Favorite Quotes (3 Viewers)

[Mark_]

Back on topic....

"Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant" - Cary Grant.

 

[CJ_London]

I find place name pronunciation interesting- there is a town in England called Ashby-de-la- Zouch, pronounced ‘zoosh’ a few miles away from there is a village called Zouch, pronounced ‘zotch’

I was in my thirties when my pronunciation of Arkansas was corrected from ‘ar Kansas’ to ‘ark in saw’. Hope I got that right

 

[DickyP]

Not to mention that here in Norfolk we have a village spelled Happisburgh, but pronounced as if spelled Haisborough, like like the nearby Haisborough Sands is spelled!

We also have a part of Norwich spelled Costessy, but pronounced locally as Cossy, This caused mirth locally last year when a crime occurred and was reported of the BBC New as happening in COST-ESSY as it is spelled. Within 24 hours, obviously following complaints, they almost got the pronunciation right.

 

[KitaYama]

I sometimes think people in countries where English is the native language have too much free time to write letters they don’t even pronounce.

I’ll never understand why you should write a letter and then just skip it when speaking.
Letters were invented to make words and using them for communication, not to be ignored.
The first time our teacher told us that the S in island is not pronounced, we were like: “Haaa???? You're kidding me.”

Knight.
Through.
Queueing.
Wednesday.

Here's another one:
The psychologist listened to the knight’s subtle answer while they stood in a long queue.

Now count how many letters you didn’t pronounce.

 

[NauticalGent]

H

Not to mention that here in Norfolk...

Here in Virginia, the residents of the Tidewater area (where Norfolk is), the locals pronounce it "nor-Fick". We sailors had a few more burlesque ways of pronouncing it...

 

[DickyP]

....
Queueing.
..

A common pub quiz question - what is the only 5 letter word in English with 4 silent letters? Queue.

Then you could try the eccentric names: Mainwaring - pronounced Mannering, and Featherstonehaugh pronounced Fanshaw! Plus place names such as Wymondham pronounced Wind -am.

 

[RonPaii]

Manitowoc, a city in Manitowoc county, Wisconsin

MAN-it-ə-wok

 

[DickyP]

You can go on forever in England with this. One more post and I'll stop. Leicester pronounced Lester, and Derby pronounced Darby.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Then in south Louisiana, we have Yscloskey, a village (of sorts) where the first S is silent - why-closs-key. We also have Nachitoches, pronounced Nak-a-tish (trailing ES totally silent) not too far from Nacadoches, where you DO pronounce the trailing ES, as Nak-a-do-ches.

Part of our problem is that a lot of our place names were taken from the names used by the native Americans of the Choctaw nation, but the Choctaw language is not a written language, so the French explorers had to transliterate spoken Choctaw to written French. Which leads us to such strange names as Tchopitoulas (meaning "people who live by the water"). Or Bogue Chitto - black squirrel creek.

I was always amused by the UK place called Cholmondeley - pronounced chum-lee, or so I've been told. My ancestry research tells me that I have at least some ancestors from Worchestershire, which we pronounce woost-er-sheer.

I guess it could be worse.

 

[DickyP]

I was always amused by the UK place called Cholmondeley - pronounced chum-lee, or so I've been told. My ancestry research tells me that I have at least some ancestors from Worchestershire, which we pronounce woost-er-sheer.

It's Worcestershire not Worchestershire, and Cholmondeley as also a surname.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Ah, so for Worchestershire, I have to get the "H" out of there.

 

[Galaxiom]

"Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see" - Brother-in-law 1970

My father told me that one in the 1970s too, adding "and you will only be fooled some of the time".

 

[Galaxiom]

My all time favourite, attributed to playwright Eugene Ionesco is:

"Only the ephemeral is of any lasting value."

 

[Galaxiom]

To thine own self be true (Shakespeare)

The quote continues, "And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

A friend and I painted this on the door of our delipidated fridge in a vegetarian share house during my university days in 1978.

"To thine own self be true. Thou canst not then be false to any other living thing".

 

[Isaac]

I sometimes think people in countries where English is the native language have too much free time to write letters they don’t even pronounce.

I’ll never understand why you should write a letter and then just skip it when speaking.
Letters were invented to make words and using them for communication, not to be ignored.
The first time our teacher told us that the S in island is not pronounced, we were like: “Haaa???? You're kidding me.”

Knight.
Through.
Queueing.
Wednesday.

Here's another one:
The psychologist listened to the knight’s subtle answer while they stood in a long queue.

Now count how many letters you didn’t pronounce.

After hearing many people from 4-5 different ethnic backgrounds, who really know what they are talking about when it comes to learning other languages ... tell me that English is one of the more difficult ones to learn, I've come to accept that they are right.

Starting with what you have pointed out - a language sadly and completely divorced from phonics. I agree it makes absolutely no sense, but it is what it is at this point and would take an act of God to change.

Another difficult one is extremely, almost laughably different pronunciations that supposedly make up different words but are spelled the same - when I demonstrate to my wife (from Mexico) the difference in the pronunciations, sometimes she still can't even tell there is a difference.

Whereas Spanish, for example, follows their pronunciation and spelling rules, let's say ... 95 % of the time. English, maybe 30% of the time, the exceptions have become the rule

 

[Isaac]

Manitowoc, a city in Manitowoc county, Wisconsin

MAN-it-ə-wok

I grew up an hour or so from here. Plenty of native american influence in these names too. Then I moved to Oklahoma, where the same was true (different tribes)

 

[Isaac]

Then there are the positive aspects of how the USA, in particular, has organized itself which I may point out for reference. Here are systems that I think work exceptionally well and surprisingly (perhaps) are not true in very many countries!

• our system of social security numbers and credit reports
• our postal codes, as well as zip+4's
• the format of our addresses, which is remarkably consistent throughout the country
  • the format of our phone numbers, here's one which in many countries it seems nobody has agreed on the format. for ours it is simple: XXX[area]-XXX[prefix]-XXXX[last4]. 100% consistent. When I go to Mexico people write their phone numbers in 1000 different formats, and they even vary on the # of digits AND grouping,, so one person might say "the number to that store is 32-500-44859" another person might say "the number to that store is 50-04-4859". Crazy confusing and true in other countries as well

 

[RonPaii]

Then there are the positive aspects of how the USA, in particular, has organized itself which I may point out for reference. Here are systems that I think work exceptionally well and surprisingly (perhaps) are not true in very many countries!

• our system of social security numbers and credit reports
• our postal codes, as well as zip+4's
• the format of our addresses, which is remarkably consistent throughout the country
  • the format of our phone numbers, here's one which in many countries it seems nobody has agreed on the format. for ours it is simple: XXX[area]-XXX[prefix]-XXXX[last4]. 100% consistent. When I go to Mexico people write their phone numbers in 1000 different formats, and they even vary on the # of digits AND grouping,, so one person might say "the number to that store is 32-500-44859" another person might say "the number to that store is 50-04-4859". Crazy confusing and true in other countries as well

Some Wisconsin address begin with a letter followed by a number. This gave Google map fits until a few years ago.

 

[Galaxiom]

English spelling is so convoluted because it adopted words from so many languages. A lot of French words came through the Norman invasion. The French words for culinary dishes are used for haut cuisine while the original words the English persisted for the animals. Cow vs boeuf, pig vs porc etc.

There was a great debate during the compilation of dictionaries over whether phonetic spelling should be adopted at the time but the traditionalists prevailed. George Bernard Shaw was an advocate for phonetic spelling and his play, My Fair Lady was a comment on it to some extent.

English's foundation was Old German which also went up through Scandinavia and rejoined the English branch through the Norse invasions. People discovered their verbs had much in common at the roots but the variations for cases and tenses had drifted apart. So they just dropped that complexity which makes English grammar so much simpler.

Spanish words were also adopted. I think some of that came in through the notorious ship wrecking of the Spanish fleet during a failed invasion where Spanish sailors discovered they preferred to settle down with a pretty British girl they met on the beach rather than return to the Spanish navy. They certainly injected their genes into the particularly the coastal populations. The rh negative blood group originated in the Basque region but is found in Britain. My wife's ancestry is among them as she was O-.

I have yet to find an English word ending in "tion" that does not have a Spanish equivalent ending in "ccion".

BTW The Basque language is unique in that it has no other related languages and is considered to have stone age origins.