81–90 of 97 posts
When I worked at Boeing, the coffee machine had a MIL SPEC taped to it that properly explained the procedure in making regulation milspec coffee. (Mil specs are analogous to a having a standard library of subroutines. Engineers don't have to re-invent how to lubricate a bearing or tighten a bolt or cad plate a part, they just specify the relevant mil spec.)
There's an ISO standard for tea, too
Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words. Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, someone who is crying) instead of 'Wiener' (correct, a type of sausage). One I've seen the other day is 'Kreigsmarine' instead of 'Kriegsmarine'. Anyone knows why this happens?
Because English is a terrible, thrown-together, inconsistent language, and nobody even using English words can keep completely straight what words are spelled "ie" or "ei". There's a rhyme they teach children who are learning to read, "I before E except after C". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C No matter what extra verses they add, there's still plenty of exceptions. English spelling is not co…
https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/
Edit: also the relationship between pronunciation, spelling and meaning is less architectural and more archeological as English developed in the nexus of at least two divergent language groups and reflects pragmatic choices and new development that lead to the appearance of inconsistency from the outside.
Related: Volkswagen Originalteil Sausages - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19611673 - April 2019 (22 comments) I feel like there have been other threads about this...anyone?
Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words. Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, someone who is crying) instead of 'Wiener' (correct, a type of sausage). One I've seen the other day is 'Kreigsmarine' instead of 'Kriegsmarine'. Anyone knows why this happens?
Because English is a terrible, thrown-together, inconsistent language, and nobody even using English words can keep completely straight what words are spelled "ie" or "ei". There's a rhyme they teach children who are learning to read, "I before E except after C". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C No matter what extra verses they add, there's still plenty of exceptions. English spelling is not co…
I don't see how it's any different to gendered articles in German not really having much of a logical basis to them or kanji readings in Japanese just being something you learn on a case by case basis. I'm only talking about languages I have personal experience with; I'm sure there are others that could be commented on.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because ie is pronounced aye in English Grief? Tier? Thief?
English spelling always has exceptions, partly because so many words come from foreign languages. The word "thief", for example, comes from an Old German word.
https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1
Not sure I'd be in a rush to say "aye" was the default pronunciation. At best it may be marginally the single most common one.
(*) meaning the number of dictionaries the word is found in, not frequency of usage.
Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words. Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, someone who is crying) instead of 'Wiener' (correct, a type of sausage). One I've seen the other day is 'Kreigsmarine' instead of 'Kriegsmarine'. Anyone knows why this happens?
> Anyone knows why this happens? Because ie is pronounced aye in English, and eeeee in German. And ei is pronounced eeeee in English, and aye in German.
No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir").
Edit: "stein"/"skein" maybe? I'm not sure if those should be like "st(ee)r" or "st(ai)n".
Edit: "seize", so there is in fact something that's pronounced that way.
> Because ie is pronounced aye in English
Neither is that: like "b(ee)": "wield", "thief", like "wh(y e)lk": "science", like "s(ee e)lk": "sapient", "salient", "orient", "sierra", "siesta". Actually, I can't think of any cases where "ie" is pronounced like "aye"(/"d(ay)"), either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Anyone knows why this happens? Because ie is pronounced aye in English, and eeeee in German. And ei is pronounced eeeee in English, and aye in German.
> And ei is pronounced eeeee in English No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir").…
Just going through the alphabet:
die, lie, pie, tie, vie
science, cried, denied, diet, quiet, electrified, fried, justified, qualified, relied, satisfied, society, terrified, variety
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And ei is pronounced eeeee in English No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir").…
> I can't think of any cases Just going through the alphabet: die, lie, pie, tie, vie science, cried, denied, diet, quiet, electrified, fried, justified, qualified, relied, satisfied, society, terrified, variety
Those are all pronounced like "dye", not "day"/"aye".
> science, diet, quiet, ...
That has a "eh" (like "bet") between the "I" and the "n".
> cried, denied, ...
Again, that's "dye", not "day"/"aye".
(Also I wasn't counting contractions of words ending in "-y" + a suffix, since that seemed clearly unrelated to the German loanword process, but that's more of YMMV thing.)
Edit: wait, you were pronouncing "aye" like "I", weren't you? I assumed not since it makes more sense to use, well, "I" for that. Or even "eye". Bloody accents, and bloody six monophthongs and two offglides packed into five(-ish) letters.
Although that doesn't cover "ee", and "science", "diet", "quiet", etc still aren't examples (the "I" is the pronunciation only of "i", with "e" producing a subsequent "t(e)ch" sound.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my first jobs included typesetting MSDSes¹ from a database. One of the things we had an MSDS for was water. ⸻ 1. Material Safety Data Sheet. These are most commonly provided for the assorted potentially hazardous chemicals in industrial use.
Hey now, that dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous stuff. Extended contact with the solid form can cause severe injury, and the gaseous form in significant quantities doesn't even need extended contact, it does its damage almost immediately. Even the relatively safe and stable liquid form can be deadly if drank in significant quantity or inhaled in even small quantities, and a person submerged in it for even a few minute…