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Voltswagen of America

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Re: Voltswagen of America

#601

Post by sudosteph »

wizzard wrote: post #567
sudosteph wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually pronounce it like "double-you" (with 3 syllables) in that context? I'm a native speaker from the US South, and hadn't realized this until I read your comment. For me, the "W" always gets shortened to "dub-you" in AWS (or "dubya" if I'm not being picky about it). Standalone, I might pronounce "W" more like "dub-a-you if I'm emphasizing it, but not usually. Anyhow, thanks for pointing this out. I will a…

I’m a native speaker from the north and west US and it’s definitely “double-u”. A double-u S. In my experience only Southerners shorten it the way you describe.

No kidding! Do you even pronounce the "l" sound in "double" (and if so, dub-el or dub-ull or something else)?

It's always fascinating to be reminded that I'm still basically ear-blind to certain linguistic patterns (the "pen/pin" merger being one I still can't even hear as different, let alone say). For a long time, I falsely assumed that because I grew up watching the same TV shows as the rest of the country, and because I didn't speak with the same accent as my family members, that I didn't have an accent at all. Turns out I do - I just can't hear it.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#602

Post by aidenn0 »

lumost wrote: post #240
aidenn0 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad used to joke that if you wanted sneakers that were not made by child labor, your best bet was whichever manufacturer last got into trouble for it because of all the extra scrutiny. That this level of fatalism about immoral acts exists is a failure of society as a whole. I suspect that all of those who got rich either knowingly or being willfully ignorant about emissions cheating walked away completely unpunish…

it's almost impossible to effectively regulate externalities in a global economy. Local regulators are not inclined to care about products sold overseas and all products compete with the lowest common regulatory framework. All it takes for child labor to enter into the supply chain is one bad regulator and a couple levels of outsourcing. The final "complete" product becomes nearly impossible to audit.

Even non-global economies end up diffusing the blame for poor labor practices. So many big-box stores end up in a wage-theft situation just because the upper-management sets benchmarks that are only achievable through wage-theft and then they are shocked[1] to find out that the individual store managers are committing wage theft.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

Re: Voltswagen of America

#603

Post by earthboundkid »

atleta wrote: post #450
earthboundkid wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of English orthography is adopting the writing conventions of literally every other language in the world and then expecting people to pronounce the words "correctly." If you want English speakers to pronounce something a certain way, it should be written use our spelling system. There's no point in shaming people for not knowing literally every language. But that's basically the system we have now.

This is an interesting observation. As a non-native speaker I was surprised by how many German expressions are used in English (with the correct German spelling). Even when there is a perfect (or near perfect) English equivalent. However, this is pretty different as VW is a brand name so you don't have much liberty in how you write it.

Toyota was toyoda in Japanese, but they changed the spelling to look better in English. It can be done. And why not? They change the names of cars all the time. Why not the brands too?

Re: Voltswagen of America

#604

Post by ak217 »

Syonyk wrote: post #496
ak217 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My stance is that diesels should only be permitted if they satisfy the EPA 2008 diesel PM standards or better. No older engines should be permitted unless they are retrofitted to comply with the standard and pass regular state tests. We could have a "cash for clunkers" type program to incentivize them to be lawfully scrapped. I appreciate that you are as annoyed as the rest of us at the coal rollers. I think we need…

Destroying nearly-new trucks for emissions reasons is a pretty questionable use of funding (and, yes, a 12 year old truck is still quite new) - and you're not going to be able to get away with a token few thousand dollars to encourage people to scrap them. A decently maintained heavy road engine (tractor trailer) is a million+ mile motor, easily. A medium truck engine (think your typical toolbox work trucks, tow truc…

I seem to not have communicated my point very clearly.

Diesel particulate pollution kills very significant numbers of people, and it kills poor people (who have to live next to the freeway and on urban thoroughfares) disproportionately. I don't care about how easy it is to find a $100 car; I care about policies that we can enact today that can stop truck owners and manufacturers from externalizing their pollution costs onto everyone else. You make a good point about PM being easier to address than NOx - PM is more of an urgent concern given what we now know about its health effects. Whether by retrofitting or by retiring, the engines that emit more PM than the 2008 standards have to go.

New diesels are fine. I agree with you EV trucks are not here yet. The point is there are trucks out there that are 10,000x more harmful in PM emissions than the same exact capability new truck. They need to be removed.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#605

Post by wizzard »

sudosteph wrote: post #601
wizzard wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a native speaker from the north and west US and it’s definitely “double-u”. A double-u S. In my experience only Southerners shorten it the way you describe.

No kidding! Do you even pronounce the "l" sound in "double" (and if so, dub-el or dub-ull or something else)? It's always fascinating to be reminded that I'm still basically ear-blind to certain linguistic patterns (the "pen/pin" merger being one I still can't even hear as different, let alone say). For a long time, I falsely assumed that because I grew up watching the same TV shows as the rest of the country, and be…

Everyone I’ve been around says “dub-ull”. I moved from Michigan to Utah as an adult and pen/pin can be very close here, which I find annoying because I don’t want my kids to pick up the Utah accent... but of course they have.

I took Linguistics in college and my professor could tell where people were from in the US within a couple hundred miles by their accent. Anyone who thinks they don’t have an accent absolutely does. Except maybe Nebraskans — I read somewhere that they have the most neutral, “correct” American accent, though I don’t think it was a scientific source.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#606

Post by fermienrico »

tchalla wrote: post #583
fermienrico wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant the pronunciation, not the spelling. Also, learning to forgive is a rare virtue these days. Entitlement and expection creates conflict. Learn to forgive others and you'll have a better time with everyone else. No one who even spells it as Ghandi means any malice or offense. So, it is a matter of technicality. Let go.

I agree - learning to forgive is rare virtue. For example, I think we should also "learn to forgive" to people who point out that Gandhi is the right spelling. It's not meant as many malice of offence. So, it is a matter of technicality. Let go.

You're forgiven :), cheers!

Re: Voltswagen of America

#607

Post by astrange »

SllX wrote: post #135
gbil wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pronunciation doesn't go like that but that is a big discussion for its own thread Funny remark though while watching the F1 Netflix show, Schumacher said his name like SchumaKer , hence the Engish Pronunciation which goes to show that he adapted to the audience.

> Pronunciation doesn't go like that but that is a big discussion for its own thread Honestly it kinda does. I wince every time I hear emoji pronounced like いmoji (where the e rhymes with tea) instead of えmoji (where the e rhymes with meh), or pluralize Japanese nouns (“emojis” “sushis”). That said, this is a me problem. People are going to pronounce words in whatever way makes sense to them, where the emphasis goes,…

The odd thing I notice is how English speakers always want to put a stress in the middle of Japanese names (naRUto). Japanese pitch accent is different in different dialects but the standard one is always at the start.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#608

Post by letier »

cpach wrote: post #510
letier wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.com for example was only reserved today and is using a domain parking service. Things like this would have been prepared if it was a serious rebranding.

AFAICT it was registered in 2003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26637476

You're correct. Mistake on my side.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#609

Post by KaiserPro »

carabiner wrote: post #579
scythe wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's from an old parable, also called Parkinson's Law of Triviality . Basically, simple things get discussed more because everyone can understand them. It goes something like this: "If a committee designs a bikeshed, they will spend five minutes discussing the structural requirements, half an hour on the size, and the rest of the available time arguing about what color to paint the shed."

Oh ok. I wonder why he didn't just say "bikeshedding."

because I'm a flashy git, but you're right to question it.

Re: Voltswagen of America

#610

Post by headmelted »

wongarsu wrote: post #564
headmelted wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure it’s awful for normal folk like us but in his case (and again this is uninformed speculation), where he’s essentially the fall guy for a scandal that was supporting one of the world’s largest economies (and a large component of several others), it’s not that hard to imagine his experience being just a bit different than what a normal inmate should expect. He also likely knows a lot about how many of his supe…

He was in "Offener Vollzug" (~open prison). That means he sleeps in a normal prison cell (that usually looks like [1], so not all that bad) in a regular prison, gets breakfeast, leaves prison to go to work, then goes straight back to prison to participate in the prison's evening activities (sport, recreational, educational, etc). He might get vacation (from staying in prison), and can visit his family on weekends. It…

Pretty disappointing that my comment above was a wild and utterly uninformed guess that was (from what you're saying here) bang on the money.

Turns out that it's almost universally true everywhere that enough wealth and power puts you above the law.

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