(GEN) Reviewers Please Read...

Ah, yes. Probably brought to us by the same E6 or O1 who gave us "at this particular point in time," when he meant to say "now." Funny thing about the word though-linguistically speaking. If its use is universally understood by those who hear it, then it can not be considered a non-word. There are two kinds of grammar: prescriptive, or how we SHOULD speak, and DEscriptive, how we DO speak. Eventually such words (such as 'dis') make it into our lexicon. In fact I remember reading a few years ago that both forms of 'regardless' are now considered acceptable. I resisted correcting Drill Sergeants who said 'irregardless' for years, as it seems to be one of their favorite words, as in, "Irregardless of what you think, Jones, I CAN fit your mattress into your wall locker."

Final point about a post below. The use of the word 'nucular' should not cast doubts about the speaker's intelligence. Consonant clusters, as they are called, are a problem for many people. Many otherwise proper speakers of English cannot pronounce 'athlete' either, without adding the extra vowel between the syllables. It's like asking an English speaker to to pronounce the 'ng' sounds prevalent in African languages at the beginning of words, or the word 'fsyo' in Russian. Or there's the division of Arabic letters between solar and lunar. The 'l' in the article 'al' is either pronounced or not, depending upon the letter which follows. Sorry for the long post, but languages are kind of a thing with me. Too bad my English suffers because of it.

Reply to
Robert Skipper
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Thank your lucky stars they put punctuation between the words. I can just see trying to make sense of your example without any punctuation.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Reply to
Bill Banaszak

You are joking, right? You do realize (or realise, as the case may be) that both "z" and "s" spellings are actually correct in those cases? You do realise (or realize) that the "s" spellings tend to be UK-an English and the "z" versions are Americanese-English?

Am I the only one here who owns an unabridged dictionary?

Can't help you on "the/tha" or "filim/film", but both "zed" and "zee" are correct, with "zed" being the Britishese version and "zee" being the Yankese version.

DLF

Reply to
David Ferris

Being a writer dude by trade, I keep a pile of dictionaries and thesauri right here on my desk next to the computer. One of my most useful references is a sort of combination thesaurus, list of "Briticisms and Americanisms," colloquialisms, grammar rules, and classical quotations entitled "100,000 Synonyms and Antonyms" by the Right Reverend Samuel Fallows and written in 1883.

It's interesting to see how much the meanings of words have changed just in the last 120 years. Whenever someone vents about changes in a word's meaning, all I can say is, "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." Or something like that.

And even though I *know* the correct spelling is "definite," I still get it wrong from time to time. I blame failing eyesight, failing memory, and the fact that I'm a bonehead. And I know starting a sentence with "and" is supposed to be bad. And sentence fragments. Passive voice I know is naughty too.

DLF (Still painting those 1/1200 scale Yalu ships. Finished the Chinese yesterday, now have five of the Japanese ships done and the other eight in progress.)

Reply to
David Ferris

For that matter, pronunciation (by itself) should not be used as a gauge of a speaker's intelligence. I've been axed questions by several people who were college-educated, mid-level managers who were quite intelligent and articulate. They just couldn't pronounce the word "ask" the same way most of the rest of us do.

The other word that goes with that is "strength"; some people can't quite get that "g" sound in there.

I've also run across a couple of people who read quite a lot, but whose verbal contact with other people was rather limited, so their vocabulary was good but their pronunciations were often strange. They knew what the words meant but they'd never heard them out loud before so they had to guess at the pronunciations.

DLF

Reply to
David Ferris

That certainly is a unique pet peeve. ;-)

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

Reply to
WmB

A common phonetic usage as zee can sound like cee in an noisy transmission. Personally I prefer zebra from the international phonetic alphabet.

Reply to
Ron

not the locomotive works....they were making some heavy iron and many euro guage loco's.

Reply to
e

OK, when exactly did they stop teaching phonetics in kindergarten and the first few grades? Holy Batfuck Robin, they've stopped teaching something useful and actually inoffensive? Just how the hell do you get AX out of the letters ASK in that order? Even as a kid I could pronounce anything I read reasonably well, rhinoceros threw me but that's it! Now pronounce the following...GHOTI.....think phonetically......really think........answer next post.......

David Ferris wrote:

Reply to
Ron

Answer.......GHOTI=FISH.......GH phoneme from lauGH, O phoneme from wOmen, TI phoneme from acTIon......I told you thinking was required.

Reply to
Ron

Good lord!

Judging from the length and depth of this thread there must one hell of a lot of paint and glue drying of late. :-)

Tom

Reply to
Maiesm72

But apparently no cement--it seems to be curing.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

My suggestion: If you run into Woody Allen, make sure what you run into him with is an H2. Wouldn't want him to suffer, if only to avoid the whiny litany.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

Panther (although this can be attributed to a South American spieces too) Catamount Mountain Lion Kitty Cat

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

Many uses of s for z (and c for s) are valid, and perhaps preferred in Great Britain. Likewise ou for o, such as colour. The one that always twists my eyes is 'gaol' for 'jail,' but consider this--as a terrorism defence, realise that the more complicated English is, the more trouble the non-native-born will have learning it.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

Yes, I am constantly bollixed by people saying or writing phrases like 'almost unique,' 'very unique,' 'in a unique class, 'more unique,' and so on. I even heard a wine described as 'uniquely similar' to another wine, which I guess might mean that it was the only wine that was similar to the second wine. In all cases, the problem is the same. People mean 'unusual' but they say 'unique' in a mistaken effort to add emphasis. Either that, or they're simply trying to be pompous.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

If you run into Woody Allen carrying an axe, take it off him and use it as nature intended....

RobG (the Aussie > >

Reply to
Rob Grinberg

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