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WordSmith Crypto -- Fw: AWADmail Issue 8
-----Original Message-----
From: Wordsmith <[email protected]>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, March 26, 1998 1:35 PM
Subject: AWADmail Issue 8
> AWADmail Issue 8, March 26, 1998
> A Compendium of Feedback on the Previous Week's Words in AWAD,
> and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Anu Garg ([email protected])
>Subject: AWADmail is back!
>
>AWADmail is back after a long hiatus. Last week's theme, "Words whose
>pronunciations differ a lot from their spellings" generated a huge
response.
>Some sent their favorite words in this category (colonel coming at the top
>of the list), while others forwarded poems lamenting the intractability of
>English orthoepy and orthography. Here are selected responses.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: E. Richard Cohen ([email protected])
>Subject: Phonetic Pronunciation
>
>In line with this week's critique of English pronunciation, dare I bring up
>George Bernard Shaw's plea for spelling reform with the word 'GHOTI"
>
>GH as in "rough"
>O as in "women"
>TI as in "nation"
>
>GHOTI = "fish"
>
> Also noted by Marc J. Broering ([email protected]), Ted Schipper
> ([email protected]), (Tim Nelson) [email protected], Sheila
> Crosby ([email protected]), Vimala Rodgers ([email protected]) and
> [email protected]. -Anu
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Derek Winkler ([email protected])
>Subject: Ruminations & Ponderances
>
>It's funny that a couple of the words you're featuring for being pronounced
>differently than they are spelled have French origins. Being from Canada
and
>therefore being exposed to French, I look at the word and think "What do
you
>mean pronounced differently then they are spelled, how else would you
>pronounce oeuvre."
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: David Isaacson ([email protected])
>Subject: Another Pronunciation for "chaos"
>
>One of the characters in Sean O'Casey's play, "Juno and the Paycock," (it's
>either Captain Jack Boyle or his sidekick "Joxer" Daly) regularly
>mispronounces this word as "chassis."
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Fred Bartlett ([email protected])
>Subject: Chaos
>
>When I traveled to the old Soviet Union to edit the proceedings of a
>conference on nonlinear dynamics, I was baffled by the (English) speech
>of my Russian colleagues. They kept talking about "House" -- that is,
>"chaos". It was all perfectly reasonable (though wrong, of course):
>transliteration to Cyrillic and then pronunciation as if it were Russian.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Steve Royster ([email protected])
>Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--rendezvous
>
>I was willing to let oeuvre pass after I mistook it initially for the
French
>word for "egg." I learned something on that one. But isn't "rendezvous" a
>direct French import?
>
> See next message. -Anu
>
>French, as the comedian Steve Martin has noted, is more torturous than
>English: "It's like those French have a different word for everything!" On
>the album "A Wild and Crazy Guy," from early in his oeuvre, Martin
describes
>a man who dies trying to speak French.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Ken Maher ([email protected])
>Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--chaos
>
>Your note on the need for pronunciation guidance in English reminds me of
>what I used to tell students when I taught English as a second language for
>ten years, mostly to native speakers of Spanish, Arabic, or Swahili. All
>languages are thieves, but most languages have the good sense to hide what
>they've stolen by making it look like their own. English, however, is more
>vain or, perhaps, careless, and often keeps the stolen goods in their
>original forms. For example, when Spanish stole the word for driver from
>French, it changed the spelling to "chofer," whereas English kept it as
>"chauffeur." This linguistic practice makes English one of the most
>difficult of the Latin-alphabet languages to learn to spell.
>
> In polite company it is called borrowing. Whether these
> loanwords are ever returned is another matter. -Anu
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Bob Simmons ([email protected])
>Subject: (Mis)pronunciation Guide
>
>While I applaud your intention to include pronunciation in AWAD, I think
you
>should look for another source. Specifically, I have a problem with each of
>the last three days' pronunciations:
>
>oeuvre (oe-VRUH) -- since this one retains its French pronunciation, it is
>just about impossible to render in English. When I say it, it sounds more
>like e(r)-vra (with neither syllable accented). The way you've written it,
I
>would say e(r)-VREW.
>
>segue (SAG-way) -- I have never heard this pronounced other than SEG-way
>
>rendezvous (RAN-day-voo) -- I would argue that RON-day-voo is closer.
>
>
> While reducing a spoken sound to its written form is tough enough
> in any language, it is nearly impossible to accurately represent
> pronunciation information using only the lowest common denominator
> of characters -- those found on a standard English keyboard. Not
> all systems have the capability to show phonetic characters. (Once
> Unicode is more widely adopted, it would be possible to show all
> IPA characters but for now we have to do with the seven bit ASCII
> character set). It must also be noted that the pronunciation of
> words varies a great deal from region to region and any single way
> of pronouncing a word cannot be called the only correct one. In that
> spirit, the pronunciation guide provided with the words here should
> be taken as an approximation and not as a precise phonetic equivalent.
>
> If you disagree with a given pronunciation or anything else in AWAD,
> please drop me a line at [email protected]. Due to large volume of
> messages, I can't always respond to you but I do read all
messages. -Anu
>
>...........................................................................
...
>Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to
>escape reproach. -Samuel Johnson
>
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>