounce the following -
> "Guangzhou","Kurosawa","Dvorak","al-jazeera","Guadalajara, Lech
> Walesa." It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
> some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
> should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
> longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
> since the 1930s.
It's still important in scholarship. You can't do any genuine research
in mony disciplines if you are unable to use primary sources, and tons
of them are in German. Furthermore, unless people become completely
illiterate and stop caring about any literature above Danielle Steel,
German will remain a very important cultural language.
> Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
> longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society. Get
> used to it (and learn Chinese or Hindi).
Few European languages are dying. And why should we Europeans care
about the increasing illiteracy in the American society? Besides, the
markers of attainment in America are, in most circles, your salary and
the material possessions you accumulated. (Kultchure? What kultchure?)
Who brainwashed you so efficiently?
-Margaret
--
mikulska at silvertone dot princeton dot edu
Scott GF Bailey
"Randy Poe" <rp...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ankrd...@enews3.newsguy.com...
I'd bet that's because "kilometer" is much more common in American
English usage than kilogram, kilohertz, etc, or was at least
introduced into common usage earlier, at which time American English
speakers pronounced the "-ometer" to rhyme with words like
"thermometer". Also consider words ending in "-osphy", "-ography",
"-ology" and the like.
Bernard Hill
writes
>Baltimore, MD is called approximately "Balluhmer" by the
>inhabitants, New York called "New Yawk" and New Orleans
>something like "Nawlins". But anybody non-native attempting
>to approximate those sounds would be considered rightly
>either to be pretentious or more likely mocking the
>natives.
I see that for New York and New Orleans. That sounds like a simple
regional accent variation. But Baltimore sounds like a different word
entirely? For instance we have
Keighley pronounced Keethley
Appletreewick pronounced Aptrick
Towcester pronounced Toaster
and quite correctly the BBC broadcasters are taught to pronounce these
correctly.
The same reason I do say "birkley" and not Barclay for the US town. And
of course Arkansas.
However to imitate a Texan to say Houston or Dallas would sound like
taking the mickey.
The problem is with foreign place names. I do say Paris and not Paree. I
say Warsaw not Vrotslav (??) and I prefer Peking to Beyjing. I don't
expect the French to say London when they use Londres.
But I do expect Americans to pronounce loch with the [x] sound because
that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
[Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
It's on a par with beallach or lochan.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
writes
>
>Strangely, kilogram, kilohertz, kiloliter, kilobyte all have
>the emphasis on the first syllable. As do millimeter, centimeter,
>and decimeter. Kilometer stands alone in having the emphasis
>on the second.
Not to me it doesn't <g>
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Vanya wrote:
>
> >What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment.
> >
> I anwered one generalization (Huffington's) with another generalization.
> What's the big deal?
Arianna Huffington? Or her ex the senate candidate?
Peter T. Daniels
> Amazing. So anyone -- American or not -- who can't rhyme "Bach" and
> "Bok" in their native dialects is "a fucking idiot or [has] a serious
> speech impediment"?
>
> You assert "that pronouncing it any other way [than rhyming with 'Bok'],
> in an American English language context, is pretentious." Me, I'm merely
> making the point that *not* taking into account the variety of English
> dialects in America (not to say UnAmerica) where "Bach" and "Bok" don't
> rhyme because of their different vowel sounds is guilty of what you seem
> to be railing against.
Can you provide a technical phonetic description of the distinction you
are trying to draw between those vowels? (Since "Bok" doesn't exist in
English except as the name of the Harvard pres Derek and his philosopher
wife Sisela, and that name is pronounced just like "Bach" [ending with
[k]], I can't imagine what you're claiming.)
Peter T. Daniels
What are you trying to indicate with <honey> vs. <hOney>?
Americans not pronounced muh-HOE-nee are pronounced MY-uh-nee (e.g.
Frank Lloyd Wright's draftswoman Marion Mahony, later Mrs. Walter Burley
Griffin).
What would you measure in kl?
Eusebius7
>Few European languages are dying.
The subjunctive mood is still in use among literate Germans -- very important,
because it is the grammatical usage appropriate to discussing an hypothesis.
It's almost dead in English.
eusebius7
occasional contributor to the Davidsbuendler site:
http://members.aol.com/buendler
Edward A. Cowan
> I
> say Warsaw not Vrotslav (??)
Those are not the same places at all! "Vrotslav" (Wroclaw -- sorry, I
can't "do" the Polish l in ASCII) is the present name of the former
German city of Breslau.
--E.A.C.
Michael Haslam
As soon as I pressed send I guessed I'd be misunderstood :-(
I meant the zh sound as in sauVAGE but as I'd capitalized the GA you should
have understood that I stress the first syllable in garage. We wouldn't adopt a
foreign word as our own without changing the stress.
MJHaslam
Michael Haslam
> > In Britain, PUR-cell was the undisputed standard until at least the mid 1970's.
> > I remember Maurice Bevan, of St. Paul's Cathedral choir and the Deller Consort,
> > having no time for the pur-CELL sayers in the early eighties. There is a slight
> > element of humour with regard to the domestic detergent Persil of the "PUR-cell
> > washes whiter" kind which might influence the pur-CELL school. I can't get hold
> > of a colleague who attended the Purcell School to ask him what the staff and
> > pupils call it.
> >
> > MJHaslam
>
> PURcell has always been the pronunciation here (Ireland), both of the
> composer and of people currently living. PARnell had changed to
> ParNELL before my time..
>
> The Irish(Gaelic) name of Cromwell is Cromail and I believe that the
> English pronunciation at the time was Crummel
Very interesting. Was Parnell PARnell when he was alive? And were his supporters
PARnellites?
To bring us on topic Crummell would be much easier to sing in the Benjamin Britten
folksong setting!
MJHaslam
grantco
"Ray Hall" <hallr...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:qR4n9.45719$g9.1...@newsfeeds.bigpond.com...
> What is *really* the correct pronunciation of Purcell? This topic has
always
> been the source of heated debate between myself and my other half.
>
> I'd like this backed up by references and sources. I always say PurCELL
> incidentally.
Your "other half" wins.
grantco
"Bernard Hill" <ber...@braeburn.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0ZVUVKA7...@braeburn.demon.co.uk...
> In article <anhu26$ekqb1$1...@ID-19807.news.dfncis.de>, grantco
> <gra...@greenbaynet.com> writes
> >
> >The only one that really bugs me is saying "selltick" for Celtic.
>
> The culture or the football team ? <g>
Exactly!
>
>
> Bernard Hill
> Selkirk, Scotland
Ray Hall
Bulldust. I can assure you there is nobody in the south of England, and
especially Hampshire, or anywhere except above Hadrian's wall, that uses an
[x] sound, apart from some rare bird in a University.
LOCK for loch, and BARK for Bach.
If I was in Germany I'd go to some trouble for the "ich" sound, but don't
tell Americans how to pronounce "loch" (a la Gaelic), when the English have
never EVER pronounced it either.
Partly to irritate the Scots of course, but mostly because in the sarff ov
Inglund we speek diffrent. Dialect old chap.
Is a smiley necessary?
Oaky Doaky <g>
Regards,
# http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
< NEW Doris Day TV series news >
VIVE LA KAREN, as endorsed by El Toro de Taree
Ray, Taree, NSW
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Marcello Penso
euse...@aol.comDELETE says...
I couldn't give examples, but my wife can. It's common to correct the
grammatical screw ups of some Italian newscasters, who just 'ain't so
grammatic'.
Marcello
Marcello Penso
vany...@my-dejanews.com says...
> Thomas Muething <tmuethingBUGGE...@t-online.de> wrote in message news:<3D9C7179...@t-online.de>...
> > John Harrington wrote:
> >
> > >I assert
> > >that pronouncing it any other way, in an American English language context,
> > >is pretentious.
> > >
> > No it isn't. It would be respectful of the language and culture the name
> > in question comes from. Something a complete asshead like you would
> > never understand.
> >
> > It is correct that we Germans also mispronounce foreign words. But
> > unlike Americans, we try to keep it to a minimum.
> >
> > Thomas
>
> What an incredibly ignorant and arrogant comment. Due to their
> geographical proximity to France and economic subjugation to America,
> Germans tend to have a greater exposure to French and English than
> Americans do to French and German. That's about all you can claim.
> How well can you really pronounce the following -
> "Guangzhou","Kurosawa","Dvorak","al-jazeera","Guadalajara, Lech
> Walesa." It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
> some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
> should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
> longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
> longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society. Get
> used to it (and learn Chinese or Hindi).
>
>
I'm not sure about West European languages 'dying'. Spanish is spoken by
a lot of people worldwide, albeit with various dialects. Portugese is
still strong in Brazil. You have a lot of Africans, Arab, Filippino and
other oriental immigrants who learn French, Spanish, German, UK English
and Italian when they go to Europe to either work for a period or stay
permanently.
Same goes with many immigrants from eastern Europe that go to Western
Europe. You really need to look at migration and population patterns.
English is ubiquitous of course, but even something like the Internet
hasn't levelled the playing field. I think West European languages will
be around for some time to come, along with Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and so
on.
If languages were so easily relinquished, down here in Miami the local
population would all be speaking English. In fact, it's exactly the
opposite. There is Spanish, Creole and English, with Spanish far
outweighing the others...
The most bizarre thing is going to a Kmart where the clerks ONLY speak
Spanish....
Marcello
John Harrington
trysta...@yahoo.com wrote on 10/4/02 10:14 AM:
<snip>
> The pronunciation of Van Gogh depends on whether you are French or
> Flemish/Dutch.
It also depends on whether you're American--and probably depends on many
other languages and dialects, too. Your point?
J
John Harrington
ber...@braeburn.co.uk wrote on 10/4/02 11:18 AM:
> In article <B9C2FE74.9D2%bear...@earthlink.net>, John Harrington
> <bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>>
>> I pronounce loch as lock, as do most Americans in my part of the US. J
>>
>>
>
> Then I suggest you use the correct pronunciation and encourage others to
> do so.
There's no need to suggest this.
> Your pronunciation is simply wrong.
You're simply ignorant. Mine is a standard pronunciation in my part of the
world. See the entry in the M-W for an education, please.
J
John Harrington
at hami...@panxyzdemoniazyx.com wrote on 10/4/02 9:23 AM:
<snips>
> your own asertion that there's only one correct way to pronounce "Bach"
> in American English
Nupe.
J
Margaret Mikulska
Bernard Hill wrote:
> [...]
> But Baltimore sounds like a different word entirely?
Nah, even my foreign ear recognizes it as a peculiar regional
pronunciation of "Baltimore".
> For instance we have
>
> Keighley pronounced Keethley
> Appletreewick pronounced Aptrick
> Towcester pronounced Toaster
Leicester and Worcester are also pronounced in a "shortened" way,
analogously to Towcester; is there anything special about the "-cester"
part? There is clearly a pattern here.
> and quite correctly the BBC broadcasters are taught to pronounce these
> correctly.
[...]
> The problem is with foreign place names. I do say Paris and not Paree. I
> say Warsaw not Vrotslav (??) [...]
That's good, because these are two different cities. Warsaw is
Warszawa, while what you would pronounce as Vrotslav (actually,
Vrots-waf) is spelled Wroc\law and known to the rest of the world as
Breslau.
Since this thread is a bit OT, I'll include an ObMus addition:
There is an interesting festival of choral music (oratorio-cantata
repertory) in Wroclaw, taking place every year in September. It's
called Wratislavia Cantans, has existed for almost 40 years, and
features music from all epochs. The venue for some concerts is a
splendid Baroque hall called Aula Leopoldina at the Wroclaw University.
Quite an impressive event, worth attending.
(Hanns K. may be interested in the following link:
http://www.omm.de/veranstaltungen/festspiele2002/wratislavia-2002.html)
Margaret Mikulska
Bernard Hill wrote:
>
> But I do expect Americans to pronounce loch with the [x] sound because
> that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
> [Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
So it's "gallick" in "Scotts Gaelic" and "gaylick" in "Irish Gaelic"?
-MM
Margaret Mikulska
Eusebius7 wrote:
>
> Margaret Mikulska miku...@europe.com wrote:
>
> >Few European languages are dying.
>
> The subjunctive mood is still in use among literate Germans -- very important,
> because it is the grammatical usage appropriate to discussing an hypothesis.
Or for indirect (reported) speech.
There is quite a lot of subjunctive in French, too.
> It's almost dead in English.
True, but the disappearance of a grammar form doesn't mean that the
language is dying. I'm not sure what your point here was - English is
far from dying, quite to the contrary, so what did you mean?
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
>
> Bernard Hill wrote:
> >
> > But I do expect Americans to pronounce loch with the [x] sound because
> > that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
> > [Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
>
> So it's "gallick" in "Scotts Gaelic" and "gaylick" in "Irish Gaelic"?
What is even further confusing, in Irish Gaelic the word 'Gaeltacht'
[gal'taxt] (normal 'a' with palatalized 'l') refers to an area where
there are native speakers of Irish, whereas 'Galltacht' [gAltaxt] (open
'o'-like 'a' with normal 'l') refers to a wholly English-speaking area!
--
Regards,
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
Helsinki, Finland
"Nil significat nisi oscillat. Du vap. Du vap. Du vap."
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
>
> (snip)
> It is true that most Americans don't give a rat's ass what
> some German thinks of their pronunciation of Bach or Goethe. You
> should be happy that there are any Americans who care. German is no
> longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
> since the 1930s. Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
> longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society.
Is that last sentence still supposed to refer to German? If yes, it is
very strange of you to describe a language spoken by 50+ million people
in several European countries as dying. If no, it is even stranger of
you to imply that knowledge of, say, Cornish, Manx or Breton ever was a
marker of culture and attainment in American society.
--
Eddie Oliver
As an Australian speaker of English, I can assure you that anyone here
who claimed that Bach rhymes with Bok would probably be thought quite
mad, deaf or whatever (or else totally pretentious). There is almost no
similiarity in the vowel sounds.
Bach has quite a long "a" sound, while Bok has a very short "o" sound.
Are the Bach/Bok rhymers also claiming that "bark" rhymes with "cock"?
I sense that a significant amount of conflict arises in these debates
because of the American tendency to sound a letter "r", while English
and Australian speakers tend to suppress it in many words. Thus "bark"
to an Australian (or I suspect Englishman) has no actual "r" sound - the
letter r mainly serves to indicate that the vowel is lengthened -
whereas an American might often sound the "r" as a distinct consonant.
Bernard Hill
<bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>You're simply ignorant. Mine is a standard pronunciation in my part of the
>world. See the entry in the M-W for an education, please.
Er, no. Your pronunciation is simply wrong. I don't have a copy of
Merrion-Webster (I presume that is M-W?) but if it says you can say
"lock" then it's wrong. French words should be pronounced (or at least
attempted) like the French do... Italian... Japanese and so on. To do
otherwise is rather insulting.
You may use your version of English of course, with regional US accents
and I will maintain your right to split infinitives; verbalise nouns etc
etc because you are not speaking my language, exactly. But "loch" is a
foreign word and attempts should be made to pronounce it correctly.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
Cowan <eac...@anet-dfw.com> writes
Thanks for the correction. I apologise. What's the Polish pronunciation
of Warsaw?
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
<hallr...@bigpond.com> writes
>
>"Bernard Hill" <ber...@braeburn.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:ZiNvbIAa...@braeburn.demon.co.uk...
>| In article <ankqt...@enews3.newsguy.com>, Randy Poe <rp...@nospam.com>
>|
>| that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
>| [Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
>|
>| It's on a par with beallach or lochan.
>
>Bulldust. I can assure you there is nobody in the south of England, and
>especially Hampshire, or anywhere except above Hadrian's wall, that uses an
>[x] sound, apart from some rare bird in a University.
??? I am English. My last home was in Dorset and worked in Somerset.
I've always said "lo[x]" and never heard "lock" in my life.
Or maybe "South of England" does not include the West Country. Wouldn't
surprise me.
>
>LOCK for loch, and BARK for Bach.
Aaargh! Ditto but even more so. At least Loch is not often pronounced in
the south but Bach certainly is.
>
>If I was in Germany I'd go to some trouble for the "ich" sound, but don't
>tell Americans how to pronounce "loch" (a la Gaelic), when the English have
>never EVER pronounced it either.
Absolute rubbish. If they do it wrong then it's a minor pocket and
should be corrected. Maybe we should check with the BBC?
>
>Partly to irritate the Scots of course, but mostly because in the sarff ov
>Inglund we speek diffrent. Dialect old chap.
I do know about dialect: born in deep Yorkshire, lived many years in the
West Country. But the point is that neither loch nor Bach is an English
word so should be pronounced as the natives would say it.
>
>Is a smiley necessary?
No but it's nice :-)
>
>Oaky Doaky <g>
>
>Regards,
>
> # http://www.users.bigpond.com/hallraylily/index.html
> < NEW Doris Day TV series news >
> VIVE LA KAREN, as endorsed by El Toro de Taree
>
>Ray, Taree, NSW
>
... um... WHERE, exactly? Thought you were speaking for the south of
England?
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
<miku...@europe.com> writes
>That's good, because these are two different cities. Warsaw is
>Warszawa, while what you would pronounce as Vrotslav (actually,
>Vrots-waf) is spelled Wroc\law and known to the rest of the world as
>Breslau.
Ah, I knew it began Vrot... and then the old brain misfired. Sorry.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
<miku...@europe.com> writes
>
>Bernard Hill wrote:
>>
>> But I do expect Americans to pronounce loch with the [x] sound because
>> that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
>> [Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
>
>So it's "gallick" in "Scotts Gaelic" and "gaylick" in "Irish Gaelic"?
>
>-MM
>
Yes, exactly. Except of course it's "Scots" or "Scots'". Scott was a
person, probably Sir Walter.
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
> >
> > Hamish Reid wrote:
> >
> > > Amazing. So anyone -- American or not -- who can't rhyme "Bach" and
> > > "Bok" in their native dialects is "a fucking idiot or [has] a serious
> > > speech impediment"?
> > >
> > > You assert "that pronouncing it any other way [than rhyming with 'Bok'],
> > > in an American English language context, is pretentious." Me, I'm merely
> > > making the point that *not* taking into account the variety of English
> > > dialects in America (not to say UnAmerica) where "Bach" and "Bok" don't
> > > rhyme because of their different vowel sounds is guilty of what you seem
> > > to be railing against.
> >
> > Can you provide a technical phonetic description of the distinction you
> > are trying to draw between those vowels? (Since "Bok" doesn't exist in
> > English except as the name of the Harvard pres Derek and his philosopher
> > wife Sisela, and that name is pronounced just like "Bach" [ending with
> > [k]], I can't imagine what you're claiming.)
>
> As an Australian speaker of English, I can assure you that anyone here
> who claimed that Bach rhymes with Bok would probably be thought quite
> mad, deaf or whatever (or else totally pretentious). There is almost no
> similiarity in the vowel sounds.
>
> Bach has quite a long "a" sound, while Bok has a very short "o" sound.
What does "Bok" mean, if it's not the name of Derek and Sisela?
I suspect you may be referring to the [o] sound in RP <pot>, a sound
that does not occur in any US dialect of English. Perhaps a rhyming
example is <clock>?
> Are the Bach/Bok rhymers also claiming that "bark" rhymes with "cock"?
Obviously not; <bark> has an [r] in it. I'd be surprised if "bark" and
"Bach" rhyme in a non-rhotic dialect; the vowel in "bark" would be
longer, and probably more back and round.
> I sense that a significant amount of conflict arises in these debates
> because of the American tendency to sound a letter "r", while English
> and Australian speakers tend to suppress it in many words. Thus "bark"
> to an Australian (or I suspect Englishman) has no actual "r" sound - the
> letter r mainly serves to indicate that the vowel is lengthened -
> whereas an American might often sound the "r" as a distinct consonant.
Which has nothing to do with any alleged difference between "Bach" and
"Bok."
Peter T. Daniels
> I meant the zh sound as in sauVAGE but as I'd capitalized the GA you should
> have understood that I stress the first syllable in garage. We wouldn't adopt a
> foreign word as our own without changing the stress.
Why not?
Peter T. Daniels
> Bulldust. I can assure you there is nobody in the south of England, and
> especially Hampshire, or anywhere except above Hadrian's wall, that uses an
> [x] sound, apart from some rare bird in a University.
>
> LOCK for loch, and BARK for Bach.
Why would they insert an r ??????
[For Bernard: "South of England" refers to a dialect area, not including
"West Country."]
Margaret Mikulska
Bernard Hill wrote:
>
> In article <3D9E7511...@europe.com>, Margaret Mikulska
> <miku...@europe.com> writes
>
>
> person, probably Sir Walter.
LOL. Thanks.
Peter T. Daniels
(And whether you're a Woody Allen fan.)
Margaret Mikulska
Jaakko Mäntyjärvi wrote:
>
> Vanya wrote:
> >
> > Knowledge of dying West European languages is no
> > longer a marker of culture and attainment in American society.
> > (snip)
>
> Is that last sentence still supposed to refer to German? If yes, it is
> very strange of you to describe a language spoken by 50+ million people
> in several European countries as dying.
It's actually about 100 million people.
-Margaret
Peter T. Daniels
The only time it comes up over here is in "Lock Ness Monster"; do you
really care?
Though no one would sing "The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond"
without the [x], since there it's clearly a foreign name.
Dictionaries do not dictate "right" and "wrong"; they report facts. The
M-W 10th Collegiate lists [läk] before [läx], indicating that [läk] is
more common. (And in the Pronunciation Guide, an example for their [x]
symbol is "one pronunciation of _loch_.")
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Bernard Hill wrote:
> >
> > But I do expect Americans to pronounce loch with the [x] sound because
> > that's a normal every day word which we borrow from the Gaelic.
> > [Notice that's pronounced "gallick". "gaylick" is Irish Gaelic!]
>
> So it's "gallick" in "Scotts Gaelic" and "gaylick" in "Irish Gaelic"?
The English name for the Celtic language of Ireland is "Irish"; the
English name for the Celtic language of Scotland is "Gaelic" (regardless
of the Irish name for the Irish language, just as the English name for
the language of Germany etc. is not "Deutsch," but "German").
Samuel Vriezen
>German is no
>longer an important scientific or cultural language and hasn't been
>since the 1930s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The last books of importance written in German were
those by Walter Benjamin and Adolf Hitler?
Next you're going to tell me that there are no German orchestras and
composers of note left.
--
Samuel
http://concerten.free.fr/home.html
Online Stuff: http://www.niwo.com/music/vriezen_weather_riots.m3u (thank you Steve Layton)
Alles is verfilmbaar, _zelfs_ een roman.
- Anton Haakman, in 'Achter de Spiegel'
Eusebius7
subjunctive mood, to whit:
>> It's almost dead in English.
>
>True, but the disappearance of a grammar form doesn't mean that the
>language is dying. I'm not sure what your point here was - English is
>far from dying, quite to the contrary, so what did you mean?
Well -- the fact that grammatical usage appropriate to the discussion of
hypothesis (which, by the way, ought to be considered as not unrelated to
indirect or reported speech -- one takes the possibility of correct reportage
as conditional) has fallen into disuse, suggests that the culture associated
with the language has degenerated somewhat. IMHO, it has degenerated a lot.
Compare the expressive power of Shakespeare's language, and the ideas that he
expressed, to what passes for literature today.
Michael Haslam
> Michael Haslam wrote:
>
> > I meant the zh sound as in sauVAGE but as I'd capitalized the GA you should
> > have understood that I stress the first syllable in garage. We wouldn't adopt a
> > foreign word as our own without changing the stress.
>
> Why not?
To give you something to moan about.
MJHaslam
Michael Haslam
> Bernard Hill wrote:
> >
> > In article <B9C3B345.A75%bear...@earthlink.net>, John Harrington
> > <bear...@earthlink.net> writes
> > >
> > >You're simply ignorant. Mine is a standard pronunciation in my part of the
> > >world. See the entry in the M-W for an education, please.
> >
> > Er, no. Your pronunciation is simply wrong. I don't have a copy of
> > Merrion-Webster (I presume that is M-W?) but if it says you can say
> > "lock" then it's wrong. French words should be pronounced (or at least
> > attempted) like the French do... Italian... Japanese and so on. To do
> > otherwise is rather insulting.
> >
> > You may use your version of English of course, with regional US accents
> > and I will maintain your right to split infinitives; verbalise nouns etc
> > etc because you are not speaking my language, exactly. But "loch" is a
> > foreign word and attempts should be made to pronounce it correctly.
>
> The only time it comes up over here is in "Lock Ness Monster"; do you
> really care?
>
> Though no one would sing "The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond"
> without the [x], since there it's clearly a foreign name.
How is Loch Lomond "clearly a foreign name" and Loch Ness not?
MJHaslam
Michael Haslam
And I suppose Erse is chopped liver.
MJHaslam
John Harrington
ber...@braeburn.co.uk wrote on 10/5/02 4:01 AM:
> In article <B9C3B345.A75%bear...@earthlink.net>, John Harrington
> <bear...@earthlink.net> writes
>>
>> You're simply ignorant. Mine is a standard pronunciation in my part of the
>> world. See the entry in the M-W for an education, please.
>
> Er, no. Your pronunciation is simply wrong.
No, it simply isn't.
> I don't have a copy of
> Merrion-Webster (I presume that is M-W?) but if it says you can say
> "lock" then it's wrong. French words should be pronounced (or at least
> attempted) like the French do... Italian... Japanese and so on. To do
> otherwise is rather insulting.
>
> You may use your version of English of course, with regional US accents
> and I will maintain your right to split infinitives;
What do you imagine is wrong with splitting infinitives? I bet you also
object to putting prepositions at the ends of sentences.
> verbalise nouns etc
> etc because you are not speaking my language, exactly. But "loch" is a
> foreign word and attempts should be made to pronounce it correctly.
BTW, if you really believe this, then you should revise your pronunciation
of words such as foyer (fwa-YAY), kimono (KIM-uh-no), hari-kiri
(hah-REE-ka-ri), and rodeo (ro-DAY-oh).
For my part, I will continue to pronounce these words as those around me do:
foy-er, ki-MO-no, Harry Carrie, and RO-dee-oh (except when referring to the
drive in LA).
J
John Harrington
gram...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 10/5/02 6:22 AM:
Like an Arab he speaks.
J
John Harrington
eol...@efs.mq.edu.au wrote on 10/5/02 4:13 AM:
> "Peter T. Daniels" wrote:
>>
>> Hamish Reid wrote:
>>
>>> Amazing. So anyone -- American or not -- who can't rhyme "Bach" and
>>> "Bok" in their native dialects is "a fucking idiot or [has] a serious
>>> speech impediment"?
>>>
>>> You assert "that pronouncing it any other way [than rhyming with 'Bok'],
>>> in an American English language context, is pretentious." Me, I'm merely
>>> making the point that *not* taking into account the variety of English
>>> dialects in America (not to say UnAmerica) where "Bach" and "Bok" don't
>>> rhyme because of their different vowel sounds is guilty of what you seem
>>> to be railing against.
>>
>> Can you provide a technical phonetic description of the distinction you
>> are trying to draw between those vowels? (Since "Bok" doesn't exist in
>> English except as the name of the Harvard pres Derek and his philosopher
>> wife Sisela, and that name is pronounced just like "Bach" [ending with
>> [k]], I can't imagine what you're claiming.)
>
> As an Australian speaker of English, I can assure you that anyone here
> who claimed that Bach rhymes with Bok would probably be thought quite
> mad, deaf or whatever (or else totally pretentious).
Whatever it is, surely BOK in your part of the world isn't pretentious. Why
pretentious?
> There is almost no
> similiarity in the vowel sounds.
>
> Bach has quite a long "a" sound, while Bok has a very short "o" sound.
>
> Are the Bach/Bok rhymers also claiming that "bark" rhymes with "cock"?
??? Why would we do that? Bark has an r in it. Cock doesn't.
> I sense that a significant amount of conflict arises in these debates
> because of the American tendency to sound a letter "r", while English
> and Australian speakers tend to suppress it in many words. Thus "bark"
> to an Australian (or I suspect Englishman) has no actual "r" sound - the
> letter r mainly serves to indicate that the vowel is lengthened -
> whereas an American might often sound the "r" as a distinct consonant.
It's interesting you hear an r in the American pronunciation of Bach. There
is none, as far as I can hear.
J