tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3771031244562260052024-03-17T09:14:14.078+00:00John Wells’s phonetic blogEverything to do with phonetics. Please note: comments not signed with your genuine name may be removed.John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger735125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-84719727787196066982016-10-02T19:11:00.001+01:002016-10-02T19:11:35.107+01:00and now...If you liked <i>Sounds Interesting</i>, you'll love <i>Sounds Fascinating</i>.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsdLesvJlqK2WTuu6zxhwStvT-nM9vxuw0ouHzJH1k19bk88hwZcatKg6sAKH6F4PqqMuyS2wYJb_a6MMVfqOKIk_WEWhpQYGMaDDnhVYm_76oWbDyG9oueXf6QzkRU4AdqFnX46n7sQ/s1600/9781107157798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsdLesvJlqK2WTuu6zxhwStvT-nM9vxuw0ouHzJH1k19bk88hwZcatKg6sAKH6F4PqqMuyS2wYJb_a6MMVfqOKIk_WEWhpQYGMaDDnhVYm_76oWbDyG9oueXf6QzkRU4AdqFnX46n7sQ/s400/9781107157798.jpg" width="280" height="400" /></a></div>John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com262tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-74733164601593668982014-09-16T16:02:00.001+01:002014-09-16T16:03:46.987+01:00soon be out...Available from the end of September.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuuANrMMuF4&feature=youtu.be"></a>
John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com65tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-41538987464078757922014-05-19T07:54:00.002+01:002014-05-19T13:15:44.532+01:00now in book form!Please now see <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/phonetics-and-phonology/sounds-interesting-observations-english-and-general-phonetics?format=PB">here</a>.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKpGMqKxX8pW_7ijmt5XPgflxrDv4WzxqUQFUMJiyJ1BLyTvD1hE5RYRR2IzP-F_IFooa3_7Yau_MKIrK9MQPsKqoVKmOYz_XDsZWZj6LhuOqD5vONPo9Q4qIqaeEg0cLYYUsLZA6fDW4/s1600/9781107427105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKpGMqKxX8pW_7ijmt5XPgflxrDv4WzxqUQFUMJiyJ1BLyTvD1hE5RYRR2IzP-F_IFooa3_7Yau_MKIrK9MQPsKqoVKmOYz_XDsZWZj6LhuOqD5vONPo9Q4qIqaeEg0cLYYUsLZA6fDW4/s320/9781107427105.jpg" /></a></div>John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com210tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-54025154158193221302013-04-22T08:05:00.000+01:002013-04-22T09:48:09.359+01:00click farewell<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRn893LNkZDyiv7QvU8iRmHXxxxOPRfoYdmRmfGVp6A9FmU3w9KByCfAas4HWh9ailJkG5kOwzvP8ODbrDJzFz4BScTnZiA5j_pnFBzCtfvPsv5AaHgjjCYVjkrSV5NE7hMUjv7t2WHo/s1600/mfecane.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnRn893LNkZDyiv7QvU8iRmHXxxxOPRfoYdmRmfGVp6A9FmU3w9KByCfAas4HWh9ailJkG5kOwzvP8ODbrDJzFz4BScTnZiA5j_pnFBzCtfvPsv5AaHgjjCYVjkrSV5NE7hMUjv7t2WHo/s320/mfecane.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>How come, you might ask, that a word spelled with <i>-c-</i> comes to be pronounced with an <b>l</b>? Why this gross discrepancy between spelling and sound, orthography and pronunciation?
<p>Blame the 1989 Kiel Convention of the IPA, which replaced the click symbols then in use, <b>ʇ ʗ ʖ</b>, by the current <b>ǀ ǃ ǁ</b>.
<p>Because the second syllable of this word is pronounced in Zulu with a voiceless dental click. Unfortunately in some fonts the currently official IPA symbol for this sound looks indistinguishable from a lower-case L.
<p>For further discussion, together with a number of sensible readers' comments, see my <a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/click-symbols.html">blog for 9 Sep 2009</a>.
<p> _ _ _
<p>…In fact over recent months I have increasingly been feeling that in this blog I have by now already said everything of interest that I want to say. And if I have nothing new to say, then the best plan is to stop talking.
<p>So I am now <b><i>discontinuing</i></b> my blog.
<p>Thank you, all those readers who have stayed with me over the seven years that I have been writing it. If you still need a regular fix, there are archives stretching back to 2006 for you to rummage through. <p>Goodbye, au revoir, tschüss, hwyl, cześć, tot ziens, до свидания, さようなら, ĝis! <p><b>ˌðæts \<u>ɪt</u></b></span>
John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com200tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-59664698740571763142013-04-19T10:04:00.000+01:002013-04-19T10:06:11.025+01:00Breughel
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg/220px-Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg/220px-Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Peasant_Wedding_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg" /></a>
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>We can’t agree on how to spell the name of the famous Dutch/Flemish painter(s): were Pieter B. the Elder and his relatives <i>Breughel, Brueghel, Breugel</i> or <i>Bruegel</i>?
<p>As is often the case with foreign names in English, we’re not entirely sure how to pronounce them, either.
<p>In Dutch this name is pronounced <b>ˈbrøːɣəl</b> (subject to the usual regional variationː possible diphthonging of the stressed vowel and devoicing of the velar, not to mention the variability in the second consonant), which is what you would expect for a spelling with <i>eu</i>. In turn, you would expect foreign-language <b>ø(ː)</b> to map onto nonrhotic English NURSE, as happens with French <i>deux</i> <b>dø</b> mapped onto BrE <b>dɜː</b> or German <i>Goethe</i> <b>ˈɡøːtə</b> onto BrE <b>ˈɡɜːtə</b>.
<p>Yet on the whole we call the painter not <b>ˈbrɜːɡl̩</b> but <b>ˈbrɔɪɡl̩</b>. Why?
<p>I can only suppose that our usual pronunciation is based on the spelling with <i>eu</i> interpreted according to the reading rules of German. If <i>Deutsch</i> is English <b>dɔɪtʃ</b> and <i>Freud</i> is <b>frɔɪd</b>, then <i>Breug(h)el</i> must be <b>ˈbrɔɪɡl̩</b>.
<p>For the same reason, even though <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder">Wikipedia</a> prefers the spelling <i>Bruegel</i> (which would prompt us towards a pronunciation <b>ˈbruːɡl̩</b>), most of us, I suspect, tend to spell the name with <i>eu</i>.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com81tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-80270891441089875472013-04-17T11:03:00.001+01:002013-04-17T11:14:29.634+01:00estuariality<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>I had a phone call a few days ago from someone trying to get in touch with David Rosewarne. The caller thought I might have his contact details. I was unable to help, since as far as I remember I have only met Rosewarne once, and that briefly; the last I heard of him was that he was working in Malaysia, but I do not know where he might be now.
<p>David Rosewarne’s great claim to fame is that in October 1984 he coined the expression “Estuary English”, in an <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/rosew.htm">article</a> published in the <i>Times Educational Supplement</i>.
<p>In doing so he gave expression to the widespread perception that Daniel Jones-style RP was gradually losing its status as the unquestioned standard accent of educated English people. Or, putting it a different way, that RP was changing by absorbing various sound changes that previously had been restricted to Cockney or other non-prestigious varieties.
<p>Two years earlier, in my <i>Accents of English</i>, I had written <blockquote>Throughout [London], the working-class accent is one which shares the general characteristics of Cockney. We shall refer to this accent as <b>popular London</b>. […] Middle-class speakers typically use an accent closer to RP than popular London. <i>But the vast majority of such speakers nevertheless have some regional characteristics</i> [emphasis added]. This kind of accent might be referred to as London (or, more generally, south-eastern) Regional Standard.</blockquote><center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMD2DZScDxN63quk6-f4qv9FNvJzqC1iORU1TpLH-RxvkNrJ83IBIIku_wrmJpTXc_9JAHm8lLyWSK0cBst0RtahVEqoJyo0dj9uc98SQJQe9LQ1SNty02N9JUjlgwFoPp43YTn4iD_o/s1600/lrs.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCMD2DZScDxN63quk6-f4qv9FNvJzqC1iORU1TpLH-RxvkNrJ83IBIIku_wrmJpTXc_9JAHm8lLyWSK0cBst0RtahVEqoJyo0dj9uc98SQJQe9LQ1SNty02N9JUjlgwFoPp43YTn4iD_o/s320/lrs.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>I added the warning <blockquote>It must be remembered that labels such as ‘popular London’, ‘London Regional Standard’ do not refer to entities we can reify but to areas along a continuum stretching from broad Cockney (itself something of an abstraction) to RP.</blockquote>
<p>So Rosewarne’s observations in a sense contained nothing new. He muddied the waters unhelpfully by referring to details of vocabulary and grammar (which have nothing to do with “a new variety of pronunciation”). But the name he coined, Estuary English, was taken up quite widely, gaining resonance eventually not only with journalists but also with the general public, to such an extent that we can now expect to be readily understood if we describe someone’s speech as “estuarial”.
<p>The estuary Rosewarne was thinking of was of course the Thames estuary, which in a geographical sense might be interpreted as extending from Teddington near Kingston upon Thames (the point where the river becomes tidal) down to Southend-on-Sea (where the Thames enters the North Sea). Rosewarne’s original article says “the heartland of this variety lies by the banks of the Thames and its estuary, but it seems to be the most influential accent in the south-east of England”; though later writers, particularly Coggle in his <i>Do you speak Estuary?</i> (1993) implied that it covered the entire southeast of the country. It was left to my colleague Joanna Przedlacka to demonstrate that it did no such thing (see her 2002 book <i>Estuary English?</i> and <a href=http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/przed.pdf>this summary</a>). Przedlacka demolished the claim that EE was a single entity sweeping the southeast. Rather, we have various sound changes emanating from working-class London speech, each spreading independently.
<p>Rosewarne’s suggestion that EE “may become the RP of the future” led to credulous excitement in the EFL world, particularly in central Europe and South America.
<p>It was in response to media and academic interest in the topic that in 1998 I set up a <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/">website</a> “to bring together as many documents as possible that relate to Estuary English, as a convenient resource for the many interested enquirers.”
<p>One thing I did myself was to consider how we might agree on a phonetic transcription scheme, which would be needed for pedagogical purposes if we seriously wanted to teach this putative new accent. See this <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/transcree-uni.htm">article</a>. But no one followed this up by criticizing my proposals or suggesting anything better.<center>
<a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/transcribe.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/transcribe.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>All the excitement gradually died down. I last had cause to update the website in 2007. By the time I retired, in 2006, <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/x202-5as4-lecture.pdf">this</a> was my one-page summary of the issue. EFL teachers, meanwhile, mostly know that we just need to update our pedagogical model of RP in the minor ways outlined in LPD. <center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1QcTyGUXkRVsDOwdExuXfgXdnpROFxJdweJG_IBQYho8yDDmMYLYbuXEamhXbYFq9wl7IfwpK-01JBAskMwbCbn01KGmUUce1Fa-GV3GZuhpd6SYWMhni6ttxf4fQhrbrgTF1vxViipk/s1600/lpd_rp.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1QcTyGUXkRVsDOwdExuXfgXdnpROFxJdweJG_IBQYho8yDDmMYLYbuXEamhXbYFq9wl7IfwpK-01JBAskMwbCbn01KGmUUce1Fa-GV3GZuhpd6SYWMhni6ttxf4fQhrbrgTF1vxViipk/s320/lpd_rp.jpg" /></a></center>
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com210tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-7324757041659862522013-04-15T08:25:00.000+01:002013-04-15T08:38:55.188+01:00London place names<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p><a href="http://londonist.com">Londonist</a>, a website “about London and everything that happens in it” offers a <a href="http://londonist.com/2011/10/pronunciation.php">page of advice</a> on London place names.
<p>Some of the advice is a little surprising. <center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEmEX9xZmZoSjWeJIBr4dlnT-KA1B_2_CEjyMY6B7GRT9Z5ZNQEXHMh4rkycwgi7htw_D3VG16Wdv4rLtv1xs7ihV4saIO-BNr8u9GY2JIhEJzbvogXTrwhkAKZxrtUfzEbpCKV-GyoY/s1600/londonpronounce1,jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEmEX9xZmZoSjWeJIBr4dlnT-KA1B_2_CEjyMY6B7GRT9Z5ZNQEXHMh4rkycwgi7htw_D3VG16Wdv4rLtv1xs7ihV4saIO-BNr8u9GY2JIhEJzbvogXTrwhkAKZxrtUfzEbpCKV-GyoY/s320/londonpronounce1,jpg.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>These names are normally <b>ˈɔːldwɪtʃ, ˈbʌrə, kəˈdʌɡən, ˈtʃɪzɪk, ˈklæpəm, ˈdeʔfəd, ˈdʌlɪdʒ</b>. RP usually distinguishes <b>ˈɔːl</b> from <b>əʊl</b> and <b>ɒl</b> (so that <i>Paul ≠ pole ≠ Poll(y)</i>), and <i>Aldwych</i> has <b>ɔːl</b> or possibly <b>ɒl</b>, but not <b>əʊl</b>. Of course many speakers have the GOAT allophone <b>ɒʊ</b> when dark <b>l</b> follows, as here; and Londoners tend to vocalize dark <b>l</b>, making <i>cold</i> <b>kɒod</b>; but I had thought that most would not merge the result with the <b>ɔːo</b> of l-vocalized <i>called</i>. Hence I am surprised to see <i>Aldwich</i> explained as “old witch”; though I suppose “all’d witch” or “auld witch” would be orthographically awkward. (Anyhow, the main point is that <i>-wych</i> stands for <b>wɪtʃ</b>, not <b>wɪk</b>.)
<p>With <i>Clapham</i>, the basic <b>ˈklæpəm </b> can of course be reduced to <b>ˈklæʔm̩</b> by the regular processes of syllabic consonant formation and glottalling. <p>The final consonant in <i>Dulwich</i> is, in my judgment, more often <b>dʒ</b> than <b>tʃ</b>, though both are possible; it’s odd that the anonymous author should prescribe the voiceless affricate in <i>Dulwich</i> but the voiced one in <i>Greenwich</i> and <i>Woolwich</i>, where the same hesitation between the two possibilities for <i>-ch</i> applies.<center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUO3b8dcmCSzvn2_xfK2Q687Zldhhl7smCk6kZadROAsGbUAY0qX6Q1_hskMVO9TPmdqQlxSm2H7jkV2OSSppfnpyRFXbcOSUNcEMXhWbNKmfx8Al-m8X8OrZHnlqUt0bbaNqY0ljxpA/s1600/londonpronounce2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUO3b8dcmCSzvn2_xfK2Q687Zldhhl7smCk6kZadROAsGbUAY0qX6Q1_hskMVO9TPmdqQlxSm2H7jkV2OSSppfnpyRFXbcOSUNcEMXhWbNKmfx8Al-m8X8OrZHnlqUt0bbaNqY0ljxpA/s320/londonpronounce2.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>That’s <b>ˈhəʊbən, ˈhɒmətən, ˈaɪzəlwɜːθ</b>, with the usual syllabic-consonant options, plus possible glottalling in <b>ˈhɒməʔn̩</b> and weakening in <b>ˈaɪzl̩wəθ</b> (or, of course, a more London-y <b>ˈɑɪzowəf</b>). Initial <b>h</b> is just as likely to be dropped/retained in <i>Holborn</i> as in <i>Homerton</i>.
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5MOc-yr5lzHU8vccwIvvVEYpMoGPBmuIixOuj422YaBjI3UTry1RoD4RWe9CJM18BHxIet1A9dBRvoxh4J6a_81OQQPUAKnABs584bWl6oxd9MvnvEQnMjAhVZi_EgWRJSj6zuXRJfCw/s1600/londonpronounce3.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5MOc-yr5lzHU8vccwIvvVEYpMoGPBmuIixOuj422YaBjI3UTry1RoD4RWe9CJM18BHxIet1A9dBRvoxh4J6a_81OQQPUAKnABs584bWl6oxd9MvnvEQnMjAhVZi_EgWRJSj6zuXRJfCw/s320/londonpronounce3.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>So, <b>ˈplɑːstəʊ</b> (though I’ll allow people from the north of England and the Americans to say <b>ˈplæstəʊ</b> if they prefer), <b>ˈrɒðəhaɪð, ˈraɪslɪp,ˈsʌðək, ˈstretəm, ˌθeɪdənˈbɔɪz, ˈtɒtənəm, ˈwɒpɪŋ</b>. Regular optional processes generate the variants <b>ˈrɒvəhaɪv, </b> <b>ˈstreʔm̩</b> and <b>ˈtɒʔnəm</b>; there is also an archaic variant <b>ˈredrɪf</b> (<i>Redriff</i>) for <a href= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherhithe><i>Rotherhithe</i></a>; and if you drop the <b>h</b> in the usual form you'll get an internal linking <b>r</b>, <b>ˈrɒvəraɪv</b>. The Cockney tube train driver on my AofE recording pronounces his part of London, Wapping, as <b>ˈwɒpʔɪn</b>.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com134tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-74564484576674842392013-04-12T08:25:00.002+01:002013-04-12T08:31:14.636+01:00money tree policy<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>Puns that work for some do not necessarily work for all. <p>Here’s a witticism from a letter-writer to the Guardian a month ago. But I suspect that this pun doesn’t exactly work for anyone at all, though it is close enough for us to get it.<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6vMYtByZZ-3_h3DGmro11zKalm4NsFLRAPgw74T-bF2izECI2GrUZdbKS7bAzYjlANc69A3GKizSYViga3FK38i9xbnfftXY3zooERrUvgPbHmBPe3RekqwNbwSXjN2ZAa63Mdr-NOBM/s1600/monetary.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6vMYtByZZ-3_h3DGmro11zKalm4NsFLRAPgw74T-bF2izECI2GrUZdbKS7bAzYjlANc69A3GKizSYViga3FK38i9xbnfftXY3zooERrUvgPbHmBPe3RekqwNbwSXjN2ZAa63Mdr-NOBM/s320/monetary.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>The Bank of England has a <a href="http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/Pages/overview.aspx">Monetary Policy Committee</a>, which is in the news from time to time. <center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg9dt2aECQ7ajEJizSR1r-vyAm1o5sldMvdvLaSHKXUrIhpZMGeLJ-qGs9R41pp7GuPyI3MTzc_9VSIZWtGV_tnStfUcNkeYIBBlrs0ZTKY1cZQzk9afXUAJnQIje8uRneK-JV48biEhv6SUn3UueJ_d4lZ1UwA4DbdNuqGmR4=" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg9dt2aECQ7ajEJizSR1r-vyAm1o5sldMvdvLaSHKXUrIhpZMGeLJ-qGs9R41pp7GuPyI3MTzc_9VSIZWtGV_tnStfUcNkeYIBBlrs0ZTKY1cZQzk9afXUAJnQIje8uRneK-JV48biEhv6SUn3UueJ_d4lZ1UwA4DbdNuqGmR4=" /></a></center>
<p>As we all know, money does not grow on trees, though if it did the tree it grew on would be a money tree. <p>The pronunciation of <i>monetary</i> is <b>ˈmʌnɪt(ə)ri</b>, with variants <b>ˈmɒn-, -ət-</b>. We can disregard the question of the vowel in the first syllable, which for some (most?) is the same as that of <i>money</i>, while for others it has the spelling-pronunciation vowel of <i>monitor</i> (which immediately destroys the pun). Let’s concentrate on the weak vowels. Is the rest of <i>monetary</i> pronounced as in <i>money tree</i> <b>ˈmʌni triː</b>?
<p>Not for those who have a lax happY vowel, phonetically similar to KIT rather than to FLEECE (like me). For me, <i>monetary</i> ends with <b>trɪ</b>, which feels and sounds different from my <i>tree</i> <b>triː</b>. On the other hand my <i>money</i> also ends with <b>ɪ</b>, which I <u>can</u> readily identify with the second syllable of <i>monetary</i>. If, though, in the second syllable of <i>monetary</i> I had a schwa <b>ə</b> (as many do), rather than my weak <b>ɪ</b>, then that too would destroy the pun, because this schwa could not be mistaken for my happY vowel. <p>To make the pun work you need a tense happY (so that <i>-tary</i> = <i>tree</i>), but you also need a lax happY (so that <i>money</i> =<i>mone(t)-</i>). And you can’t have it both ways at once.<p>A strong, AmE-style suffix vowel in <i>-ary</i> destroys the pun, too, since <b>tɛri</b> could not be mistaken for <i>tree</i>. To save the pun you need not just to weaken but actually to delete this vowel, since <b>təri</b> could not be mistaken for <i>tree</i>, though <b>tri</b> might.
<p>All in all, then, standup comics wanting to tell people a joke depending on this pun would have to be remarkably careful in their ‘diction’. </span>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "http://images-onepick-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?container=onepick&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bankofengland.co.uk%2FPublishingImages%2Fmpc_sept12.jpg" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEg9dt2aECQ7ajEJizSR1r-vyAm1o5sldMvdvLaSHKXUrIhpZMGeLJ-qGs9R41pp7GuPyI3MTzc_9VSIZWtGV_tnStfUcNkeYIBBlrs0ZTKY1cZQzk9afXUAJnQIje8uRneK-JV48biEhv6SUn3UueJ_d4lZ1UwA4DbdNuqGmR4=" -->John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-55864562565522121042013-04-10T07:31:00.001+01:002013-04-10T16:39:53.628+01:00listen once more<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9nchi5LCjKnZ-zM1awci4ww9jwQynXiSqJr_8VAmgkIz6lm1bMm1MKswcn2KGpst-brzOY5IRwBEbln1kx-MX_pKzGSTNH2wjyujytoXlaHjsMO4qca1KBKK4T7smgVvxF08yTvLeJhU/s1600/inamanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9nchi5LCjKnZ-zM1awci4ww9jwQynXiSqJr_8VAmgkIz6lm1bMm1MKswcn2KGpst-brzOY5IRwBEbln1kx-MX_pKzGSTNH2wjyujytoXlaHjsMO4qca1KBKK4T7smgVvxF08yTvLeJhU/s320/inamanner.jpg" /></a><p>When my three-volume <i>Accents of English</i> (Cambridge University Press, 1982) was published, it was accompanied by a cassette with recorded specimens. The same tape was also published by BBC English under the title <i>In a Manner of Speaking</i>. Both cassettes have been unavailable for many years. <p>From time to time, though, I get queries about them. Now, with the agreement of the publishers, I have had the tracks converted to digital form, and plan to make them freely available on the web.
<p>It will take me some time to edit the sound files, but I hope to make them all available within a few weeks. I have thrown together a quick-and-dirty
<a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/accentsanddialects/">web page</a> to link to them. So far only two sound files are available, out of the twenty or so that will complete the set. Please bear in mind that the recordings all date from 1982 or a few years earlier.
<p>The first is the specimen of RP, a test passage read by my former colleague Susan Ramsaran. (I use the same test passage for specimens of General American, Scottish, and New Zealand speech, to follow later.) The cassette inlay for it reads as follows.
<blockquote>RP is the standard accent of English in England, and the accent taught to overseas learners of English in many countries. <p>Some of its phonetic characteristics are as follows, with examples from the test passage. <ul><li>LOT has a rounded vowel, [<b>ɒ</b>]: <i>o’cl<u>o</u>ck, st<u>o</u>pped, v<u>o</u>dka</i>. <li>Non-rhotic distribution of /<b>r</b>/, historical /<b>r</b>/ having been lost except before a vowel: <i>wo<u>r</u>k, hou<u>r</u>, late<u>r</u>, sta<u>r</u>ted, ea<u>r</u>th tremo<u>r</u>, utte<u>r</u>ly</u> </i>[<b>ˈʌtl̩i</b>]. <li>Linking /<b>r</b>/, though, before a vowel: <i>afte<u>r</u> I’d had, quarte<u>r</u> of</i>; also intrusive /<b>r</b>/ between /<b>ə</b>/ and a following vowel: <i>vodka<u> </u>or</i>. <li>Centring diphthongs in NEAR , SQUARE, CURE: <i>st<u>eer</u>ing, <u>air</u>, f<u>ur</u>y, exp<u>er</u>ience, th<u>ere</u>, d<u>ur</u>ing. </i> <li>Weak suffix in <i>-ary</i>: <i>moment<u>ary</u></i> /<b>ˈməʊməntrɪ</b>/; but not in <i>-ile</i>: <i>host<u>ile</u></i> /<b>ˈhɒstaɪl</b>/. <li>Broad vowel, /<b>ɑː</b>/, in BATH: <i><u>a</u>fter, p<u>a</u>st, v<u>a</u>st, <u>a</u>sk</i>. <li>The vowels of THOUGHT, NORTH and FORCE are all identical: <i><u>awe</u>some, h<u>o</u>rse, f<u>o</u>rce</i>. <li>GOAT is a diphthong with a central starting point, [<b>əʊ</b>]: <i>dr<u>o</u>ve, l<u>o</u>cal, m<u>o</u>mentary</i>. <li>”Smoothing” may make a diphthong monophthongal when before another vowel: <i>thr<u>owi</u>ng</i> /<b>ˈθrəʊɪŋ</b>/ [<b>θrəɪŋ</b>], <i>d<u>ia</u>bolical</i> [<b>daə-</b>]; /<b>iː</b>/ and /<b>uː</b>/ may become [<b>ɪ, ʊ</b>] before a vowel: <i>tw<u>o o</u>’clock</i> [<b>ˈtʊəˈklɒk</b>]. <li>The yod semivowel /<b>j</b>/ is retained after /<b>t, d, n</b>/, sometimes after /<b>s, z</b>/: <i>d<u>u</u>ring, n<u>ew</u>, s<u>u</u>pernatural</i>.<li>Words such as <i>reall<u>y</u>, fur<u>y</u>, utterl<u>y</u>, fier<u>y</u></i> end in [<b>ɪ</b>]. (Compare [<b>i</b>] in many other accents.) </ul>
</blockquote>
<p>The second track is my discussion of RP, and in particular of the specimen offered. Here is what I say. (Phonetic transcriptions are in accordance with the printed book, iɡnoring the abbreviatory conventions etc. of LPD.)
<blockquote> Here [in the spoken specimen] you can note [...] the rounded vowel in words of the standard lexical set LOT, for example in the words <i>o’clock</i> <b>əˈklɒk</b>, <i>stopped</i> <b>stɒpt</b>, <i>vodka</i> <b>ˈvɒdkə</b>. This is a non-rhotic accent, i.e. historically it has undergone the innovation of R Dropping, so we have the pronunciations for example <i>work</i> <b>wɜːk</b>, <i>earth</i> <b>ɜːθ</b>, <i>tremor</i> <b>ˈtremə</b>, <i>hour</i> <b>ˈaʊə</b>, <i>later</i> <b>ˈleɪtə</b>, <i>started</i> <b>ˈstɑːtɪd</b>, <i>horse</i> <b>hɔːs</b>, and so on; in the word <i>utterly</i> <b>ˈʌtl̩ɪ</b>, so pronounced, you even hear a syllabic <b>l</b> that results from a dropped <b>r</b>. But we retain linking <b>r</b> before a following vowel, as in the phrases <i>after I’d had, a quarter of an hour</i>; compare <i>a quarter past</i>, where there’s no <b>r</b>. And we have intrusive <b>r</b> in the phrase <i>a double vodka or two</i>. <br />We have separate centring diphthong phonemes in the lexical sets NEAR, SQUARE and CURE. Examples in the passage are the words <i>experience</i> <b>ɪkˈspɪərɪəns</b>, <i>steering</i> <b>ˈstɪərɪŋ</b>, <i>there</i> <b>ðɛə</b>, <i>air</i> <b>ɛə</b>, <i>fury</i> <b>ˈfjʊərɪ</b>, and <i>during</i> <b>ˈdjʊərɪŋ</b>. <br />Suffix vowels: we have a weak suffix vowel in <i>momentaty</i> <b>ˈməʊməntrɪ</b>, but a strong one in <i>hostile</i> <b>ˈhɒstaɪl</b>. Words of the lexical set BATH have the ‘broad’, that is the long back vowel, <b>ɑː</b>, as in the words <i>after</i> <b>ˈɑːftə</b>, <i>past</i> <b>pɑːst</b>, <i>vast</i> <b>ˈvɑːst</b>, and <i>ask</i> <b>ɑːsk</b>. That’s the same vowel as in the word <i>calm</i> <b>kɑːm</b>, as you can hear, but different from the vowel of <i>gas</i> <b>ɡæs</b>. As far as the set CLOTH is concerned, we have the same vowel in <i>off</i> <b>ɒf</b>, as in <i>lot</i> <b>lɒt</b>, but this speaker says <b>rɔːθ</b> where I personally would say <b>rɒθ</b> <i>wrath</i>. We have variability within RP, as you know, for this. <br />We’ve got the same vowel in the sets THOUGHT and NORTH, as you can hear by comparing <i>awesome</i> <b>ˈɔːsm̩</b> with <i>horse</i> <b>hɔːs</b>; and the same vowel in words of the set NORTH as in those of the set FORCE, as you can see by comparing <i>horse</i> with <i>force</i> <b>fɔːs</b>. <br />The diphthong in GOAT has a central or even slightly front starting point; examples in the words <i>local</i> <b>ˈləʊkl̩</b>, <i>momentary</i> <b>ˈməʊməntrɪ</b>; and then we have the characteristic RP feature of “smoothing” in the phrase <b>ˈtʊə ˈklɒk</b>, that is
<i>two o’clock</i>, and in <b>ˈθrəɪŋ</b> <i>throwing</i>, though this speaker didn’t smooth in the word <i>quiet</i> <b>ˈkwaɪət</b>, which she pronounced like that rather than as <b>ˈkwaət</b>. In the word <i>diabolical</i> <b>daəˈbɒlɪkl̩</b>, on the other hand, she did smooth. <br />We have historical yod <b>j</b> retained in the words <i>new</i> <b>njuː</b>, and <i>during</i> <b>ˈdjʊərɪŋ</b>, and for this speaker even in the word <i>supernatural</i> <b>ˈsjuːpəˈnætʃərəl</b>, which I should call <b>ˈsuːpəˈnætʃərəl</b>.
</blockquote>
<p>You can’t leave comments on the recordings on the UCL site — but you can here, if you wish.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-22158227852452949392013-04-08T08:06:00.003+01:002013-04-08T08:14:15.777+01:00I must haplologize<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';">The other day I noticed a reporter on the BBC TV news pronouncing <i>deteriorate</i> as <b>diˈtɪərieɪt</b>. This pronunciation is a variant to which I attach a warning triangle in LPD (“pronunciation considered incorrect”), thereby grouping it with such other mispronunciations as <b>ˈɡriːviəs</b> and <b>prəˌnaʊnsiˈeɪʃn̩</b>.
<p><a href="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090105235349AAr5kg9"
>Googling around</a>, I find people puzzled not only about the correctness or otherwise of “deteriate” but also about why this (mis)pronunciation should have become popular.
<blockquote><b>Deteriorate vs deteriate?</b><br />
I have checked the dictionary and I can't seem to find this word 'deteriate', but I hear all sorts of people say it and I assume (from what they are talking about) this word really is deteriorate.<br />
So why do you think these people think deteriate is a word? <br />
—I think it's probably just their accent or how they were raised to say it, because you're right "deteriate" definitely isn't a word. A lot of people I know say it and it's really annoying. You should just show them this link [to an on-line dictionary entry for “deteriorate”].</blockquote> <a href="http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=932982">
And</a>
<blockquote>I forgive anyone making mistakes ..., but this pronunciation is not a mistake. It seems to be what a lot of people think is correct. What I wanted to know was, why?</blockquote>
<p>So in this view a word “exists” only if it’s in standard dictionaries. And the word is its spelling.
<p>And obviously the correct pronunciation is the one which follows the spelling.
<p>There are difficulties with this popular view. No one would claim that we ought to say <b>ˈkʌpbɔː(r)d</b> for <i>cupboard</i>, although that is what the spelling suggests. No one argues that we ought to pronounce a <b>w</b> in <i>wrong</i> or a <b>k</b> in <i>know</i>. And what about words that have only just come into use, whether spoken or written, but are not (yet) recorded in dictionaries? How can we follow their established spelling, if they haven’t yet got one? (I imagine all would agree that the onus is rather on the lexicographers to bring their dictionaries up to date.) What about words such as the BrE <i>scarper</i> ‘run away, escape, make off in haste’, where it is pretty clear that the usual spelling reflects the (non-rhotic) pronunciation, rather than the other way round?
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhPl-wl54CKj7emPxVbSNx4uJ7vGuyZejXThdKTJRKe4GAXYzFEeY11eVf10M3b90MWkbtqukvRJjnZgI3mQzD6NMbMdCTetBHl5hGEPvwlemdd6SkL2H8xpsND14bZXl5VN7y5y3z46s/s1600/oed_scarper.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhPl-wl54CKj7emPxVbSNx4uJ7vGuyZejXThdKTJRKe4GAXYzFEeY11eVf10M3b90MWkbtqukvRJjnZgI3mQzD6NMbMdCTetBHl5hGEPvwlemdd6SkL2H8xpsND14bZXl5VN7y5y3z46s/s320/oed_scarper.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>As for why people tend to simplify <b>diˈtɪəriəreɪt</b> to <b>diˈtɪərieɪt</b>, the answer must lie in the tendency to eliminate one of two adjacent identical consonants — the same tendency we see in <b>ˈprɒb(ə)li</b> for <b>ˈprɒbəbli</b> <i>probably</i>, <b>ˈlaɪb(ə)ri</b> for <b>ˈlaɪbrəri</b> <i>library</i> and so on. See <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0703a.htm">my blog for 7 March 2007</a> concerning <b>ˌsfɪɡməˈnɒmɪtə</b>, and that for <a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011_03_01_archive.html">1 Mar 2011</a> about <b>ˈkwɒntətɪv</b>.<p>This phenomenon is not dissimilation; the only term for it seems to be haplology. </span>
John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com82tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-67745063341094226822013-04-05T08:11:00.002+01:002013-04-05T08:14:35.655+01:00from Toledo to Laredo<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-mF5ISpgONIB9olE7cVoTuyKQ727mVeITP2XQAd_a3UQlC5JnkZ-Y2Hxjw5RWWYg1vjfDsnDFrCUeImoGWMrZu7LCjFCLlXAbtviRYiKK1c8WEwoeygd-NZVL8oe8gg-W65WvWY2XFc/s1600/lima.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ-mF5ISpgONIB9olE7cVoTuyKQ727mVeITP2XQAd_a3UQlC5JnkZ-Y2Hxjw5RWWYg1vjfDsnDFrCUeImoGWMrZu7LCjFCLlXAbtviRYiKK1c8WEwoeygd-NZVL8oe8gg-W65WvWY2XFc/s320/lima.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>In view of one commenter’s indignation this week about the Ohio placename <i>Lima</i>, pronounced differently from the identically spelt capital of Peru (see screenshot above of the LPD entry), I thought it was time for another repeat. Here’s a blog entry from 2007.
<p> _ _ _
<p>Driving to Gatwick Airport a few days ago to meet an arriving passenger, I passed through the village of <i>Burgh Heath</i>. As on previous occasions when I have travelled that route, I wondered idly how it’s pronounced. Is the first word <b>bɜː</b> or <b>ˈbʌrə</b>?
<p>When I got back home I looked it up in the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names (G. Pointon, 1990), which says it can be either. Just not <b>bɜːɡ</b>. <p>I further learnt that Burgh in Norfolk is <b>ˈbʌrə</b>, but Burgh in adjoining Suffolk is <b>bɜːɡ</b>. Things are different in the north of England: Burgh-by-Sands in Cumbria is metathesized to <b>brʌf</b>, which must mean that for many locals it’s more like [<b>brʊf</b>].
<p>It’s worse than <i>-ough</i>.
<p>Tomorrow I have to go to Birmingham. To reach my destination the map says I have to look for the road leading to <i>Alcester</i>. Er... what was that? I checked with my brother, who lives not too far away, and he says it’s <b>ˈɔːlstə</b>. Then I looked in LPD and found that I agree.
<p>And there’s no call for Americans to feel superior to the wacky British. In the States you never know what will happen with Spanish names. I remember passing through Salida, Colorado. That’s the Spanish for ‘exit’, and it was at the mouth of a canyon, so I thought that in English it would be <b>səˈliːdə</b>. But the local radio station announcers, who should know, pronounced it <b>səˈlaɪdə</b>.
<p>Even English-derived names can be surprising. I remember driving through Placerville, California, and discovering to my surprise that it was not <b>ˈpleɪsɚvɪl</b> but <b>ˈplæsɚvɪl</b>.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-58842767921031646552013-04-03T08:04:00.002+01:002013-04-03T08:12:14.162+01:00bravo lima oscar golf<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p> In an on-line forum discussion about what language teachers need to know about pronunciation, one unusual suggestion made was this, from <a href="http://www.ubd.edu.bn/academic/faculty/FASS/staff/profiles/deterding.html">David Deterding</a>: <blockquote> We should teach them the Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta alphabet. Then, when they cannot be understood [when spelling a word out aloud], they could easily solve the problem. (And it would also be brilliant for telling someone your name.)</blockquote>
<p>I agree that this is something that it is useful to know. I was taught it in my teens, as part of “corps” at school (= officer cadet training corps, playing at soldiers). I use it from time to time, particularly when giving information over the phone to travel agents, airline call centres and the like.
<p>It is particularly useful for distinguishing letters whose traditional names are easily confused, such as F <b>ef</b> and S <b>es</b> or T <b>tiː</b> and D <b>diː</b>. How much clearer to say <i>foxtrot</i> and <i>sierra</i>, <i>tango</i> and <i>delta</i>.
<p>That’s why in LPD I decided to include the relevant “communications code name” at the entry for each letter of the alphabet. Before we had the web it could be difficult to lay your hands on the list, though nowadays of course you can quickly access it on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FAA_Phonetic_and_Morse_Chart2.svg">Wikipedia</a>. For avoidance of doubt, as the lawyers say, it goes <i>Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu</i>.
<p>Although it’s often known as the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, it is neither an alphabet (it’s a list of letter names) nor particularly phonetic, and NATO is only one of a number of international organizations that have adopted it.
<p>The list on the Wikipedia page includes a column headed “phonic (pronunciation)”, which explains the intended pronunciation of each letter name by respelling it in accordance with English spelling conventions, with all the ambiguity that can imply.
<p>So, although <i>Delta</i> is keyed to “DELL-TAH”, it is normally pronounced by speakers of English as <b>ˈdeltə</b> (rather than the <b>ˈdeltɑː</b> that could be implied by this respelling). There is no indication of stress in the list given (though there is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiotelephony_Spelling_Alphabet_%281955%29.jpg">here</a>), so while anglophones will say <i>Uniform</i> (“YOU-NEE-FORM or OO-NEE-FORM”) as <b>ˈjuːnɪfɔː(r)m</b>, francophones, for example, are apparently free to stress it anywhere or nowhere, in accordance with their native habits. On the other hand we English speakers are supposed to stress <i>Papa</i> with final-syllable stress and to say <i>Quebec</i> with no <b>w</b>. No one seems to take any notice of the instruction to pronounce <i>Golf</i> as if it were <i>Gulf</i>. The Wikipedia page has an analysis of the various versions to be found in officially recommended recordings.
<p>The choice of letter names has changed slightly over the years. When I learnt them in the 1950s, N was called <i>Nectar</i>. Clearly, <i>November </i> is an improvement, being less likely to be confused with <i>Victor</i>.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-22376707992890922502013-04-01T08:36:00.000+01:002013-04-01T08:40:10.193+01:00a new sound<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>I thought that for today I’d recycle a blog entry from seven years ago, seeing that it may well still be of interest. <p>_ _ _
<p>My colleague Olaf Lipor tells me that the International Phonetic Asssociation is considering recognizing a further new symbol, in order to cater for the voiced linguolabial trill, a sound-type recently discovered to be used contrastively in Caslon and Ki-Flong, languages spoken on the island of San Serriffe.<p>Linguolabials, articulated by the tongue tip against the upper lip, are very rare in the languages of the world. Nevertheless linguolabial plosives, fricatives, and a nasal are known to occur in a cluster of languages in the island state of Vanuatu. Among these languages are <a href=>Tangoa and Vao</a>. But until now there had been no report of a linguolabial trill. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcd1JN54_FPIVdpzkEDLauFbcvcGhnI4ql8aUT2NN9AavmacNQf5cYwtxmMmSwQTaft_SdcOgc8WYN3jiH4G3_TCSHxrZDW5a8UYLPiSjpNi4VYCwXVtSlM-oB1E4FlRkaqUnH5ICazX8/s1600/linguolabial-r.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" align=right src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcd1JN54_FPIVdpzkEDLauFbcvcGhnI4ql8aUT2NN9AavmacNQf5cYwtxmMmSwQTaft_SdcOgc8WYN3jiH4G3_TCSHxrZDW5a8UYLPiSjpNi4VYCwXVtSlM-oB1E4FlRkaqUnH5ICazX8/s320/linguolabial-r.jpg" /></a><p>The way in which the IPA would symbolize the new sound is with the ‘combining seagull below’ diacritic, U+033C, thus [<b>r̼</b>].
<p>Incidentally, we are hoping to have the Serriffean phonetician Dr Charis Doulos, a native speaker of Caslon and the person who first described the linguolabial trill, come to UCL Phonetics & Linguistics as an academic visitor at this time next year. She will no doubt be willing to act as a language consultant for our practical phonetics class, so that the students can have the opportunity of observing the sound first-hand and of learning to perform it to the native speaker’s satisfaction.<p>The island of
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Serriffe">San Serriffe</a> sprang to world fame as a consequence of a <a href="http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/af_1977.html">feature article</a> in the Guardian newspaper, published on 1 April 1977, the tenth anniversary of its independence. But at that time its native languages had not been thoroughly investigated. </p> <p> _ _ _
<p>Since writing the above, I have come across a report of an Amerindian language, <a href ="http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rosemary/55-fall2003-onomatopoeia.pdf">Santo Domingo Coatlán Zapotec</a>, in which this sound is now, excitingly, further attested, though disappointingly not as part of the phonemic inventory:
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7Wf1jIfoHbtFVXorbTKLN5RyHrD1nuGsdCH9TQC4nexkXat26yTmheePHLS4A5R5r8B8GyRE2lKDWKwaLaXjE8BuPVArPabnU2sDjaGIU8jqKiIqmIQiLlM2DVbbWOa0tPNboP3fSiw/s1600/clz.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7Wf1jIfoHbtFVXorbTKLN5RyHrD1nuGsdCH9TQC4nexkXat26yTmheePHLS4A5R5r8B8GyRE2lKDWKwaLaXjE8BuPVArPabnU2sDjaGIU8jqKiIqmIQiLlM2DVbbWOa0tPNboP3fSiw/s320/clz.jpg" /></a>
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-19212106691045362032013-03-29T08:26:00.001+00:002013-03-29T08:56:23.203+00:00Atherton<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>The village of Atherton in Greater Manchester (formerly, in Lancashire) has recently been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-21951289">in the news</a>. It is quite near where I grew up, so I am confident in saying that it is pronounced <b>ˈæðətən</b>.
<p>As we know, the spelling digraph <i>th</i> regularly corresponds to two distinct phonemes in English: <b>θ</b> as in <i>thin</i> and <b>ð</b> as in <i>this</i>. (For the moment we can forget the occasional irregular correspondences, as for example to <b>t</b> in <i>Thomas</i>.)
<p>The rule is easy in word-initial position. In LPD I expressed it like this: <center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCuVerddygHNl6oNCYhjABgBeB25Pblbl8883XPV9u-BvHSykci1gAEHw2j5tvTvyzDoU6uTcLOg-XNtMnUaDyWShrgdGD7I5JRwZVJK1P2_C4w5PIYCZUyUJ-tSTThSTOH1fKimYHH8E/s1600/th-anlaut.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCuVerddygHNl6oNCYhjABgBeB25Pblbl8883XPV9u-BvHSykci1gAEHw2j5tvTvyzDoU6uTcLOg-XNtMnUaDyWShrgdGD7I5JRwZVJK1P2_C4w5PIYCZUyUJ-tSTThSTOH1fKimYHH8E/s320/th-anlaut.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Word-medially, it generally depends on whether or not the word is of Germanic origin: <center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCiS341t5Ch4rxfQp-fGP7357ak49StI0Sj6JN8ijAUSEq5jJRemwFaKcDCMperadcadwwOGXzr1dcWiAWiWrkB0B0EJZq0gNsYvIC9y8I51tntZFyhtLbbNrL22VaRxeeckjAC9U_KY/s1600/th-inlaut.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpCiS341t5Ch4rxfQp-fGP7357ak49StI0Sj6JN8ijAUSEq5jJRemwFaKcDCMperadcadwwOGXzr1dcWiAWiWrkB0B0EJZq0gNsYvIC9y8I51tntZFyhtLbbNrL22VaRxeeckjAC9U_KY/s320/th-inlaut.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Since <i>Atherton</i> is obviously of Germanic origin (‘farmstead of a man called Æthelhere’), it is indeed expected that the fricative would be voiced, as also in <i>Brotherton, Netherfield, Rotherham</i>, etc. <p>As a surname, however, <i>Atherton</i> is often pronounced with a voiceless fricative. I have to wonder how the places of this name in California, Indiana, Ontario and Queensland are pronounced.
<p>Even more surprisingly, <i>Atherstone</i> in Warwickshire, according to the BBC Pron Dict of British Names, has <b>θ</b> (though Wikipedia says it has <b>ð</b>). So does <i>Athelney</i> in Somerset. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelstaneford"><i>Athelstaneford</i></a> in Scotland is a law unto itself, being <b>ˈaθl̩stenfɔrd</b> or even <b>ˈɛlʃənfərd</b>. Scottish <i>Atholl</i> is <b>ˈæθl̩</b>. And the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenry" ><i>Athenry</i></a> whose fields are commemorated in song by Irish nationalists is <b>ˌæθənˈraɪ</b>; but then the origin of this name is not Germanic but Celtic (Irish <i>Átha an Rí</i> ‘the king’s ford’).
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-3830069414475937472013-03-27T07:56:00.000+00:002013-03-27T08:00:31.850+00:00snow joke<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSkk3ZSyvdeRfWN6d2PjcTy1aDyrPufMK-iTPxDwOAkD9nGK6JCH6WPe6pQlK2KNPQG79Wzi7WfyUmTdLjzXdsKFJNzyh4ny6-LqbbTovsRGFfw8B_4iR12Rsx1_UgouvEaUpihtCrFs/s1600/trudgill2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSkk3ZSyvdeRfWN6d2PjcTy1aDyrPufMK-iTPxDwOAkD9nGK6JCH6WPe6pQlK2KNPQG79Wzi7WfyUmTdLjzXdsKFJNzyh4ny6-LqbbTovsRGFfw8B_4iR12Rsx1_UgouvEaUpihtCrFs/s320/trudgill2.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>The <a href="http://www.edp24.co.uk">Eastern Daily Press</a>, published daily in Norwich, is the largest-selling regional morning newspaper in the UK. <p>Peter Trudgill, the UK’s leading sociolinguist, comes from Norwich and is of course the author of <i>The social differentiation of English in Norwich</i> (CUP, 1974). He is also President of Friends of Norfolk Dialect. From time to time he contributes articles on language to the EDP.
<p>I reproduce the most recent, entitled “Our vowel habits set us apart from the rest”. (As usual, you can click to enlarge.)<center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJdD1GLV23fZHEPRmjN55AzBdSwHCDSEH-4Cuyc-UBCXVvTSls99eJ_beVmS8p5viIJ6pI7oIuHFGcJ21xPymisY-7NauJg9LaKZZqctjpC9mH84aBKC5XCmRIRMwiquVc2DHIllScSQ/s1600/snowjoke1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQJdD1GLV23fZHEPRmjN55AzBdSwHCDSEH-4Cuyc-UBCXVvTSls99eJ_beVmS8p5viIJ6pI7oIuHFGcJ21xPymisY-7NauJg9LaKZZqctjpC9mH84aBKC5XCmRIRMwiquVc2DHIllScSQ/s320/snowjoke1.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bh0AGx2WTydQaw4j5pztzZ7enNjv3QFYMJpirtY3QxfVKDaWs7ADqqebGH9T-bG_ZtcUtD03D6elqXLvWOQ9Dd_eDPsmONExmNPJqOrtH28Ey3W8ILKKTnir1a1jM5ulOvL0QF0mZ6Q/s1600/snowjoke2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0bh0AGx2WTydQaw4j5pztzZ7enNjv3QFYMJpirtY3QxfVKDaWs7ADqqebGH9T-bG_ZtcUtD03D6elqXLvWOQ9Dd_eDPsmONExmNPJqOrtH28Ey3W8ILKKTnir1a1jM5ulOvL0QF0mZ6Q/s320/snowjoke2.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ITLjIhgt3gK0GeSyTwRNBzx5fougVloOCuDvc1Pve6SV0SJmehi9pthyphenhyphenzP0M-31MF3SXaoZUa4GYzYU_6QI75nY8P5hRYJahHR2cm13h0K3tGeuVuPID_uahcmlhrRKEMGTTQrSSBiY/s1600/snowjoke3.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ITLjIhgt3gK0GeSyTwRNBzx5fougVloOCuDvc1Pve6SV0SJmehi9pthyphenhyphenzP0M-31MF3SXaoZUa4GYzYU_6QI75nY8P5hRYJahHR2cm13h0K3tGeuVuPID_uahcmlhrRKEMGTTQrSSBiY/s320/snowjoke3.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Thanks to input from Peter, I was able to cover this point in my Accents of English (vol. 2, p. 337).
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7n6GGnpGlyZ0AXV5kEDxdTrWHzsLVHQ9U4WcBsXBUQ8iMPKoYjNj3X9uNSI8Uji82088A_3bO7zwlGG-gMI7fOGTD0L3OXiLjwow7Kxm3xbRcOkVZGQms5UIngYAz1KCqIP1DtgnNT4/s1600/AofE_no-know.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe7n6GGnpGlyZ0AXV5kEDxdTrWHzsLVHQ9U4WcBsXBUQ8iMPKoYjNj3X9uNSI8Uji82088A_3bO7zwlGG-gMI7fOGTD0L3OXiLjwow7Kxm3xbRcOkVZGQms5UIngYAz1KCqIP1DtgnNT4/s320/AofE_no-know.jpg" /></a>
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-17623433931859134462013-03-25T07:45:00.002+00:002013-03-25T08:10:35.948+00:00Ansatz von Senilität
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>One of the joys of continuing to try to educate oneself throughout life, even as one grows old, is that you’re for ever extending your vocabulary.
<p>My maths education ended at fourteen, when I had done my O levels and entered the classical sixth. I’d had a good grounding in arithmetic, algebra and geometry, extending to trigonometry and calculus. But I have always felt a bit ignorant about, for example, such matters as exponentials and complex numbers and calculations involving them. I can’t process <i>e</i> and <i>i</i> as easily as I can π, <i>sin</i> θ, and <i>x</i><sup>-1</sup>.
<p>Recently, beguiled by Prof. Brian Cox’s eloquent and engaging television programmes, I embarked on his recent book, coauthored with Jeff Forshaw, <i>The Quantum Universe</i> (subtitle: everything that can happen does happen).
<p>So I was looking forward to some challenging new ideas that I might struggle to understand. I hadn’t quite expected, though, that within the first dozen pages I would come across a word I had not met before: <i>ansatz</i>, explained as an ‘educated guess’. <center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTaWqrRtOL19-729h_k7AqR92gv1Ow984tXADhJFx5ojX8GEmk_JAxE3jnykNpy710FjBe-fFjW82jP-zO1oyBA2xDWdud7yEcsQrdV_cnnMwuHwep7N8-Vja8iqmLG3Ivz9PyFL5ZIQ/s1600/ansatz.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTaWqrRtOL19-729h_k7AqR92gv1Ow984tXADhJFx5ojX8GEmk_JAxE3jnykNpy710FjBe-fFjW82jP-zO1oyBA2xDWdud7yEcsQrdV_cnnMwuHwep7N8-Vja8iqmLG3Ivz9PyFL5ZIQ/s320/ansatz.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Now <i>Ansatz</i> is the sort of German word that I know passively, though I would not claim that it belongs to my active vocabulary. I would take it in my stride if I encountered it in the middle of a German text, perhaps <i>einen neuen Ansatz (zu etwas) machen</i>, ‘make a fresh attempt (at something)’. On looking it up I find that it has a whole range of specialist and technical meanings that need not detain us here.
<p>But as an English word, how would I pronounce it? The trouble with knowing German is that I immediately think to myself <b>ˈanzats</b>. I map <i>a</i> onto <b>a</b> and syllable-initial prevocalic <i>s</i> onto <b>z</b>. This is not appropriate for English, where <i>a</i> maps onto <b>æ</b> and syllable-initial <i>s</i> onto <b>s</b>. I have to force myself to anglicize the pronunciation to the <b>ˈænsæts</b> that British mathematicians would probably say (or possibly the <b>ˈɑːnsɑːts</b> that I imagine American math (sic) specialists might prefer).
<p>The only English dictionary I have to hand that contains the word is the on-line OED. which confirms <b>ˈænsæts</b> as the pronunciation. There’s a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansatz">Wikipedia article</a> on the subject, but it shows no pronunciation.
<p>And what would we say if there were more than one ansatz? What is its plural? Again, my German is good enough to expect it to be <i>Ansätze</i> <b>ˈanzɛtsə</b> (yes, I’ve checked, it is). But when we borrow occasional German words into English we don’t usually at the same time borrow their plural forms: though we may sometimes refer to a <i>wunderkind</i> <b>ˈwʌndəkɪnd</b> in English (cf German <b>ˈvʊndɐkɪnt</b>), we never speak of <i>wunderkinder</i>, and we get embarrassed about what to call the <i>Länder</i> of the Federal Republic. So I suspect that if you make more than one ansatz in mathematical discourse they’ll be <i>ansatzes</i> <b>ˈænsætsɪz</b>.
<p>A few more pages later in the book, I did have to skip over Schrödinger's equation. (In calculus I didn't get as far as partial differentials.) <center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5fAYT6_WBr13jPINBkGBEG3SOrlnKpdId_C-bEvIlGPzdjMr95-IBBmJqTBU3X3cqhPXMqLJWQ8Caqhi_fFYM_UJ0pErpIzzRHmH7lcS1eYPhvm8tgG6T5pUsD-ETfpwlKLplh8mJ3fk/s1600/equation.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5fAYT6_WBr13jPINBkGBEG3SOrlnKpdId_C-bEvIlGPzdjMr95-IBBmJqTBU3X3cqhPXMqLJWQ8Caqhi_fFYM_UJ0pErpIzzRHmH7lcS1eYPhvm8tgG6T5pUsD-ETfpwlKLplh8mJ3fk/s320/equation.jpg" /></a></center> I don't even know how to read it aloud.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-69940008230368196692013-03-22T08:09:00.000+00:002013-03-22T08:55:39.071+00:00met a what?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4UON55FdiVYT8bkRwoH8kx6coJX3OGGOOD9b_4EXL4HouF8qspSVpMQAMpihVyAKgk0M3eUdgN29eYwsahITKelRef5rEb8Bcf9p6dYJyaQrdmoYO0Ng_D8CEb2Zv7nRfvwQZufg55s/s1600/metamorph.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw4UON55FdiVYT8bkRwoH8kx6coJX3OGGOOD9b_4EXL4HouF8qspSVpMQAMpihVyAKgk0M3eUdgN29eYwsahITKelRef5rEb8Bcf9p6dYJyaQrdmoYO0Ng_D8CEb2Zv7nRfvwQZufg55s/s320/metamorph.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';">
<p>On BBC4 TV recently there was an interesting programme entitled <i>Metamorphoses</i>. It was about animals that change their shape and/or lifestyle dramatically in the course of their lives: caterpillars turning into butterflies, tadpoles becoming frogs, and so on.
<p><i>Metamorphosis</i>, the singular form of <i>metamorphoses</i>, is one of those classical-derived words in which English speakers may hesitate about stress placement. In LPD, following Daniel Jones’s EPD, I give the main pron <b>ˌmetəˈmɔːfəsɪs</b>, with a secondary pron <b>ˌmetəmɔːˈfəʊsɪs</b>. M-W Collegiate and K&K give just the first stressing, as does ODP, although the Concise Oxford gives both, as does the OED (2001, for BrE; just the first for AmE).
<p>On the TV programme all the scientists who took part, with just a single exception, gave it antepenultimate stress.
<p>So why do some Brits, at least, want to stress the penultimate? Mainly, no doubt, because of other scientific words in <i>-osis</i> such as <i>psychosis, neurosis, osteoporosis, cirrhosis, symbiosis, meiosis, tuberculosis, osmosis, hypnosis, sclerosis</i>, all of which have penultimate stress, <b>-ˈəʊsɪs</b>. <p>Those few who know Classical Greek will know the etymon μεταμόρφωσις <i>metamórphōsis</i>, and in English will know as usual to ignore the classical Greek accentuation in favour of the Latin stress rule. In the Greek spelling the omega (ω, <i>ō</i>) in the penultimate syllable shows that the vowel is long and therefore, by the Latin stress rule, stressed.
<p>Classicists and grammarians, though, may know the word <i>apodosis</i> <b>əˈpɒdəsɪs</b> (Greek απόδοσις <i>apódŏsis</i>) ‘then-clause’, paired with <i>protasis</i> ‘if-clause’ and having an omicron (ο, <i>ŏ</i>) followed by a single consonant in the penultimate syllable, giving a Latin and English antepenultimate stress. But then they’ll also know <i>apotheosis</i> (Greek ἀποθέωσις <i>apothéōsis</i>), which has an omega and therefore penultimate stress like the scientific words. Nowadays those of us who do know it say <b> əˌpɒθiːˈəʊsɪs</b>; but apparently that was not always the case in Enɡlish.
<p>Under <i>-osis</i> the OED comments “The older pronunciation of at least some of these words had the stress on the syllable preceding the suffix: see, e.g., the etymological note at <i>apotheosis</i> n.” Under <i>apotheosis</i> we read (OED of 1885) “The great majority of orthoepists, from Bailey and Johnson downward, give the first pronunciation [sc. <b>æpəʊˈθiːəsɪs</b>], but the second [sc. <b> əˌpɒθiːˈəʊsɪs</b>] is now more usual”.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-41268758370784233882013-03-20T10:42:00.000+00:002013-03-21T07:36:26.739+00:00villages possessed
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';">Writing about apostrophes in place names led me to realize that I haven’t ever discussed in my blog the question of the spelling of placenames in Montserrat, the West Indian island my partner comes from, which we visit every year.
<p> Many of the former sugar estates or cotton plantations on the island were named after their (former) owners, and many of the villages are named in turn after the estate or plantation where they are located. So a centuries-dead owner called Brade is perpetuated in the village of Brades; the village in which I stayed on my first visit to the island, Tuitt’s, keeps alive the name of the Tuitt who once owned the nearby estate.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-ZsmvRDqp7M9tzNA77K-xkvRPcdLib_cSiXWS-8XmGSd9ilLfuSUQJBXKEwtty4fvVGMXngeAB9CylvYRd1NrGzzspn3hsr8ElBla_MfPTw0Ml4TbPzLy_aGbAa5qMqswUewtrMtFAc/s1600/mratmap1.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-ZsmvRDqp7M9tzNA77K-xkvRPcdLib_cSiXWS-8XmGSd9ilLfuSUQJBXKEwtty4fvVGMXngeAB9CylvYRd1NrGzzspn3hsr8ElBla_MfPTw0Ml4TbPzLy_aGbAa5qMqswUewtrMtFAc/s320/mratmap1.JPG" /></a>
<p>Etymologically, then, these are possessives, and accordingly they are sometimes (though inconsistently) written with an apostrophe. See, on the first map, <i>Brades</i> but <i>Trant’s</i> and <i>Tuitt’s</i>.
<p>There is the usual problem in cases where the former estate owner’s name ends in a sibilant. Near Bethel, just to the south of the dotted red line marking the limits of the exclusion zone (access forbidden because of continuing danger from the volcano), you will see a village labelled <i>Harris</i>. However this village, sadly destroyed in the volcanic disaster of 1997, is/was known as <b>ˈhærɪsɪz</b> (well, <b>ˈharɪsɪz</b>). I feel inclined, therefore, to spell it <i>Harris’s</i>. The local school teachers, anxious to be correct, tended to write <i>Harris’</i>. But as you can see, the map makers wrote <i>Harris</i>, apostrophe-free, and this is/was the predominant spelling.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV4vJoHMu9mGXrm3upXjP7XEPyPA9dIkhGfFtIcJ9uWiR_PixuM60zUkSGfnjEtNfUQ-SEyDofUzuU-41ddDa4K61UGjzDbfN8tXwJE988SsJANEx9azpsBXW_1WBrW59RDP21BD585o/s1600/mratmap2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdV4vJoHMu9mGXrm3upXjP7XEPyPA9dIkhGfFtIcJ9uWiR_PixuM60zUkSGfnjEtNfUQ-SEyDofUzuU-41ddDa4K61UGjzDbfN8tXwJE988SsJANEx9azpsBXW_1WBrW59RDP21BD585o/s320/mratmap2.jpg" /></a><p>Here’s another map. Again, we have <i>Harris</i>, but also <i>Harris’ Lookout</i>. More interestingly, this map shows another village, labelled <i>Farm</i>. But everyone calls/called it <b>faːmz</b>.
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.gov.ms/2013/01/23/preparatory-work-continues-for-geothermal-exploration/">government report</a> reported on plans for geothermal drilling “between Weekes village and Garibaldi Hill”. I can tell you that the name of the village is pronounced <b>ˈwiːksɪz</b>.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4XH90FNAZ8XAICw0iYLVAGJJEOXnC85r-UGsKM8_pDoqG_NUabRTWiOwY4j5Bis9yhHVdw6Ol_w1gfmaBGRx5pBX1LTPSaIWO6EwrvpVw1_cAEX_dPT2obQhPDvHiI4o96iEXEz4Va6o/s1600/frith.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4XH90FNAZ8XAICw0iYLVAGJJEOXnC85r-UGsKM8_pDoqG_NUabRTWiOwY4j5Bis9yhHVdw6Ol_w1gfmaBGRx5pBX1LTPSaIWO6EwrvpVw1_cAEX_dPT2obQhPDvHiI4o96iEXEz4Va6o/s320/frith.jpg" /></a><p>There’s another village, one still unaffected by the volcano, called <b>frɪts</b> (actually, Upper and Lower). How is it spelt? Either <a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/11537676@N06/5434073989/><i>Friths</i></a> or simply <i>Frith</i>. (Bear in mind that in Caribbean English you tend to get <b>t</b> for standard <b>θ</b>, so <b>frɪθs</b> simplifies to <b>frɪts</b>.)
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-4603884883144614752013-03-18T08:12:00.002+00:002013-03-18T08:30:32.856+00:00apostrophes again<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK00xEZPCPKTY-VyagompeDmmBHS_F8gYrKLWJhHnyRwXkDYyI_7x41BMRF4ScjUqILY7ROL4W1MGx9OH49FW3ATWX52JRBY_B4G-qPWyRW7bgZjTvbGNaAeTqTDqjImL1Dx8tpdXmExs/s1600/apostrophe3.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK00xEZPCPKTY-VyagompeDmmBHS_F8gYrKLWJhHnyRwXkDYyI_7x41BMRF4ScjUqILY7ROL4W1MGx9OH49FW3ATWX52JRBY_B4G-qPWyRW7bgZjTvbGNaAeTqTDqjImL1Dx8tpdXmExs/s320/apostrophe3.jpg" /></a>
<p>It’s <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/15/council-ban-apostrophe">apostrophe-moral-panic</a> time again. (For previous episodes, see for example my blog for <a href= http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/i-had-phone-call-yesterday-from-bbc.html">7 Dec 2011</a>. )
<p> As you may know, I am something of a campaigner AGAINST the possessive apostrophe.
I am on record as <a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/festschrift.html" >saying</a> <blockquote>
People, even literate ones, get very confused about apostrophes. Let's abolish them.</blockquote>
<p>I have pointed out the absurdity, on the London Underground, of having adjacent stations officially called Earl’s Court (with an apostrophe) and Barons Court (without one).
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqSewojbG84gvCLgbSNoCMp9AZprIWGGetR3UbT4w05Rb0gQ98qIvenXKQCgKhNvst2EQCU8aL6y0A_5IjY9sfITMm6l-A_1BZMUxE115QHtcsr6H_OqjoNfYpLfmRqEi2IZ_HCfrQDs/s1600/baronscourt.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" align=right src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqSewojbG84gvCLgbSNoCMp9AZprIWGGetR3UbT4w05Rb0gQ98qIvenXKQCgKhNvst2EQCU8aL6y0A_5IjY9sfITMm6l-A_1BZMUxE115QHtcsr6H_OqjoNfYpLfmRqEi2IZ_HCfrQDs/s320/baronscourt.jpg" /></a>
<p>Before reading further, see if you know, or can guess, which of the following Underground stations are written with an apostrophe, and which not. Then check with the official <a href="http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/1106.aspx">tube map</a>. <ul><li>Parsons Green <li>Kings Cross <li>Colliers Wood <li>Carpenders Park <li>Queens Park <li>Canons Park <li>Golders Green <li>Gallions Reach</ul>Oh, and are any of these possessives plural? If so, the apostrophe, if required, ought to go after the <i>s</i>, not before it. Yes, you need to know whether Queens Park is like Queen’s College, Oxford, commemorating one queen, or Queens’ College, Cambridge, commemorating two.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujoia4WOMvC4mFOuXVqV4U4p9bUMWjmy0yQuZaQobL-fCO2t2hQPMtNDwOfeh5S1FQRn0MgshVcgN5Da3jzc_fRlURs2o-FSL98X5-QtPmdkg8IdduWkcNDCwpgpPe32laS_zz7ooY6o/s1600/carpenders.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgujoia4WOMvC4mFOuXVqV4U4p9bUMWjmy0yQuZaQobL-fCO2t2hQPMtNDwOfeh5S1FQRn0MgshVcgN5Da3jzc_fRlURs2o-FSL98X5-QtPmdkg8IdduWkcNDCwpgpPe32laS_zz7ooY6o/s320/carpenders.jpg" /></a>
<p>Suppose you are on a shopping trip, and want to visit the <b>ˈbeɪkəz</b>. Should that be the <i>baker’s</i> (‘the shop of the baker’) or the <i>bakers’</i> (‘the shop of the bakers’)? Or is it just the <i>bakers</i> you want to visit, i.e. the people who bake, rather than their shop?
<p>The possessive apostrophe has no phonetic correlate. You can’t hear it in speech. Therefore we could perfectly well get along without it in writing.
<p>Ah, you will say, but sometimes it has a real usefulness, to distinguish between a singular and a plural possessor. The Guardian Book of the English Language (2007), edited by my former student David Marsh, puts it like this:<center>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEt7eh5sQVbFND0ZAWmOMi_3W5IlV_vPFEhhY5eBcNgwq0KStKOtDpFi4XR4x184AZ1NZDny7O5IwXfnes91MUN5imFCtZnC8G4s8oc7NMsyWl_0nAsOwdAW1gPUF8T8y111hUlN1gyQU/s1600/apostrophe1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEt7eh5sQVbFND0ZAWmOMi_3W5IlV_vPFEhhY5eBcNgwq0KStKOtDpFi4XR4x184AZ1NZDny7O5IwXfnes91MUN5imFCtZnC8G4s8oc7NMsyWl_0nAsOwdAW1gPUF8T8y111hUlN1gyQU/s320/apostrophe1.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyL9prpQlMZhtPmYOP7uOuzC8LPHnxsJDP_j0pt6A7PJdMrYiXJXzu_cOhEdj-Zk0Skjh8GWu7RjJm99FvuK_-wUH4cPr4ni9XMY6aWurPvZGYa0lheFtG91fr0olqZgtOaMCsWSNUdds/s1600/apostrophe2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyL9prpQlMZhtPmYOP7uOuzC8LPHnxsJDP_j0pt6A7PJdMrYiXJXzu_cOhEdj-Zk0Skjh8GWu7RjJm99FvuK_-wUH4cPr4ni9XMY6aWurPvZGYa0lheFtG91fr0olqZgtOaMCsWSNUdds/s320/apostrophe2.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Nonsense. You can’t tell these apart in speech. In speech, if ambiguity threatens, we disambiguate by paraphrasing. It makes sense to do the same in writing: <i>the investments made by</i> <ul><li><i> my sister and her friend</i> <li><i>my sister and her friends</i> <li><i>my sisters and their friend</i> <li><i>my sisters and their friends</i>.</ul>
<p>On the BBC1 TV news yesterday my colleague Rob Drummond insisted, correctly I believe, that whether or not a street sign has an apostrophe is really no big deal, and that many apostrophes are ambiguous at best and unnecessary at worst.
<p>But I believe he didn’t go far enough. I would argue myself that the possessive apostrophe gives people such problems and is of such little importance that we would do better simply to abolish it.
<p>It would be absurd to force <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_UK">Boots the Chemist</a> to introduce an apostrophe into their name, even though Boots started as the shop of one John Boot. With the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s (sic) there is even an issue over what apostrophe would logically be required. The company was indeed founded by one Sainsbury (and his wife — that makes two), but there are now several Sainsbury family shareholders, not to mention many non-Sainsburys, of whom the largest is the Qatar Investment Authority.
<p>American readers can meanwhile meditate about Bloomingdale’s (sic) and Barneys New York (sic).
<p>There is one circumstance in which a possessive apostrophe does have a phonetic correlate (and might reasonably therefore be retained): after a stem ending in a sibilant with no following letter <i>e</i>, as in <i>church’s</i>. Even here, however, the possessive singular is pronounced identically with the plural (and possessive plural): <i>church’s</i> is homophonous with <i>churches and churches’</i>, and could therefore be identically spelt. The only really awkward cases are proper names like <i>Ross’s</i>, complementing the already awkward <i>Jones’s</i> (or <i>Jones’</i>), this possessive being homophonous with the <i>Joneses</i> we may be tempted to keep up with. There’s no problem in writing <i>St Georges</i> or <i>St Johns</i>.
<p>At least if we officially abolished possessive apostrophes then those who worry about such things would no longer be tormented by superfluous “greengrocers’” apostrophes and by people who write <i>it’s</i> when they ought to write <i>its</i>.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com66tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-21197933266720603472013-03-15T09:56:00.002+00:002013-03-15T10:06:47.924+00:00carrying dogs<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>English intonation is at the interface of phonetics and pragmatics. To describe the tunes you have to be able to analyse the changing pitch of the voice and the associated stress patterns, which is phonetics. To describe their meanings you have to be able to account for language use and contextual meaning, which is pragmatics. I feel confident about the phonetics, less so about the pragmatics.
<p>Yesterday as I came up the escalator at Vauxhall tube station the man in front of me was carrying a medium-sized dog. He was complying with the instruction displayed at the foot of every escalator on the London Underground.
<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84RBcr4iYEkZyf6TrqSc_CtjXzI-N0a43Np_nb8lZJMFBvaPtEnHMJmFbg26b2exNbtrzrOafxN1tciy6krZn-Mf3SMWsEaaCHEbCwofSNz1GNkKmWFEgI3l7M1gqPrcxd0eKOtMIDMQ/s1600/dogs_carried.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh84RBcr4iYEkZyf6TrqSc_CtjXzI-N0a43Np_nb8lZJMFBvaPtEnHMJmFbg26b2exNbtrzrOafxN1tciy6krZn-Mf3SMWsEaaCHEbCwofSNz1GNkKmWFEgI3l7M1gqPrcxd0eKOtMIDMQ/s320/dogs_carried.jpg" /></a>
<p>Eighteen months ago <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3424">Language Log</a> carried an interesting posting by Mark Liberman on this topic — in fact an expansion of one he posted as long ago as <a href="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003474.html">20 Aug 2006</a><blockquote>I've never figured out a really convincing explanation for why stressing "dogs" seems to encourage the interpretation "everyone must carry a dog", while stressing "carried" encourages the interpretation "if you have a dog, you must carry it".</blockquote>
<p>Nor have I. I think this puzzle was first pointed out to me by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Halliday">Michael Halliday</a> in about 1964; he didn’t have a satisfactory explanation, either.
<p>If spoken, to carry the intended message this sentence must have the nuclear accent (“phrasal stress” for Liberman) on the verb:
<ul><li>(ˈ)Dogs must be ˈ<u>car</u>ried.</ul>
<p>If you say it with the nucleus on <i>Dogs</i>, you encourage the interpretation “you can't use this facility unless you are carrying a dog", rightly characterized by Liberman as absurd:
<ul><li>ˈ<u>Dogs</u> must be (ₒ)carried.</ul>
<p>But why?
<p>Please, pragmatics people, do go ahead and expatiate on the ‘implicit universally quantified agent’ <i>by everyone</i> and on the deontic modal <i>must</i>, because I don’t know how to, or at least not how to tie them up with the presence/absence of sentence accents.
<p>In section 2.21 of my <i>English Intonation</i>, the section entitled Topic and Comment in the Tone chapter, I wrote <blockquote>The topic is typically said with a non-falling tone (a dependent fall-rise or rise), the comment with a falling tone (a definitive fall).</blockquote>
<p>OK, <i>dogs</i> is the topic, <i>must be carried </i> the comment; and we get the correct interpretation if we say
<ul><li>\/<u>Dogs</u> | must be \<u>car</u>ried.</li></ul> or<ul><li>/<u>Dogs</u> | must be \<u>car</u>ried.</li></ul><p>— but this doesn’t explain why <ul><li>\<u>Dogs</u> must be ₒcarried.</li></ul> pushes us towards the absurd interpretation.
<p>Compare <ul><li>\<u>Safe</u>ty boots must be ₒworn.</li></ul> or the injunction below — where the corresponding interpretation is not absurd at all, but the intended one.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkux5csvM_INSCaBzkb_2SY1F2EsPlSlyzJXGEIJNRVWSWZZEUj9VZizakllyg67q397N8FxDjyfUTX4zQOKuNLwQXKGVnGUH6G4DSpN86dVTw9eBHujQ_TqkFe4Oph4SyAkqIn4DYS4/s1600/decorations.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIkux5csvM_INSCaBzkb_2SY1F2EsPlSlyzJXGEIJNRVWSWZZEUj9VZizakllyg67q397N8FxDjyfUTX4zQOKuNLwQXKGVnGUH6G4DSpN86dVTw9eBHujQ_TqkFe4Oph4SyAkqIn4DYS4/s320/decorations.jpg" /></a></span>
John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-92075164293400913362013-03-14T10:25:00.001+00:002013-03-14T10:27:10.002+00:00ineptness in Rome<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>I was not impressed yesterday evening by BBC TV’s live coverage of the long-awaited announcement from St Peter’s Square. Wouldn’t they have done better to send a commentator with at least just a very elementary knowledge of Latin, so that he would have been able to tell us, live, that the new pope had chosen the name Francis? And wouldn’t it have been better to have chosen as our commentator’s Italian interpreter someone who at least knew the words of the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary in English, rather than one who had to stumble through them as if he was hearing them for the first time?
<p>I’m not usually a fan of the Daily Mail, but <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2292936/BBC-slammed-Pope-election-coverage-translator-fails-translate-Hail-Mary-Our-Father-prayers-correctly.html">this time</a> they’re right. (Thanks, Alex Rotatori.)
<p>The radio arm of the BBC, on the other hand, had excellent coverage with an informed commentator.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-51222683844818362362013-03-13T07:49:00.002+00:002013-03-13T14:12:59.868+00:00jejune<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>”If you’re tempted to use a fancy word, make sure first that you know what it means,” is excellent advice from the English teacher to the teenager writing an essay in school, but also a sensible maxim for any journalist. <p>Here’s Aidan Foster-Carter, in Saturday’s Guardian. I should say that he’s billed as “honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University, and a freelance writer, consultant and broadcaster on both Koreas”, though the University of Leeds website seems to have no trace of him.
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw-gH9wLgMwNuBXMpMnIRDCFTqj4CJ4TkgEXM9Icc4UfRP8Uov88EAmuigN_3GxwUM8dOoNxOONme00gTdHo31a0iEufO0KjBG7is5vcoEIBwRaWuzTLHg_ixvGkCHXfujFh5IS3yLGZg/s1600/jejune.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw-gH9wLgMwNuBXMpMnIRDCFTqj4CJ4TkgEXM9Icc4UfRP8Uov88EAmuigN_3GxwUM8dOoNxOONme00gTdHo31a0iEufO0KjBG7is5vcoEIBwRaWuzTLHg_ixvGkCHXfujFh5IS3yLGZg/s320/jejune.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>According to LDOCE, <i>jejune</i> means ‘too simple’ (of ideas) or ‘boring’, and is pronounced <b>dʒɪˈdʒuːn</b>. The OED expands on this:
<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykKnwYcs1HY0ABTeaC7lJGVCnewN4V7-beQRDFPcGc_vQ9dwBTK5nzILuaSypPiCUqjKAQVI1ZosagDwFbra-Ld19xL5jI4fWJoHpRtN-JA_IBvSjKux6dUJY_eflxDKvR83n0PAQevM/s1600/jejune2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgykKnwYcs1HY0ABTeaC7lJGVCnewN4V7-beQRDFPcGc_vQ9dwBTK5nzILuaSypPiCUqjKAQVI1ZosagDwFbra-Ld19xL5jI4fWJoHpRtN-JA_IBvSjKux6dUJY_eflxDKvR83n0PAQevM/s320/jejune2.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Perhaps Mr Foster-Carter does indeed find the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un <b>kim dʑʌŋ ɯn</b>, simple and boring, intellectually unsatisfying. I’ve an awful suspicion, though, that he merely wants to characterize him as young and callow.
<p>The OED indeed notes a further, etymologically unjustified, sense (first citation 1898): <center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfe5dPkVwgH7Zn6MPHfRJd8iT_RvrBxh4hqHbY6TrZlhlasxl1fCqfsuLMjtGQyn61nVKcGH0ULYF6LtcrvDzCKYFDIJ29xu7yp40p3NieiuK1ahTKR_ipso6H4oOGGdMvkwNWprItCg/s1600/jejune3.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfe5dPkVwgH7Zn6MPHfRJd8iT_RvrBxh4hqHbY6TrZlhlasxl1fCqfsuLMjtGQyn61nVKcGH0ULYF6LtcrvDzCKYFDIJ29xu7yp40p3NieiuK1ahTKR_ipso6H4oOGGdMvkwNWprItCg/s320/jejune3.jpg" /></a></center>
<p>Etymologically, we classicists know, <i>jejune</i> comes from the Latin <i>jējūnus</i> ‘hungry; empty; scanty; dry,meagre’. For Cicero, someone who is <i> jējūnus </i> hasn’t had their breakfast. This meaning is preserved in the French <i>jeûne</i> <b>ʒøn</b> ‘fast’, whence the familiar <i>(petit) déjeuner</i> ‘breakfast’. Nothing to do with <i>jeune</i> <b>ʒœn</b> ‘young’, from Latin <i>jŭvĕnis</i>.
<p>Now we see why people can occasionally be heard pronouncing the word in a sort-of-French way, as <b>ʒəˈʒuːn</b>. I wonder if perhaps Mr Foster-Carter is one of them.
<p>In anatomy, the <i>jejunum</i> <b>dʒɪˈdʒuːnəm</b> is part of the small intestine.
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-74288479500903163872013-03-11T07:58:00.000+00:002013-03-11T07:59:40.361+00:00a prophetic patronymic?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlho8zELQPOfix67gqHosRKDpdF7bX_uRSGKrse9igePXOhoP4IO7lQkGzW-CFscYBtBAH0rrBYJcyM8iO_nghedbarfWvJATo33CzZ266-gN5AwxkMShg7yKXN8U6cXA_9tn1HN0MOg/s1600/hosea.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJlho8zELQPOfix67gqHosRKDpdF7bX_uRSGKrse9igePXOhoP4IO7lQkGzW-CFscYBtBAH0rrBYJcyM8iO_nghedbarfWvJATo33CzZ266-gN5AwxkMShg7yKXN8U6cXA_9tn1HN0MOg/s320/hosea.jpg" /></a>
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>The minor prophet Hosea is known in BrE as <b>həʊˈzɪə</b>, rhyming with nonrhotic <i>oh dear</i> <b>əʊ ˈdɪə</b>. So is the eponymous book of the Old Testament and the corresponding (rare) forename. <p>In LPD I gave the AmE version as <b>hoʊˈziːə</b>, following K&K though ignoring the variant <b>ˈhoʊzɪə</b> that they also mention.
<p>I now see that Wikipedia claims that it is pronounced <b>hoʊˈzeɪə</b>, and indeed the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate gives both <b>-ˈzeɪ-</b> and <b>-ˈziː-</b>, in that order. I have never heard the <b>-ˈzeɪ-</b> form in BrE, and assume that in AmE it is a recent spelling pronunciation, perhaps influenced by Spanish names and involving contamination from <i>José</i>.
<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY-rTTpUdZYFGNRqJVoXjsgfBRpcOMAI8JQ6oi200ooCkqKJEhEWbhj-nJM2_swwYc_ALs7qxayMPCl_DQcR_n2YUYtIu7Bescvym30o0c08AbXqvN-uAQJ1RFQ_UtqtRBJ2IWDy0_BE/s1600/hoseasons.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" align=right src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY-rTTpUdZYFGNRqJVoXjsgfBRpcOMAI8JQ6oi200ooCkqKJEhEWbhj-nJM2_swwYc_ALs7qxayMPCl_DQcR_n2YUYtIu7Bescvym30o0c08AbXqvN-uAQJ1RFQ_UtqtRBJ2IWDy0_BE/s320/hoseasons.jpg" /></a>Just as the forename Richard has given us the patronymic surname Richardson, while David, Robert, and John have given us Davidson, Robertson, and Johnson, so Hosea has evidently given rise to the (again, rather rare) surname Hoseason.
<p>Or so I assumed when I first encountered this surname. The BBC Pron Dict of British Names, however, gives no fewer than three possible pronunciations, none of which is the <b>həʊˈzɪəsən</b> that the putative etymology would imply. They are <b>həʊˈsiːzən</b>, <b>ˌhəʊsiˈeɪsən,</b> and <b>ˌhəʊsiˈæsən</b>.
<p>The Oxford Names Companion confirms the etymology, locating it as originating from Shetland: a patronymic from <i>Hosea</i>, which was “probably originally <i>Osie</i>, a dim. of Oswald”, but “later altered by association with the name of the biblical prophet”.
<p>Be that as it may, the name has now acquired a much higher profile in BrE because of the <a href="http://www.hoseasons.co.uk">holiday company Hoseasons</a>, which operates throughout the UK and advertises widely on television. The ads call it <b>həʊˈsiːzənz</b>, as if the name was a compound of <i>season</i>, and so I think do its employees and its customers.
<p>Their website protests, to no apparent effect: <blockquote>The Hoseasons we know and love today began with one small boatyard on the southern broads owned and run by Oulton Broad harbourmaster Wally B Hoseason. (So no, it isn’t a made up name, it’s from the Norse “Son of Hosea”.) </blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, we seem to have no surnames that are patronymics of other <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Prophets">minor prophets</a>: no *<i>Amosson</i> or *<i>Joelsson</i>, still less any *<i>Nahumson</i> or *<i>Zephaniahson</i>. Presumably during the period of surname formation there were not many men around called <i>Amos</i> or <i>Joel</i> (though there are a few now, and have been for a few hundred years).
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-71712016647488666922013-03-08T10:19:00.000+00:002013-03-08T10:36:09.420+00:00what were all the row?<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6_rJORiskQvgwayI4RnJZwYpo71kKurRrvMk9DMLXmdjnI_TfPK2tvW1nLuMFxdWSJwLnVru5UZUu4iuCbKDDXy0DPTw-79B3Ge9ZmCG92PNGucYibyDKsMS660CN0tZfMGh6ANmEJI/s1600/carol.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR6_rJORiskQvgwayI4RnJZwYpo71kKurRrvMk9DMLXmdjnI_TfPK2tvW1nLuMFxdWSJwLnVru5UZUu4iuCbKDDXy0DPTw-79B3Ge9ZmCG92PNGucYibyDKsMS660CN0tZfMGh6ANmEJI/s320/carol.jpg" /></a></center>
<span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>I’ve had a song running tiresomely and unseasonably through my mind over the last few days, a song I don’t think I have heard or sung for sixty years or more, not in fact since we learnt to sing it when I was at prep school. <p>The snatch I remember starts out as Good King Wenceslas but then morphs into something else. <blockquote>"Good King Wenceslas looked out," sings we with splendid power:<br />
Several neighbours looked out too, to see what all the row were!<br /> We sings forte (sounded like a hundred),<br />Even in the soft bits how we thundered!
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<p>With the modern resources of Google and YouTube I was able to track it down. It proves to be a comic song entitled ‘The Carol Singers’, by T. C. Sterndale Bennett and Charles Haynes.
<p>The full text is to be found <a href="http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/xmas/thecarolsingers.shtml">here</a>, and there is a performance of it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5YHt90Vg7M">here</a>.
<p>As you can see, it is written in a style that Jack Windsor Lewis calls <a href="http://www.yek.me.uk/archive1.html#blog009">‘linguistic slumming’</a>, with non-standard <i>-s</i> endings on non-third-person-singular verbs, <i>were</i> for <i>was</i>, <b>ˈhʌndə(r)d</b> for <i>hundred</i> and the like.
<p>…And some rather tortured rhymes. There is no <b>w</b> in <i>power</i> <b>ˈpaʊə</b> when spoken rather than sung. This is for the same reason as applies to the <i>lesser of two weevils</i> joke (<a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/linking-semivowels.html">blog, 31 Aug 2010</a>), and no matter how much you resist the tendency to smooth <b>aʊə</b> towards <b>aə ~ aː</b>, it can never really rhyme with <i>row were</i> <b>ˈraʊ wɜː</b>. Note that <i>were</i> has to take its strong form <b>wɜː</b> here, with the long/strong vowel, not just because it is sung but also because it is ‘stranded’ (followed by a syntactic gap — see <a href="http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0805b.htm">blog, 28 May 2008</a>).
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John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-14728650086684105352013-03-06T10:08:00.001+00:002013-03-06T10:11:03.683+00:00skeletal<center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgECofququ67xKE7yUK995nrf3SKWJaNDW9UAb4cL7UlEUUHRy5dse2zQ6TY01aH2BxeOGPX166PYLl16OpjBc6RJYgSWa3tKglkd5VSmNz_sjhycZSL4GZvpBECW0wMINC49i0YQOcQO4/s1600/king-richard.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgECofququ67xKE7yUK995nrf3SKWJaNDW9UAb4cL7UlEUUHRy5dse2zQ6TY01aH2BxeOGPX166PYLl16OpjBc6RJYgSWa3tKglkd5VSmNz_sjhycZSL4GZvpBECW0wMINC49i0YQOcQO4/s320/king-richard.jpg" /></a></center><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Lucida Grande', 'Doulos SIL', 'Lucida Sans Unicode';"><p>The news we heard two or three weeks ago about the human remains identified as those of Richard III meant that several newscasters and commentators made use of the word <i>skeletal</i>. Those I heard on BBC R4 all pronounced it with penultimate stress, as <b>skɪˈliːtl̩</b>. There is, though, an alternative pronunciation, with initial stress, <b>ˈskelɪtl̩</b>. <p>So this is a word like <i>palatal</i>, in which uncertainty about the quantity of the penultimate vowel leads to rival pronunciations, one having the antepenultimate stressing and penultimate vowel reduction predicted if the penultimate is short (<i>ˈpal</i><b>ə</b><i>tal, ˈskel</i><b>ɪ</b><i>tal</i>), the other having the penultimate stressing to be expected if that vowel is long (<i>pa</i><b>ˈleɪ</b><i>tal, ske</i><b>ˈliː</b><i>tal</i>). In the case of <i>palatal</i>, phoneticians and linguists have settled for the first, although anatomists prefer the second (<a href="http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/shattered-brains.html">blog, 21 March 2011</a>).
<p>Since <i>skeleton</i> is derived from the Greek σκελετόν, where the epsilon spelling of the penultimate vowel indicates a short vowel, the regular pronunciation according to the Latin stress rule is indeed the usual one, <b>ˈskelɪtn̩</b>.
<p>Actually, the adjective-forming suffix <i>-al</i> is normally disregarded for purposes of the stress rule: we keep the stress on the adjective in the same place as it has for the naked stem, thus from <i>ˈperson</i> we form <i>ˈpersonal</i> (despite the long ō in Latin <i>persōna</i>). From <i>ˈuniverse</i> we have <i>ˌuniˈversal</i>, because the extra syllable in the adjective means that Chomsky and Halle’s Alternating Stress Rule comes into play. So in <i>skeletal</i>, which does not involve an extra syllable compared with <i>skeleton</i>, it would be expected that the stress would be located on the same syllable as in <i>skeleton</i>.
<p>And please don’t ask about <i>adjectival</i>, because I don’t understand why it’s <b>ˌædʒɪkˈtaɪvl̩</b>, either.</span>
John Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.com13