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“I just chose words carefully”

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Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#341

Post by Xirdus »

toast0 wrote: post #340
Xirdus wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now explain dictionaries.

Dictionaries in columns statistically reduce white space and thus reduce the page count. Especially for the definitions that are very short, for example when they only reference a more preferred spelling or a more prominent word that has the exact meaning.

So multicolumn layout increases whitespace in newspapers but decreases it in dictionaries? Funny how it always does the exact thing needed to disprove whatever I say in this exact moment.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#342

Post by notahacker »

lproven wrote: post #240
amiga386 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". See this classic Monty Python sketch which makes fun of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw&t=66s Praline: 'Ello. I would like to buy a fish license, please. Clerk: A what? Praline: A license for my pet fish, Eric. Clerk: How did you know my name was Eric? Praline: No, no, no, no. My _fish's_ name is Eric. Eric the fish. 'E's an 'alibut. Clerk: What? Pral…

> Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". I think you have this slightly muddled. It's not that upper-class Brits pronounce more of the "h" sounds. The idea is that upper-class types go to private schools and they learn French, and so they know that lots of English words that have a leading "h" are French loanwords and thus the they are unaspirated in the original, i.e. the "h" is silent – it ought not to…

Hey, I can go further and point out further muddles and general weird English inconsistencies.

Expensively educated people might pronounce French loanwords by dropping the h in an ostentatiously French way (and maybe making homage rhyme with fromage) to showcase their etymology knowledge and are more likely to use the grammatical convention[1] of prefixing them with 'an' rather than 'a' even even when sounding the 'h'. But the "correct", RP way their expensive education teaches them to enunciate the words you listed as English words is with a leading h and has been for a century or so, except 'honour' (also 'honest', 'heir'), which pretty much no native speaker pronounces the 'h' in.

[1]now usually an historic grammatical convention ;-) it survived longer than the silent 'h' in 'historic' in conventional English speech though...

On the other hand a leading 'h' is routinely dropped in spoken English in most words in many British dialects spoken by less expensively educated people (especially southern urban "working class" people), which has no more to do with French etymology than the glottal stop that means some of the same accents also drop a lot of 't's from the middle of words. That's where all the twentieth century jokes involving Cockney stereotypes overcorrecting by inappropriately adding 'h' when trying to speak 'proper' come from. The overcorrecting in turn came from "upper class" people being snobbish about the sort of person who 'abitually indulged in "h-dropping"...

As for the name of the letter, according to the OED and RP dialect the sort of expensive schools that emphasize correct pronunciation teach, it's is definitely called 'aitch' in British English. And has been for several hundred years. Not all people who pronounce it 'aitch' are "upper class" (there's a rapper with the stage name Aitch) but all people who are "upper class" are taught to pronounce it 'aitch'. On the other hand, it's a bit weird that the name of the letter doesn't contain the letter, so lots of British people whose education doesn't involve teachers emphasising The Correct Way To Speak feel the name for the letter 'h' should start with the letter 'h', hence 'haitch'.

Also, Irish dialects call it 'haitch'; in Northern Ireland it's apparently a shibboleth distinguishing between Irish-identifying Catholics ('haitch') and British-identifying Protestants ('aitch'). Suspect this also has nothing to do with the French :)

So "upper class" learn to enunciate the letter 'h' without an 'h' in it, but are taught to pronounce it more or less everywhere else (with a few quirks to keep them honest) and others more likely to drop the 'h' sound from other words but add it to the letter name. Yes, English pronunication is weird

For those desperate for even more 'h' discourse, seee: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/h_n and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dropping

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#343

Post by MetroWind »

EGreg wrote: post #39
_jackdk_ wrote: post #16

I wonder if at any point during writing, the heroic author of that Super Metroid guide learned that "missiles" are not spent "missles", and decided to own the mistake rather than reword the entire guide. Also, the font used for the monospace examples in the post is a great kick to the nostalgia. Which one is it? It reminds me of https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/font?ibm_vga_...

I think you meant "spelt" rather than spent. A but ironic, all things considered.

"A but ironic" <---:

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#344

Post by ahazred8ta »

kibwen wrote: post #37
_jackdk_ wrote: post #16

I wonder if at any point during writing, the heroic author of that Super Metroid guide learned that "missiles" are not spent "missles", and decided to own the mistake rather than reword the entire guide. Also, the font used for the monospace examples in the post is a great kick to the nostalgia. Which one is it? It reminds me of https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/font?ibm_vga_...

> learned that "missiles" are not spent "missles" I choose to believe that the author was channeling the spirit of Noah Webster as a deliberate champion of phonetic spelling reform.

Spelling reform was associated with the Abolitionist movement; they published the Wecli Fonetic Advocat in Sinsinati.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#345

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

fasterik wrote: post #327
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting claim. ELLSWORTH (CONT'D) I tell you what -- I may have fucked ~~ life up flatter"n hammered shit, but I stand before you today beholden to no human cocksucker and working a paying fucking gold claim -- and not the U.S. Government saying I'm trespassing or the savage fucking Red Man himself or any of these other limber-dick cocksuckers passing themselves off as prospectors had better try to stop me. I can…

The claim comes from Milch himself. I don't know how much he was exaggerating, or how much of it may be true but didn't make it into the final shooting script. E.B.'s soliloquy isn't in strict blank verse, but there is clearly some sort of metric structure. You have been tested, Al Swearengen. And your deepest purposes proved, there’s gold On the woman’s claim. You might as well have shouted It from the rooftops. Tha…

Most of the lines in that soliloquy is over 10 syllables, so it technically can’t be in pentameter. So either I am very confused about my understanding of the English poetry or this:

  Most of the show is written in iambic pentameter. I believe one way God says, “I too have a hand here” is in the rhythms and metrics of speech, that the metrics of speech are important and representative of our fellowship even in those of us who feel, mistakenly, that we are separate from each other as individuals.

  When a character in Deadwood, or anyone, talks in certain locutions, unbeknownst to themselves, they honor a divine presence.[1]
is a very contradictory statement indeed.

To be fair, I don’t care. I loved the series and now I started to read the script and oh man, it’s like a really good novel. Very much prose in no foxed meter, but damn if it isn’t great prose. I might just start reading through Deadwood scripts, since I watched the series to death anyway.

[1] https://lithub.com/david-milch-on-language-and-obscenity-in-...

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#346

Post by lou1306 »

kqp wrote: post #195
Kootle wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan they have the abbreviation “NG” (“not good”) that’s often used as the opposite of “OK”. I always liked how, when I worked for a Japanese machine learning company, classifiers would be between “OK” and “NG”. Maybe semantically “okay” and “not good” are not great opposites, but I always liked how having textual alignment makes the contrast immediately obvious

Seems like “not okay” would be the cleanest antonym. I can’t see anything that could go wrong with using it. > Meeting at 4 pm today? > NO

Norway (Yes this is a YAML pun)

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#347

Post by lproven »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #304
lproven wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "missils" would be more phonetic Only for Americans. In British English, it's "MISS isle", and "MISSul" is a church book. I'm not Christian and I am not sure of exactly what's in a _missal_ but it's prayers or something. I do not know if American English even has missals. They're old fashioned things these days, I think. But in my dialect, "missile" and "missal" are two different words with 2 different sounds, whic…

A missal generally has bible passages organized by mass date (instead of in the usual order), as well as some hymns and a reference to the order of mass (the things that happen when you go to church)

Aha.

I was very vaguely notionally Church of England until age 11, although still had to go to Chapel daily from 12-17. I have never been to Mass and I don't really know what goes on in a Mass. I'm not even sure if Anglicans have Mass.

My local Canon certainly had plenty of small-m mass: big lad. Nonetheless, when he scattered my father's ashes in the sea, he got caught by a wave, and proved that despite this he could run backwards up a shingle beach, wearing wet robes, at surprising speed.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#348

Post by lproven »

notahacker wrote: post #342
lproven wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". I think you have this slightly muddled. It's not that upper-class Brits pronounce more of the "h" sounds. The idea is that upper-class types go to private schools and they learn French, and so they know that lots of English words that have a leading "h" are French loanwords and thus the they are unaspirated in the original, i.e. the "h" is silent – it ought not to…

Hey, I can go further and point out further muddles and general weird English inconsistencies. Expensively educated people might pronounce French loanwords by dropping the h in an ostentatiously French way (and maybe making homage rhyme with fromage) to showcase their etymology knowledge and are more likely to use the grammatical convention[1] of prefixing them with 'an' rather than 'a' even even when sounding the 'h…

Thanks for that!

> Also, Irish dialects call it 'haitch'; in Northern Ireland it's apparently a shibboleth distinguishing between Irish-identifying Catholics ('haitch') and British-identifying Protestants ('aitch'). Suspect this also has nothing to do with the French :)

Fascinating. I didn't know that, despite my Belfast-born dad being the reason I'm a citizen.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#349

Post by ahazred8ta »

lproven wrote: post #246
saghm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that "le" is not really phonetic to how people pronounce words ending in that; "missils" would be more phonetic

> "missils" would be more phonetic Only for Americans. In British English, it's "MISS isle", and "MISSul" is a church book. I'm not Christian and I am not sure of exactly what's in a _missal_ but it's prayers or something. I do not know if American English even has missals. They're old fashioned things these days, I think. But in my dialect, "missile" and "missal" are two different words with 2 different sounds, whic…

In northeastern US, missile is anywhere between 'ill', and schwa 'ul', but not 'aisle'. "Hurled a miss-aisle" is sometimes heard in court.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#350

Post by lproven »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #301
lproven wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". I think you have this slightly muddled. It's not that upper-class Brits pronounce more of the "h" sounds. The idea is that upper-class types go to private schools and they learn French, and so they know that lots of English words that have a leading "h" are French loanwords and thus the they are unaspirated in the original, i.e. the "h" is silent – it ought not to…

> (Wondering how long I should keep this up...) Forever, I'm finding it very entertaining

  > Forever, I'm finding it very entertaining

  Why thank you! :-)

  There's reams of it on my late-1990s homepage, which I resurrected and
  uploaded a few years ago. I did an extremely cursory update but expect
  plenty of broken links and things.

  Finding it is an exercise for the reader... ;-)
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