Search results for 'tag:Dialects tag:Spelling' matching tags 'Dialects' and 'Spelling'

Re: Regularising the irregular

Kooyeen — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:27:25 GMT

I agree with Jim. You don't change a language. It's like saying let's ban earthquakes Actually, trying to change something might result in more confusion in the end, because there will probably be certain groups that don't adopt such changes, or not completely, so you'd actually create more dialects.
And also, irregular verbs are not a big problem for learners. It's just a question of getting used to the most common ones, and there are not too many. There are very few, in fact. The only big problem with English, very big, is the fact that there's no relation between spelling and pronunciation. Wee shud rite this way, so thair's no need to eether mispell or misprunownce enything. It ud bee eezy to reed.

Re: 'what' as 'hawt' & 'r' as 'rr' in Spanish Thanks

Marvin A. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:06:18 GMT

Hwat for what is the original pronunciation and was the only form used in Middle English. In Modern English, many dialects lost the wine-whine distinction, and began pronouncing words spelled "wh" as simply "w", rather thn "hw". The original, conservative form is still around, and is considered standard in certain areas. In North America, many Southern accents preserve it. Elsewhere in N. America, it has almost completely died out, except in older speakers. However... people often hear others using it, and hear that it sounds old-fashioned and a little bit more correct, and thus add it to their own speech. I remember myself adding it to my speech for awhile. However, I've given up the habit. My grandpa has it, but I can tell that he must have consciously added it to his speech, and it is not a relic form, because he occasionally hypercorrects--he sometimes pronounces words like "wine" as "hwine". So, it is sort of similar, in the way that people add relic forms to their own idiolect--sort of like "ahnt" for "aunt", which only natively exists in New England, and certain cultural dialects but people all over North America have added it to their own speech, because it sounds very cultured--that is how many pronounce it in Britain, and because it allows you to contrast it with the word "ant". Also, unlike the cot-caught merger, or the pin-pen merger, people can hear the difference between "wh" and "w", even if they have merged them. People with vowel mergers, such as the cot-caught or pin-pen mergers, cannot normally hear the difference between the two vowels at all and thus do not notice people that do distinguish them. They simply assume that it is another case of English spelling that spells two words differently but they are pronounced the same way, like meet and meat. Thus since they can't hear the distinction, they do not consciously add it to their speech, unless someone else points it out to them, and demonstrates the difference to them. I can't hear a difference between cot and caught for example (well, now I can, sort of, because I have learned to distinguish them if necessary), but I can hear the difference between "wine" and "hwine", or "wat" and "hwat".

Some Scottish, and Irish dialects, as well as some others have a Spanish "r" sound, rather than the retroflex "r" used in General American English. Conservative Received pronunciation used to pronounce r's between words as a flap.

Re: Difference between till & until

YoHf — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:53:29 GMT

They have the same meaning, thus they're interchangeable.

Here is the fully 'story':

The status of âtil versus until and till is often argued about and most style guides have something to say on the matter.

The most common belief is that till is a shortened form of until. You can see how this could have grown up, but the truth of the matter is that till is by far the older word, being recorded from about the year 800, while it took another 400 years for until to appear in the language (itâs a compound of till with the archaic Old Norse und, as far as, which also survives in the archaic unto). But the first sense of till was to, as it still can be, for example, in Scots and some dialects. Though the modern sense of till in standard English is always connected with time, this only appeared about 1300.

The current position is that until is the more common of the two words and is generally considered to be slightly more formal, which is why it turns up more often in edited prose. It is also rather more likely to appear at the beginning of a sentence than is till. But till is perfectly good English and the choice of whether to use it or until is often decided by the rhythm of the sentence.

âtil, has been created within the past century by people who believe that till is an abbreviation of until and want to mark it as such. It has often been said by style guides and dictionaries that itâs a mistake and it arouses passion in some people. Most recent writers on language prefer to describe it as an informal version of until â it often turns up in newspapers, advertising and song lyrics, for example, and in informal set phrases like âshop âtil you dropâ, âIt ainât over âtil itâs overâ or â âTil we meet againâ. But to use the spelling til without the preceding apostrophe is still regarded as wrong.

Courtesy of http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-unt1.htm

Re: simple meaning of dialect

Marius Hancu — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 12:35:14 GMT

>just a way=only a manner

A dialect is the special way people from a given area of a country speak and write.

Sometimes, the spelling is different, or the meanings are different, or the pronunciation is different.

Also, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

You may want to see a description of a particular AmE dialect, the Southern American English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English
and related to that dialect
A Glossary of Quaint Southernisms
http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/southernese.html

Re: Standard English is an elitism of one sort, do you agree?

nona the brit — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:15:32 GMT

I think that there are two issues being confused here with 'standard' English. Standard English with regards to grammar and so on, and a standard English accent.

We may speak a regional (non-standard) English accent (this is what the only 12-15% figure is talking about) but most people still use primarily standard English grammar etc, particularly in writing. I don't have a standard English accent but I do use standard English 'the language', if you see what I mean. At least most of the time. I don't think there is anyone without a few regional/class slang or dialect words. Even the URP people have their own little selection.

Learners should definitely learn standard English 'the language'. There is nothing elitist about it. Everyone uses it bar the very uneducated. When it comes to accent, you have to pick one of them, and standard is the most easily understood by everyone. There are English accents that even other English people have difficulties understanding. It would be pretty pointless to choose to learn one of those. You couldn't find any English accent that was spoken by the majority of people here, we have so many. I'd say 12-15% probably makes it one of the most common accents, if not THE most common accent, spoken in England.

For example, in my local area a lot of people use glottal stops and drop their h's. (I try not to). It is a non-standard accent. However, when they write those words, they don't spell them in a funny way, they use standard English spelling.

Re: Is American English lazy English?

Marvin A. — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 06:41:22 GMT

Wow, what a lot of nonesense.

Is American English simply lazy English with disregard for the fundamentals of the language, or is it a valid simplification of an overly complex and irregular language?

Huh? What are you talking about?

I was hoping nobody would ask, but since you did, I much prefer the attitude of the British. They have enough respect for the language to use correct spelling

How is modern British spelling more "correct"? Who determines correct spelling anyway? The differences in spelling between the US and the UK are mostly due to there being multiple forms that were considered "correct" at the time: such as "color" and "colour".

(The British have) clear enunciation

Oh they do, do they? Are you referring to RP, which is spoken by about 4% of the population, or are you referring to Glaswegian?

(And the British have the) correct use of prepositions and general grammar (and Americans don't)

Huh?

It is not my intention to offend users of American English, users of the imperial system of measurement or anyone else who cares little for international standards.

By your logic, the imperial system should be the correct one. After all, it was invented in Britain. They simply "dumbed down" their system (as you like to say), and switched to the metric system.

I know literacy levels in most western countries are declining rapidly. Could this be a contributing factor?

What does literacy have to do with it?

they use American enunciation

There are several dialects of North American English.

(The "American enunciation", grammar, etc.) all these also have been standardized

Um, no. There is no standardized pronunciation in North American English.

British is regarded as classical English?

"Classical English"? Modern British dialects, particularily RP, have diverged more from the English that both RP and General American are derived from. The non-rhoticity is one thing.

When one considers that the countries on the following list and a multitude of other nations have deep historical if not current connections with Britain and British English, I think it is quite likely that the use of Bitish English is far more widespread and popular than one might think at first glance.

Canada

Um. Canada does not speak "British English".

Oh, by the way, British English is taught in Australian schools, and I think it would be fair to say that Australians take great pride in the preservation of 'proper' (the Queen's) English

Australians speak *Australian English* not British English. They are not "taught" British English. Their spelling system is closer to the British standard though. As for Australians speaking the Queen's English, nothing could be father from the truth, in fact most non-Australians think that most forms of Australian English sound very much like Cockney.

Interesting that Australians take much pride in using British English - that actually would support the thesis that it'll hardly happen that the British English will be replaced by the American English, what do you think?

Um. They don't use British English... But they're of course not going to adopt an American accent. That would be like thinking that people from Berlin would adopt a Swiss German accent.

As nationalities continually interact around the word, shouldn't there be ONE set standard for both measurement and English? Emagine if you gave a spelling test to students from different English speaking countries. Q. What would be the correct spelling for the word "COLOR/COLOUR" ? (for example) Who would pass the test and who would fail?

Um. Both were used in the past as acceptable variants.

As nationalities continually interact around the word, shouldn't there be ONE set standard for both measurement and English?

No. English is a pluricentric language.

American English now is mostly ebonics lol

Rubbish

In a nutshell American and British English are but two dialects of ENGLISH.

They are not two "dialects". There's really no such thing as "American English" or "British English". There are many dialects of English in North America, as well as many dialects in the Britain.

I don't think I would consider British English "Classic English". British English and American English were assumable one in the same 200 years ago.

Exactly. But remeber, even at that time there was not just one form of English. There were many dialects.

I started this thread in 2003, and I have to admit I now feel a little silly about it.
Thanks to the input in this thread (and others) I realise my stupidity at having been so outspoken.

Good.

U.S. has a very diverse population. The pressure, naturally, is to simplify English so everyone, including the non-native speakers, can understand each other.

Rubbish. How has it become simpler?

They should learn to write properly, that is, English, proper English

Write properly? What is this "correct spelling" anyway?

So you're quite likely to hear a rising 'Australian' intonation in plain statements, for example â which to some BrE ears makes every statement sound like a question.

That's also found in North American English. It's associated with California English and Valley girls for the most part. It has very little to do with Australian influence.

Re: The pronunciation of words like 'foreign' and 'recognise'

Marvin A. — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 16:19:22 GMT

Mostly only foreigners pronounce the "g" in "foreigner", because adding the "g" was simply a spelling change: in Middle English it was spelled "foreiner", so I don't know of any Modern English dialects that actually add the "g".

Re: pronunciation of 'pronunciation'

Marvin A. — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:34:47 GMT

>> Native speakers can make mistakes with pronounciation. Unfortunately with English, the spelling does not always give you a clue to the pronounciation, so if people learn a word from seeing it written, they can make mistakes. <<

Native speakers can of course occasionally make a performance error, but it's ridiculous to say that they can pronounce a word incorrectly--as who decides on how a word is "supposed" to be pronounced? There are simply different ways of pronouncing words. For example, unlike some people I pronounce "get" as [ gIt ] , and I use the same vowel sound for the words "bag", "beg", "vague", and "play". I also use the same vowel in "father", "bother", "cot" and "caught". Are those "incorrect" pronunciations? No, they are simply how they are pronounced in my particular dialect. The word "pronunciation" actually comes from the Middle English word "pronounciacioun", which was pronounced [ pronunciaciun ] (or in fauxnetics "pronoon-see-ah-see-oon"). By all rights, following the Great Vowel Shift, the Modern English version of the word should actually be pronounced [ pronaUnsieIS@n ]. But most native speakers in many dialects of English do not pronounce it like this. I certainly don't. But to claim that native speakers can somehow pronounce words "incorrectly" is simply ludicrous. The English language is constantly changing, and there is much regional variation, and there is no English language authority that prescribes how people should say certain words.

Re: Beware the grammar expert!

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:24:17 GMT

I have trouble figuring out why 'grammar experts' get the blame for these. There are a number of reasons why people might disagree over these usages: colloquial vs written, American vs British, PC vs non-PC, prescriptivism vs descriptivism, and even one or two examples where there are definite grey areas in grammar. These examples are good for a parlour game, but they don't shed much light on English.

1. Susan is a girl eleven years old. - Grammatically different from 'an eleven year old girl'. As stated above, it looks like "Susan is a girl, eleven years old" or "Susan is a girl (who is) eleven years old".

2. Used they to take a walk after dinner? - Don't blame the grammarians for this! "Used" is very quirky in English, as any grammarian can tell you. So is "ought". My feeling is that this sentence is not really old-fashioned English at all, but modern colloquial English artificially remodelled to resemble artificial English. Would Shakespeare have written âUsed they to take a walk after dinnerâ?

3. Italy, who has been in the forefront of fashion. - Yes, the problem is the relative pronoun. It's not common nowadays to refer to countries as people, but not unknown. How about, "America, who has taken part in more wars than any other country this century, likes to call other people 'warmongers'". Marginally more acceptable...

4. Mrs Robinson will be nominated chairman. - Grammatically OK, but lots of feminists may bristle at this one. No one used to worry about the sex of a 'chairman', which didn't necessarily refer to a 'man', despite the spelling. (Notice that 'man' in 'chairman' is unstressed; definitely not the same as saying 'chair man').

5. I am older than him. - This is spoken English with a very long vintage, but has been stigmatised in written English. Everyone recognises its existence; the disagreement is over its acceptability.

6. She used to always read the paper after breakfast. - This is perfectly acceptable, although colloquial. The main problem is not the split infinitive, in my view, but the sloppy placement of the 'always'. My feeling is that 'always' really belongs with 'used to'. Put 'always' before 'used to' and the sentence becomes fit to print.

7. Iâve gotten a letter from him. - This is a case of dialect variation. It's American English, but is now also used in other varieties of English, too, under American influence.

8. The average American likes his coffee hot.- The problem is the use of 'his', as some people have pointed out. But I didn't even notice this -- obviously not sufficiently tuned in to PC usage! -- my first instinct was to take issue with the use of 'average'.

9. Whatâs the situation weatherwise? - Another Americanism that has become widespread. This is an innovating usage that some people have objected to. It is not grounds for criticising grammar experts.

10.Youâll have to practice it a lot more. - Yes, I would prefer 'practise', but this is not a mistake, it is merely a variation in usage (spelling the verb 'practice' is American usage).

Re: spelling bee

Marius Hancu — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:40:11 GMT

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bee

3 [perhaps alteration of English dialect been, bean voluntary help given by neighbors toward the accomplishment of a particular task, probably from Middle English bene boon, prayer, from Old English bemacronn prayer -- more at BOON]
a : a usually social gathering of people to accomplish cooperatively a
specific purpose -- often used in combinations <husking bee> <quilting bee> b : PARTY 10a <a square-dancing bee> c : SPELLING BEE

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
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