Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 13:13:41 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Yvonne Lehey <yvonne@lemis.com> Subject: Re: Regulated names (was: Crazy Laws) Message-ID: <36878405.9948BBC9@uk.radan.com> References: <4.1.19981224112052.05a31740@127.0.0.1> <4.1.19981224174155.03dd8670@127.0.0.1> <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> <36861F86.2761847A@uk.radan.com> <19981228100054.N12346@freebie.lemis.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Greg Lehey wrote: > > >>> > >>> Whereas Americans simply _remove_ (mainly) vowls from English words :-) > >> > > Er Greg, note the ``:-)''. I was making a friendly jibe at the American > > spelling of words like colour. > > Oh. That's not a vowel, that's a letter. They pronounce the second > vowel much the same way as the English do: schwa. > OK, you mean vowels in the phonetic sense. I meant in the simple sense, the letters a, e, i, o, u. It was only a little joke (which has fallen flat ;-) ). > > But what is the distinction between a French word and an English word of > > French origin? > > A good question. Depends on who you ask. > Well, my understanding is that the OED is the definition of the English language. New words are added to it as they come into common usage (although I think they're beginning to lose the plot a little with some of the ~2000 new 'words' they added to the current edition, like "pwhoar" :-/). The word "gateau" is in the OED, which means that it can be considered an English word, but definitely of French origin, and so one would expect a different pronounciation to the original. > >> Even those who get French vowels more or less > >> right will consistently put the accent on the wrong syllable, which I > >> find a great source of amusement (my wife, Yvonne, is almost always > >> mispronounced). > > > > What is the correct pronounciation of Yvonne? > > Damn, I wish I had phonetic symbols here. The Y is a long pure I > (which some people represent `ee'), the o is a short pure o (as in > English `off'; I don't think the Americans use this sound). The > important thing is that the accent is on the second (last) syllable. > and Yvonne added (in another post): > Definitely not Eeeeeeevonne! ;-) Ah!, we agree on something ;-). I was puzzled by your statement as I pronounce Yvonne as you describe, but I have heard some people say ``Eeeeeeevonne''. > > We almost universally say ``Pie-ella'' which is completely wrong, but > > the Spanish sound ``ll'' doesn't exist in English > > Sure it does. It's the sound in `million'. Where did your Spanish > people come from? It's the Welsh `ll' that's unpronounceable. > Alicante, and I certainly couldn't hear any ``ll'' (as in million) in their pronounciation of it. My attempts to pronounce it correctly was a great source of amusement to them. > > Greg > -- > See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers > finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key -- Trust the computer industry to shorten Year 2000 to Y2K. It was this thinking that caused the problem in the first place. Mark Ovens, CNC Applications Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd Sheet Metal CAD/CAM Solutions mailto:marko@uk.radan.com http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?36878405.9948BBC9>