Comments on: Change: the short and the long of the “e” in “the”—and the Great Vowel Shift https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/ A blog about political change, among other things Sat, 16 Oct 2010 07:00:59 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: John S https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-192773 Sat, 16 Oct 2010 07:00:59 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-192773 For “the” before a vowel, I usually go with “thee” approaching “th'”–give priority to the first vowel sound of the next word.

]]> By: Francesca https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-126986 Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:37:18 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-126986 Today I have stumbled upon this riveting discussion, which I have loved. Finding a discussion of language and grammar is a delight. Thank you.

]]> By: MissJean https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109481 Fri, 15 May 2009 16:00:28 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109481 I thought I’d point out that Michigan has four dialects. As you see from the map here – http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/MapsIN/TelsurIN_eo.html – the peninsulas have different regional accents and residents of the southernmost section of the lower peninsula has the same speech as the residents of the Ohio prairie. What the map doesn’t show is the bleeding over from Ontario along the Lake Huron coastline; e.g Port Huron (or “Porcharn” as locals call it).

]]> By: lumpy https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109478 Fri, 15 May 2009 14:40:49 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109478 Speaking of pet peeves in grammar, the lack of a following comma in, e.g., Dallas, Texas, is ubiquitous these days and highly annoying. “I went to Allston, Massachusetts for a reunion” makes me want to slap the author.

Also, I too miss the more precise ‘thee, thou, thy, thine.’ Alas, I fear they are lost forever. Whom is also precise and useful.

]]> By: Nmissi https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109472 Fri, 15 May 2009 12:08:37 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109472

“I don’t miss, “thee, thou” or “hither, thither, and whither,” do you?”

Yes, I do. Having to use “you” where the French would use either “tu” or “vous” leaves me in a place where I can’t indicate my social relationship to someone without having to go all around Robin Hood’s barn to explain it, or to imply it, which is a waste of my literary time.”

Joseph Marshall, I’ll gladly support the need for a second person plural. Indeed, that’s why my beloved “y’all” exists; nice folk trying to tidy up uncertainties in the language. But I’m not sure how much need we really have for a formal/informal distinction. Rather democratic of us all, really.

“The Academie Francais is very likely to leave French as dead as Latin in a century or two.”

And a hearty “Amen” to that. The very idea of an official body putting their stamp of approval or disapproval onto language rather offends me. Living languages change, they evolve according to the needs of their speakers. The only unchanging language is a dead one.

But I take issue with this idea that “English does not have grammar, it has manners”… that does not work for me. English has always had structure and rules. Every native speaker of English absorbs this grammar in their cradle, and they do not make “mistakes” in this native grammar. The problem is that so many of the rules imposed on us by our English teachers are arbitrary and WRONG, they’re attempts to force English to follow the pattern of other languages. I refuse to have my language dictated to me by dead guys with a fetish for Greek and Latin.

]]> By: br549 https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109444 Fri, 15 May 2009 02:29:58 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109444 Wait, I’m liar. “Thee” before “um” That’s the exception there.

]]> By: br549 https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109443 Fri, 15 May 2009 02:28:01 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109443 Thuh for consonants. Thee for vowels. Except the letter “U”. I always say thuh before a word beginning with “U”.
I don’t really know why, except to say it’s easier to roll from one word into the other when pronounced that way.

]]> By: Occam's Beard https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109385 Thu, 14 May 2009 17:48:18 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109385

I won’t talk about how hard I have to concentrate on hearing telephone numbers: six and eighty, seven and forty, five, three and sixty. I always repeat the number one digit at a time.

I’m so glad to hear you say that. My German is very rusty now (I minored in German literature in college), and so I listen to Deutsche Welle on the net, but to this day I still have trouble with German numbers of three or more digits. For non-German speakers, Germans start such numbers from the left until they get to the tens place, then jump to the units and work backwards (so 1234 would be “one thousand two hundred four and thirty”). I stumble over this every time!

]]> By: expat https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109382 Thu, 14 May 2009 17:30:47 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109382 nmissi,

Grammatically, your description of German word order is correct, and there is a logic to the system. I do, however, wonder whether it is retained as a suspense element. Otherwise people might fall asleep after the verb and before the 4 paragraphs worth of subordinant phrases are complete. Even after 20+ years in Germany, I still have trouble speaking some complex sentences correctly. I won’t talk about how hard I have to concentrate on hearing telephone numbers: six and eighty, seven and forty, five, three and sixty. I always repeat the number one digit at a time.

The word order difference makes it great fun to listen to the necessarily choppy simultaneous translations. I can’t take more than about 15 minutes of them, no matter how interested I am in the topic. I can imagine nother worse that being in the EU Parliament and spending days listening to translated blah blah.

Sorry for taking this so far off topic.

Thanks for the tip, Jeannine

]]> By: Occam's Beard https://thenewneo.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109378 Thu, 14 May 2009 17:12:22 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2009/05/13/change-the-short-and-the-long-of-the-e-in-the-and-the-great-vowel-shift/#comment-109378 Nmissi, thanks for your response to my query.

but in everyday speech, I can think of no occasion where I would need “whom” to make myself understood

True, but that sets the bar pretty low. Agreement in number between subject and verb isn’t generally necessary to making oneself understood, as we was discussing the other day. /g

]]>