OT: Pet Peeve

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Catwell wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:37 AM
gh as in cough
o as in women
ti as in nation
commonly spelled "fish"
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:40 AM
I gotta agree huge with dand9959 on that one. "Nu-klee-ar" isn't that hard to pronounce, Mr. President. You'd think that if you had your finger on the button of a nuclear device, you'd know how to pronounce the word. But....it's hard. Just really, really, hard to pronounce it right.
"Mute" for "moot" is another one.

But English is such a terrible language anyway, thank heaven it's evolving. 20 more years, it'll all be Spanglish anyway.
Grazie wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:40 AM
Catwell? "commonly spelled "fish" "
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:41 AM
Oh boy. Countable and uncountable.

This is a real problem for native Japanese speakers and probably other asian language speakers as well. I'm in a situation where I get asked about it daily and it generally has to deal with the use of articles like "the" vs "a".

Are water, air, soil, etc countable? Generally no. I try to explain them as being a type of thing rather than the thing itself. We don't usually talk about "waters" unless we really mean "Bodies of water" - in which case the plural in "waters of the world" is really supposed to be applied to a word we're not even saying.

On a different note, you can really see how the written language affects the spoken language when you spend a lot of time around asian language speakers. Homonyms are really common and often rely on either the context of the sentence or the written symbol. It's not uncommon to see someone trace a symbol on the palm of their hand to explain a word during a conversation.

And that leads me to the chinese "alphabet". The weakness of it is that it is hard to learn. I'm told that Japanese kids typically don't learn enough characters to read a newspaper until age 14. However, the strength of it is that readers of the characters don't have to actually speak the same language. In fact, this made it very useful in the Chinese empire because bureaucrats could communicate in writing. (Similar to the use of Latin in Europe, btw).

When my Japanese and Chinese speaking friends get together they're constantly tracing out symbols to illustrate a concept. Of course sometimes the symbols don't translate. Chinese hair salon signs in San Francisco often translate into something more like "Hair Architect" to my Japanese friend. He gets a good laugh at that andd thinks of "Beach Blanket Babylon".

Rob Mack
craftech wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:41 AM
Who said the following?:

"Reading is the basics for all learning."

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

"I can only speak to myself."


"I want to thank you for the importance that you've shown for education and literacy."


"Arbolist … Look up the word. I don't know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it's an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who knows about trees."

"I hope we get to the bottom of the answer. It's what I'm interested to know."

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."

"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."

"I think we agree, the past is over."



John
Grazie wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:42 AM
No SPOT! Franglaise!! - G
Grazie wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:44 AM
JOHN! !! arggghhh

"I can only speak to myself." . . too funny ! !
AlanC wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:45 AM
And what about the guys that can't spell "colour" (or should that be who or even whom?)

And going more off topic, which word in the English language has 5 letters but is pronounced exactly the same if you remove four of its letters?
jeff_12_7 wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:46 AM
(sic) is used when quoting someone else, but THEIR grammar is bad (in the quote). Put (sic) after the word or phrase that is misspelled or used incorrectly.

You want the reader to know that the mistake was already in the quote and not a typo or mistake on your part.
BrianStanding wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:48 AM
Hmmmm... who might have said those? I wonder....

Here's more:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:48 AM
Spanish is a bit more organized, I think.

English is a hog-podge of borrowed and imported words. I had a college instructor describe it as Saxon with an importation of Norman. In his view Norman was the language of law, science, and education. His view was largly class-based and I think it's more complicated than that.

Our own industry is full of created words, especially amongst the lighting trade - which borrows a lot from the sea trade.

Jimmy Carter also had a problem with "Nucular"- and didn't he serve on a nuclear submarine when he was in the navy? I think that some speech habits die hard.

Rob mack
craftech wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:51 AM
JOHN! !! arggghhh

"I can only speak to myself." . . too funny ! !
=========
Then you will probably like this one that I left out as well Grazie:


"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."


John


Thanks Jay,

This is one of the "funnest" threads in a "lung" time.
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:53 AM
Tkalvey's missuse was on porpoise.

Some of the spelling problems are typos and so I try to ignore them. It's only a forum and some people have little keys or big fingers or maybe it's happy hour...

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:55 AM
What makes me very sad is seeing a business sign with a misspelling. Especially a heavy lighted sign that required heavy machinery to install. Someone paid for that.

Sad, sad, sad.

Rob
craftech wrote on 2/21/2006, 9:57 AM

What makes me very sad is seeing a business sign with a misspelling. Especially a heavy lighted sign that required heavy machinery to install. Someone paid for that.

Sad, sad, sad.

Rob
==================

You mean like this one?

John
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:00 AM
I was watching cspan yesterday (a moot court at George Wasington U) and one of the students introduced himself as "Dougherty" like Cougherty. It surprised me. Here on the west coast I've never heard it that way-always like "dough" instead of "cough".

I've always struggled with Gough street here in the San Francisco. It's pronounced like cough but my mind always has to start with dough and then correct itself.

Rob Mack
JJKizak wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:01 AM
My Ukrainian buddy who speaks fluent Spanish, Ukrainian, and English says Engilsh is the hardest language to learn. He considers it a very stupid langauge because of all the double meanings and quadruple spellings.

JJK
DavidMcKnight wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:02 AM
I use apostrophes after abbreviations all the time - like CD's, DVD's. I didn't know there was a rule one way or the other, it just "looks" better to me than DVDs. DVDs to me looks like the abbreviation is DVDS and the typist did not capitalize the S.

A very enjoyable thread! Mute - moot is a peeve of mine. Not knowing contractions such as "They're" and using their or there is another one.

And nuclear... It's not hard to pronounce! But you can tell that some people just "know" they are mispronouncing it, and they do it anyway. They wind up, make the approach...and flub the word. Then they smile a little...
Grazie wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:03 AM

Jay - We are either too late or too early. Did you know that the second week of October is "National Pet Peeve Week" in the U.S?

Grazie

rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:04 AM
That's another issue. If you purposely misspell advertising to grab people's attention will the eventual result be that no one knows how to spell anything?

For a real treat try reading english written in the Elizabethan period. This was "pre-dictionary".

R
craftech wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:04 AM
My Ukrainian buddy who speaks fluent Spanish, Ukrainian, and English says Engilsh is the hardest language to learn. He considers it a very stupid langauge because of all the double meanings and quadruple spellings.

JJK

=========
Italian is the easiest. With all the words ending in vowels you can slur every sentence and get away with it. Cool!

John
Dan Sherman wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:05 AM
Mark Twain had a plan for the improvement of the English Language

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would
be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and
likewise "x" would no longer be part of the
alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be
retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be
dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling,
so that "which" and "one" would take the same
konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y"
replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j"
anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue
iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless
double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so
modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and
unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud
fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez
"c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the
maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and
"th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform,
wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe
Ingliy-spiking werld.
rmack350 wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:07 AM
Sometimes I think that Americans are willfully stupid. Really, we're not as stupid as we try to be.

R
craftech wrote on 2/21/2006, 10:08 AM
Hey. This thread is getting positively Babylonian!
Thanks again Jay. This thread has been more fun than a sigmoidoscopy.

John