Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 11:52:38 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>, Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Yvonne Lehey <yvonne@lemis.com> Subject: Re: Regulated names (was: Crazy Laws) Message-ID: <36861F86.2761847A@uk.radan.com> References: <368378AB.969463E2@uk.radan.com> <Your <4.1.19981224112052.05a31740@127.0.0.1> <4.1.19981224174155.03dd8670@127.0.0.1> <368378AB.969463E2@uk.radan.com> <4.1.19981225181200.05a201b0@mail.lariat.org> <xzpg1a3mzhe.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <19981226131644.I12346@freebie.lemis.com> <4.1.19981226104824.05822710@mail.lariat.org> <36854A89.B393D402@uk.radan.com> <19981227112355.B12346@freebie.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Saturday, 26 December 1998 at 20:43:53 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > Brett Glass wrote: > >> > >> The funny thing is that when the English adopt a word from another > >> language, they cannot seem to use it as-is. They seem to feel COMPELLED > >> to shift at least the accented syllables and often the vowels. > > > > Whereas Americans simply _remove_ (mainly) vowls from English words :-) > > Not really. How do you pronounce ``laboratory''. Four syllables, > right? The Americans stretch five out of it. Dropping vowels is more > common elsewhere (as in French). > Er Greg, note the ``:-)''. I was making a friendly jibe at the American spelling of words like colour. > >> For example, I was recently asked in an English resatuarant if I'd like a > >> piece of "GA-teau." > > > > I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I think the English > > pronounciation of "gateau" is identical to the origianal French. > > It's difficult to know if you're talking about the same pronunciation > that we are. As others observe, there's a general tendency in English > to place the accent on the wrong syllable. In addition, I've often > heard things like ``would you like some Black Forest gæteau'' in > England, which is doubly funny: > > 1. It's a tart, not a gâteau. > 2. The æ sound (as in `at') is completely wrong. > But what is the distinction between a French word and an English word of French origin? > On the whole, even educated people here perpetuate the same mistakes > that the British make. Even those who get French vowels more or less > right will consistently put the accent on the wrong syllable, which I > find a great source of amusement (my wife, Yvonne, is almost always > mispronounced). > What is the correct pronounciation of Yvonne? > > But in general most languages tend to change the accents of foreign > borrowings, and English is a good example. Note the opposite tendency > in the US: people automatically place the accent on foreign words on > the *last* syllable, which in general is true for French only. > > > Partly of course this comes about because of sounds in one language > > not existing in another and therefore the majority of the population > > _can't_ pronounce them properly. > > I'd consider this a completely unrelated effect. > I disagree. Consider the Spanish dish Paella. How do you pronounce it?. We almost universally say ``Pie-ella'' which is completely wrong, but the Spanish sound ``ll'' doesn't exist in English and is extremely difficult to say correctly, so you end up with a totally different pronounciation in English. > > Sure. This is a normal tendency, and is the reason why Hindi and > English sound so different. > > Greg > -- > See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers > finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key -- Trust the computer industry to shorten Year 2000 to Y2K. It was this thinking that caused the problem in the first place. Mark Ovens, CNC Applications Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd Sheet Metal CAD/CAM Solutions mailto:marko@uk.radan.com http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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