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Home » Open thread 8/29/22

Open thread 8/29/22

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m so glad I’m a native speaker. I doubt I’d be able to master English as a second language. So tricky!

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Open thread 8/29/22 — 68 Comments

  1. In an earlier thread I commented on the recent story about “Dr.” Jill Biden physically pulling President Biden back from talking to reporters and repositioning him, and I noted that her body language thereafter perhaps might indicate that she was very weary and/or disgusted.

    Well, many of those commenting on a clip and video of this incident, linked below, also picked up on “Dr.” Jill’s particular body language.

    See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/08/dr-jill-caught-physically-backing-joe-biden-away-reporters-airport-gets-stuck-hand-video/

  3. English spelling and pronunciation are difficult because of the French influence through the Norman conquest of Anglo-Dane England. (When in doubt, just blame the French). However, English is far simpler than any of it antecedents through the stripping out of gender articles and gender modifications of adjective endings.
    Didn’t listen to the whole video, but I’ve heard people pronounce vegetable and comfortable as she says is wrong. I say Al-mond.

  6. The beauty of English is that one can mis-pronounce all these words (or so she says) and still make oneself understood. As a Midwesterner I’ve been doing it all my life.

  7. Professor Higgins summed it up quite well in my fair Lady. The English can’t speak English and the Americans haven’t spoken it in years.

  8. Fascinating substack today from Dr Robert Malone. A guest post by a psychologist describing the mass psychological issues around Covid.

    I was impressed by his likening the “experts” to the pigs in Animal Farm. He nailed it.

    Highly recommend.

  9. I was always bothered by “valet.”

    Is it VAL-let or val-LAY or VAL-lay? (All correct)

    I assumed it was of French origin, so sounding the ‘t’ seemed wrong. Merriam-Webster says it’s middle English borrowed from Anglo-French.

  11. spanish is harder on the grammar side, but diction side it’s easier, like vegetable is vegetal,

  13. She is wrong about “almond”. Pronouncing the L is as correct as not prounouncing it. It is a matter of regional vernacular.

  15. She pronounces the name of the letter “H” as “Haytch”, whereas I say “Aytch”. Is first way typical Brit, and second way more Yank?

  16. She also omits differences between American and British pronunciation in regard to stressed syllables– like LAB-ratory (US) and la-BOR-atry (UK).

  17. “When in doubt, just blame the French”
    Yes!
    Also, most English verbs are pretty regular… except the ones you use the most like “is”.

  18. She pronounces the name of the letter “H” as “Haytch”, whereas I say “Aytch”. Is first way typical Brit, and second way more Yank?

    “Aytch” is more American, but you might want to be careful about “Yank”– one of the best-known memoirs written by a Civil War soldier is Co. Aytch, published in 1882 by Sam Watkins (1839-1901), a veteran of the 1st Tennessee Regiment, CSA. You can read it online or download it at Project Gutenberg here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13202

    If Watkins pronounced the name of his company “Aytch,” that’s good enough for me.

  21. Based on the languages I know a bit about, English is one of the trickier ones to learn to spell, but, as others have noted, is quite forgiving on the grammar side. If one’s main goal is conversing in English, I think English is one of the quicker languages to pick up. Especially with the plethora of free, amazing, fun, interesting cultural sources; films, songs, youtube videos, streaming programs, television programs, radio programs… Listening to a Bee Gees album or watching “Top Gun – Maverick” are preferable to listening to The Ring Cycle or slogging through declension tables.

    As others have noted, most all non-English languages are phonetic, so pronunciation is almost never in doubt when reading words. However, for languages that don’t share our alphabet there is an additional hurdle to get over.

  22. kind of the way portuguese sounds to a spanish speaker, like an extra syllable, more g sounds, it’s not as easy as it looks,

  26. My big pet peeve in english is the number of people that think “antisocial” means the same thing as “asocial” and use them interchangeably or even “antisocial” instead of “asocial”. (No, they don’t mean the same thing. I’m amazed at the number of people that think they’re intelligent but can’t figure out those 2 words. FWIW I’m kind of asocial but I’m definitely not antisocial.)

  29. More on the Haytch/Aytch controversy, this from the BBC: So too is there a mystery as to why certain pronunciations cause such strong feeling. Take the eighth letter of the alphabet, pronounce it haitch and then look for the slightly agonised look in some people’s eyes.

    One suggestion is that it touches on a long anxiety in English over the letter aitch. In the 19th Century, it was normal to pronounce hospital, hotel and herb without the h. Nowadays “aitch anxiety” has led to all of them acquiring a new sound, a beautifully articulated aitch at the beginning. America has perhaps hung on to its aitchless herb because it has less class anxiety attached to pronunciations.

    However, the link between class, voice and status is not what it once was. . . . It marks a decline in class anxiety in speech; attitudes to accents and pronunciations have become much more relaxed.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11642588

  30. I did hear her say “haytch” to refer to the letter “h.” Surely that must be British; I have never heard an American say that. I will pronounce the “h” at the beginning of words, unlike Eliza Dolittle, but I would never pronounce the name of the letter with the “h” sound at its beginning.

  31. Since reading neo’s Bee Gees/Steppin’ post I’ve been thinking about love songs. Specifically songs that capture what she describes, the pure joy of being in love.

    I’m almost certain I’m missing those that I go to most often, but there are four that currently come to mind.

    “Walkin’ on Sunshine,” by Katrina and the Waves. It’s extremely on the nose, as subtle with its messaging as a sledgehammer, but I still find it effective. Trite as the sentiment is, it’s an apt description of the feeling and Katrina and the band certainly sell the emotion with their happy, very upbeat performance. On more than one occasion I’ve found myself instantly dancing, very happily, upon hearing it play.

    “Lovely Day,” by Bill Withers. Although I think Bill Withers was very talented, his vocal tone doesn’t fit the song’s theme ideally. The lyrics, however, are great. It’s about all the day to day difficulties we all face, but when we see the one we love our problems all melt away and it’s a “lovely day.” A really beautiful sentiment. I’m not remembering all the lyrics, but I think the song would even fit with non-romantic love; like a friend, child, grandchild, pet. It’s that person or pet who makes the problems of the world disappear.

    “I’ve got a Golden Ticket.” I imagine this one is a bit odd, but it’s a song that honestly often comes to me when the sun has metaphorically come out and the tide has metaphorically turned. It was written for the movie, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” by Anthony Newley (I believe), and every verse is a variation on: “I never thought my life could be/Anything but catastrophe/But suddenly I begin to see/A bit of good luck for me.” The music is very happy and upbeat. Like the syllables in that lyric, the notes of the melody scurry to keep up with the tempo and mood.

    “Boys,” the version Ringo Starr sang with the Beatles. I was consoled to read neo’s take on the Beatles. I acknowledge their talent as songwriters and musicians, and their impact on rock and roll, but I find a lot of their stuff dated and uninteresting. When “Hey Jude” comes on the radio I wonder to myself, “who could possibly still want to hear this song, with it’s repetitive ending?” I get that it had its place, but we’ve all heard it hundreds of times. It’s just not that interesting to listen to that monotonous outro for the 301st time. And “Number Nine” and all that psychedelic stuff? Even “Day in the Life.” When Lennon goes into a dream the song becomes a nightmare to me.

    But their early stuff, especially their covers! They were an awesome cover band. For me, the shorter the Beatles song, the better. When they were doing that fast, AM, fit it on one side of a 45rpm record stuff… They were awesome! I like their version of “Roll Over Beethoven” better than Chuck Berry’s. And Ringo knocks it out of the park on the Shirelles’, “Boys.” The way they perform it, and Ringo sings it, it encapsulates that moment when you find out you click with someone physically. When I’m happy and thinking about love this song often comes to me. (It’s also a great song to do cardio exercise to.)

  34. Rufus T. Firefly:

    I suppose “Happy Together” would be a contender, but for me it doesn’t hold a candle to the Bee Gees for exuberance. Maybe also “I’m a Believer,” which is pretty exuberant (written by Neil Diamond).

    Then there’s the happiness of finally breaking up: “Red Rubber Ball.” Co-written by – and I just learned this fairly recently – Paul Simon.

    By the way, I always disliked the song “Hey Jude.” I find it very boring.

  36. A linguist could get a good article out of “comftable” and “comfortable.” The first comes more naturally. The second is for when you want to sound more concerned or thoughtful. It may be similar with “awmonds” and “almonds.”

    My dad used to pronounce all the letters in “vegetable.” Maybe everybody’s dad did. It’s a dad joke thing.

  37. So on RTF’s mention, I went back to Saturday and started that Bee Gees video. I turned it off quickly. Neo is right to say that some people love their sound, and some people just don’t. I’m one of those. I never get to the lyrics.

  39. right a (modifies to absence of) anti (is actively against)

    And the man wins a cigar! Glad to see someone knows the difference.

  41. I have never heard him speak, but someone who is an amazing writer in English is Hussein Aboubakr Mansour. He reminds me of Joseph Conrad in that he is a better writer of English prose than most native speakers of English.

  42. Years ago I attended a German language school for foreigners near Hamburg, Germany. There were students there from all over the world.
    Those students from Spanish speaking countries had a real rough time learning German. Those from N.Europe or Iceland picked it up rather quickly.
    As you probably guessed, the N.European students all spoke English pretty well and those students from Latin America, well, not so well.

    My dearly departed mother, originally from Central America, found it impossible to pronounce certain words in English ( e.g., when she pronounced peas or piss, it sounded identical) , despite her living in the USA for nearly 70 years, taking numerous English language classes and speaking English almost all the time.

    IMHO learning how to pronounce words just by reading a word spelled out is most difficult in French. The French could remove about 1/2 the letters of the alphabet and they would not have to change how they pronounce their words.
    Ironically, when you hear a song in French (think Edith Piaf), almost every letter of every word is pronounced, unlike when it is spoken French.

    I found German to be the easiest to pronounce because every letter of a word is pronounced. In fact, I can read a page in German, pronounce it reasonably well, yet have no idea what I just read.

    I would imagine that English is a breeze to learn compared to Basque or Hungarian or Welsh.

    The Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman (a veritable genius) almost did not get accepted into MIT (as an undergrad) because his English grammar skills were real bad. He always insisted that since there were so many exceptions to the “rules”of English grammar, that English really had no rules of grammar.

    Speaking of Welsh, try pronouncing this;
    Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch

    I think the Welsh have a real problem using vowels in their words.

  44. The most difficult language-learning attempt I’ve ever seen was a Chinese-speaking woman in Cairo in an Egyptian Arabic class conducted in English.

  45. Don’t understand why the freakin’ anti-gay, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-education, anti-everything-and-everyone Republicans can’t give the dead any respect.

    I mean so what if they prefer to vote Democrat??? They’re DEAD.
    They have their rights, too…
    “Michigan Secretary Of State Loses Round In Fight Over Dead People On Voter Rolls”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/michigan-secretary-state-loses-round-fight-over-dead-people-voter-rolls

    (Just add “anti-deceased”).

  49. You’re ugly, you’re mommy dresses you funny, and, oh, you mispronounced mommy with a “d”. Liberal sem-antics.

  50. Coming to other Blue states after proof-of-concept?
    Coming as a federal mandate after that?

    http://www.capoliticalreview.com/top-stories/ca-senate-passes-healthcare-clinics-for-k-12-students-along-party-lines/
    CA Senate Passes ‘Healthcare’ Clinics for K-12 Students, Along Party Lines
    California Democrats just passed a bill to fund healthcare clinics in the state’s K-12 public schools, against Republicans’ and the California Department of Finance’s objections. Included in the primary health care services are mental health services, “reproductive health services” (abortions, birth control), vaccinations, and drug abuse treatment. The clincher is that parental consent is not needed for any of these health services. In fact, according to bill analysis, “The Right to Life League said that this bill will ensure that state-funded chemical or surgical abortions can secretly and conveniently take place on school campuses, public or private, without parental involvement and without a doctor.”

    The Department of Finance warned of the hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the School-Based Health Center Support Program (SBHCS Program).

    Not mentioned in the article: support for gender-change medical services.

  51. RTF– Glad you like “Stronger Beer”! Tim Hicks is always asked to sing it at one of his concerts, particularly those scheduled for Canada Day.

  52. Anyone remaining in CA who has school-age children should move to private school (but look carefully!) or home-schooling immediately.

  53. It seems to me that the shift in pronunciation from Val•et to Val•ay happened about 50 years ago in this country. You’ll still hear the older pronunciation in old movies and radio shows and I believe the Brits have not yet changed their way of saying it. Still perhaps a bit half-arsed because the French first syllable would be something like “Vahl” , so the la-de-da change comes up a bit of floperoo. Rufus- I’m with you on The Beatles. Writing a good tune ain’t easy and they created lots of catchy melodies early on. Things slid a bit when the critics began telling us what geniuses they were. The simple and naïve sounds is much nicer on the ears.

  54. I instantly thought of “Walking on Sunshine” too. But whole movies have been based on it, so I always think of it as a great song that’s been beat to death. It makes good use of a horn section in the second half of the song.

    Last weekend was one of the best local festivals with multiple music stages going simultaneously. I practically ran a couple blocks when I heard The Byrds in the distance. They called themselves the B-Keepers. Keeping The Byrds alive?? It was fun hearing a number of The Byrds’ songs, though they desperately needed a better lead guitar.

  55. My take on Val•et and Val•ay is that;

    …a Val•ay , is the one who parks your car, and…

    …a Val•et is the one that takes care of your clothes.

    Of course, what do I know. There are potatoes or potahtoes, tomatoes or tomahtoes, but where I’m from they’re taters and maters.

  56. What is her accent? I think it’s not naturally 100% British – I’m catching a bit of broadness in the vowels that suggests Australia or somewhere similar, colonially. Or perhaps there is another more recent accent laid over the top. Can’t tell.

  57. TommyJay,

    If you like the Byrds have you heard the song, “Starry Eyes” by The Records?
    https://youtu.be/lAH1ioLiaHw

    Guitarist Brian Alterman is definitely channeling The Byrds in the song. I really recommend giving it a listen. It’s almost like what The Byrds would have done had they been 10 years younger. It’s one of my favorite songs. It wasn’t particularly huge, but it was fairly popular. It charted on the UK and U.S. hot 100. Yet I think a lot of folks would not recall ever hearing it.

    It’s funny, reading the comments to the youtube video most people seem to feel the same as me; it’s an amazing, wonderful, nearly perfect pop song that nothing much happened with.

    Since it came out in the days of only radio and it didn’t get much play I didn’t know who did it, and I only had a guess at the title based on the chorus. Yet it stayed with me for decades until the Internet came around and I was able to search and find it. To be honest I was a little disappointed when I read the lyrics and learned the theme of the song. I had invented my own story in my head, imagining a rock star singing about a young fan who was smitten by him, gently telling her to move on. That’s not what it’s about at all. It just sounded like a love song to me. Learning the theme actually knocked it down a half a peg in my reverence. Maybe I’ll write my own lyrics for it one day. 😉

  58. The best breakup song is Already Gone by the Eagles.

    There is a very good podcast, The History of English. It is nice litte 30-minute bites that explain how the language has evolved over time.

    One of the interesting bits for me is that the Greek Zeus and the Latin Jupiter both mean sky father, and are derived from an Indo-European word that sounded like “pater.”

  59. Aggie,

    My guess was born in the U.K. but educated to eliminate her natural accent. I worked with a guy who took voice lessons to eliminate his Minnesota accent in hopes of being a voice personality. It was incredible! I would have never guessed his background had he not told me.

  60. Gordon Scott, good call on, “Already Gone!”

    My wife’s favorite, almost break up song is Johnny Taylor’s, “Cheaper to Keep Her.” When she does something particularly scatter-brained or one of her schemes backfires like an episode of, “I Love Lucy,” and she senses my patience wearing thin, she’ll start singing that song while dancing like she’s one of Johnny’s back-up singers.

  61. I had not heard Starry Eyes. They’ve very definitely got all the style and licks of The Byrds. And I like the song. But the thing about the Byrds’ songs that I like the most is that even though the rhythm guitar always has that brightness and joyousness, there is an undertone of poignancy or sadness or the ethereal. Is it just the lyrics or do they use minor keys? I’m not sure. That’s why I love their material.

    I love Already Gone too.
    I was at a minor outdoor arts and food event some weeks ago. A busker was there and did a couple nice songs. I was about to leave when he began to perform a very nice rendition of Tequila Sunrise. I asked if Jackson Browne had co-written that (he hadn’t) but it prompted the guy to do Take It Easy.

    The surprising thing was that there were a couple people working the event aged perhaps 25 who sang along word perfect. Now I am particularly bad at that, and others aren’t but it still amazed me. The same thing happened at a wedding I attended recently. Is the reason because Youtube often shows lyrics along with the song? Or is it karaoke? Or is it just young people really liking the old stuff and learning it?

    I gotta check out Cheaper to Keep Her.

  63. @ JohnTyler > “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch”

    I’ve been studying Welsh for some years now as part of an annual heritage conference (getting together with other people who have Welsh ancestors to study, sing, dance, and generally have a jolly old time).

    The language looks intimidating because what we call consonants, they use as vowels: w and y (literally pronounced “double u”, and “i” or “uh”).
    Also, the long words are much easier when you break them up into components, as if there were hyphens (very much like German polysyllabic portmanteau concoctions, you can stack nouns and adjectives together ad infinitum).
    Note: the hyphen you included is NOT in the original, and is in the wrong place anyway, probably cut-and-pasted from a wrap-around line in your source.

    “Llan fair pwll gwyn gyll go ger y chwyrn drobwll llan tysilio gogo goch”

    Wikipedia:

    Literally translated, the long form of the name means:
    (their notations, I’ve added a couple for clarity)
    [words that are understood from the grammar, but not explicitly included, some of which I’ve altered for accuracy]

    “[The] church (Llan) [of St.] Mary (Mair, mutated) (Llanfair) [of the] pool (pwll) [of the] white hazels (gwyn gyll) near to [lit. “over against”] (go ger) the fierce whirlpool (y chwyrn drobwll) [and the] church [of St.] Tysilio (Llantysilio) [of the] red cave (-ogo [cave, feminine noun, mutated] goch (red), [because usually the adjective follows the noun, which is why there is this alternate version]”.
    Various elements have occasionally been translated differently, for example “the white pool among the hazel trees” or “the cave of St Tysilio the Red”.

    The original name of the town was only about half that long, but the Victorian-era residents lengthened it as a publicity stunt to draw tourists – and it worked!
    We visited there about 12 years ago on a tour of Wales with our conference buddies.

    This reference includes a break-down of the translation, which is still obscure to non-Welsh speakers (what are mutations??), a video of a weatherman giving a report for the town (almost certainly a publicity stunt), and some other information and pictures, including one with a semi-phonetic version of the pronunciation, assuming you already know how to say “ll” (an aspirated “l”), and a video sounding out each syllable.

    https://welearnwelsh.com/blog/llanfairpwllgwyngyll-origin-meaning-english/

    Pronunciation explained: BUT their “ych wyrn” is wrong; say “uh chwirrrn” instead.
    https://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/say.php

    Wiki again, if you really want to know:

    The ?ch? is a voiceless uvular fricative [?] or voiceless velar fricative [x] as in Bach ([bax]: see ach-Laut) in most varieties of German. The sound [x] is absent from many dialects of Modern English, but existed in older versions of English and is retained in a few modern dialects (such as Scottish English). The ?ll? is a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [?], a sound that has never occurred in English.

    Digraphs: “ll” is phonetically and orthographically a single letter, but the early type setters didn’t want to add more unique letters to their Latin supply, and so just doubled the l. Likewise with the (again) single letters “ch”, “dd”, “ff”, “ng”, “ll”, “ph”, “rh”, “th” all of which occur in their own locations in the alphabet.
    To preserve the conservation of letters, the Welsh alphabet did not include J, K, Q, V, X, or Z (they are sometimes used in loan-words).
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_orthography

    Pob hwyl (best wishes, literally “all luck”)!

  64. One year later, it’s still the Pretender, Biden Graham Allen tweets that it looks like Baghdad is about the become the next Kabul.

    “Biden’s 0 for 2,” he warily comments.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/reports-us-embassy-being-evacuated-baghdads-green-zone-breached

    To catch you up, Iraq has been deadlocked without a government in parliament. The Shi’ite leader Muqtahda(?) al Sadrhas decided to renounce politics and gun battles started, even going into the “secure” Green Zone have broken out.
    .
    Earlier, the Sadr supporters torched the Iran-backed group Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s headquarters in Baghdad

    Body counts of 5 dead became 15, then 35. Although as things get closer to dawn, things appear quieter.

    Qatar has advised its national to leave the country, with other Gulf States expected to follow.

    As usua, the White House denied reports of any exodus from the US Embassy there, despite video showing Army helicopters doing something suspiciously like ie.

    MOAR DementiaDent, please!

  65. From the LI post, commenter gospace: “The CYA movement has begun.”

    https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/fbi-special-agent-who-opened-trump-investigation-reportedly-escorted

    FBI special agent who opened Trump investigation reportedly escorted out of Bureau
    “Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”

    More pundits:
    https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/08/29/fbi-agent-named-in-alleged-bias-regarding-investigations-of-hunter-biden-and-trump-just-got-the-boot-n619788

    https://redstate.com/slee/2022/08/29/who-is-fbi-agent-timothy-thibault-n619796

  67. Once upon a time, we had some Spanish-speaking students going nuts on “ship”, “Sheep”, “shit” “sheet” and several others.

    Explaining the “magic e” is tough. First you do long and short vowels and then explain how a letter separated from them, or not present, affects the pronunciation. It’s not hard to follow, by why it got drug into English is a poser.

    “hat” “hate”

    One kid from somewhere down south was explaining Christmas customs. In Spanish, “j” is usually “h” at the beginning of a syllable. So they compensate. This kid compensated one time too many.
    Apparently, there is dish called “jacass”. which should be pronounced “hacass”. And so she told us the Holy Family ate their “jackass”. Why they should eat their ride was not explained. Hilarious.

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