Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 10:07:51 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Regulated names (was: Crazy Laws) Message-ID: <19981228100751.P12346@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <3686A237.E0701780@uk.radan.com>; from Mark Ovens on Sun, Dec 27, 1998 at 09:10:15PM %2B0000 References: <368378AB.969463E2@uk.radan.com> <4.1.19981225181200.05a201b0@mail.lariat.org> <xzpg1a3mzhe.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <19981226131644.I12346@freebie.lemis.com> <4.1.19981226104824.05822710@mail.lariat.org> <36854A89.B393D402@uk.radan.com> <19981227112355.B12346@freebie.lemis.com> <4.1.19981227111018.057c04c0@mail.lariat.org> <4.1.19981227112512.059b06e0@mail.lariat.org> <3686A237.E0701780@uk.radan.com>
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On Sunday, 27 December 1998 at 21:10:15 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > Brett Glass wrote: >> At 01:25 PM 12/27/98 -0500, Pedro F. Giffuni wrote: >> >>> pah-ehh-yah is more like it... >> >> Somewhere in between, I think. It's not QUITE pronounced >> as a short "e". >> > > Which was the point I was making in my post. It's bloody difficult for > Engish speakers (and a few other languages by the sound of it) to > pronounce it _exactly_ right, as a Spanish speaker would because that > sound doesn't exist in English. Therefore, when some words come into > common use in another language the pronounciation changes, which is what > I said in reply to Brett stating > > "....when the English adopt a word from another language, they cannot > seem to use it as-is. They seem to feel COMPELLED to shift at least the > accented syllables and often the vowels.". It's not a problem of the sounds, all of which any native English speaker uses in normal conversation. The problem is representing them so that people can understand them. It doesn't even always help if they say them to you, because you'll subconsciously strip off the part that you attribute to their accent. True story: Some years back, in Germany, we had an American girl working with us, an unusual situation in those days. On one occasion, I was talking with one of my German colleagues about a (FORTRAN) program he was writing, and he referred to the `cummen' section. I said ``That's pronounced `common', not `cummen'''. He said, ``that's because you're Australian. The Americans pronounce it `cummen'''. So we asked (forgot what her name was) how she pronounced it. She said `common'. My German colleague said ``see? She said `cummen'''. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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