Archive through September 15, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archives: "PICTURE" instead of "PITCHER" ?:
Archive through September 15, 2002
Punkin | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 03:42 pm     Well, referring to the U.S. as "America" is sort of condescending too. I mean...Canada and Mexico are in America also. Maybe we should rename ourselves "United Stateians" or something of the sort, heheh. |
Punkin | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 03:45 pm     Bohawkins...I do agree with what you posted about our renaming everything though. People in this country tend to "americanize" everything. For instance...the Pennsylvania Dutch are not really Dutch...they are German. The Dutch part came about because of Deutsch (German word for German, LOL). They were originally called the Pennsylvania Deutsch. |
Dogdoc | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 04:20 pm     Thanks Oregon, now that I know what a codpiece is ------- I get it! I get it! |
Tobor7 | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 04:26 pm     And all along I thought they were talking about "COPIES" LOL |
Katbee | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 04:36 pm     I don't think we have renamed other countries any more than other languages have their own ways of saying the names of different countries. For example, in Spanish, Germany is Alemania...sounds nothing like Deutchland. It's just a language thing. |
Oregonfire | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 04:39 pm     And I think French for Germany is Allemagne. |
Bohawkins | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 04:43 pm     Katbee - I have found that when doing business in other countries, the people are always pleased that I refer to their country in the way they do. It is a matter of respect. I once closed a business deal in Japan. Later, one of the Japanese participants told me, that I was the only one of those competing who had referred to his country as Nippon throughout the negotiations. He said that was one of the deciding factors in choosing my group. And if your point is that the Spanish are as guilty as Americans in not respecting the name Deutchland, then I agree. |
Punkin | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 05:12 pm     And how can we all forget so soon? When did veto become veedough? vido? veedo? whichever. |
Cas | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 06:23 pm     Thanks Wvc moving on I´m with katbee...Germany, Italy etc..isn´t an American thing it´s an english thing. All english speaking countries use those names. Has nothing to do with respect and everything to do with language. Deutschland is Germany, Germania, Allemagne, Þýskaland etc...depending on where you live and the language you speak AND they don´t say "Italia" they say "Italien", not "France" but Frankreich. Every country(or rather language) does this. But I will agree that any native will look kindly and favourably on any visitor who makes an attempt to speak their language, even if it is just the name of their country. It´s just a gesture and they appreciate it. Also America is pretty much universal slang for the USA but I am surprised that many don´t understand "United States" since the official name in most languages is a direct translation of the words united and states(Etats Unis, Estados Unidos, De forende stater). |
Chiparock | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 08:32 pm     Some folks were saying "Power of Vito" as in Mafia don/godfather. I love that interpretation! English can be a difficult language in distinguishing words that sound alike or nearly alike. A court reporter I know, in her transcripts, would type the word "disillusion" instead of "dissolution" (divorce). That unintentional substitution is amusing because it's so descriptive of what is generally the case in matters of divorce! |
Fabnsab | Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 09:46 pm     The Jamie sabotwaa was a good one. Last year Hardy said that he takes "solstice" in something and he meant solice. My husband and I still make fun of that one. This years fave for me was Chiara being "revengeful." |
Tobor7 | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:11 am     Since you changed the headline to this thread, do you think you could change the first "she" in the first message to "Lisa" so it starts out making sense to those just coming back from vacation. (thanks)
The post was edited. 007
|
Kae | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 02:31 am     I know many people that say pitcher instead of picture. That mispronounciation is more widespread than you might think. What about saying Worsh for Wash and importin for important. How about umble for humble. That one reminds me of the 70's commercial where Herb promounces herbs with an h sound and his wife keeps correcting him and saying "Herb it's not herbs it's erbs Herb." There are so many regional pronouciations of words we could be here all day! |
Bernie | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 02:52 am     Cas, you are perfectly correct about the names being related simply to language and not to arrogance. I can add that the French refer to England as Angleterre, by the way, just as another example of how each country uses its own terminology. One of the main factors in how countries are referred to is that English has become the lingua franca, the Latin, if you will, of the modern world, and so countries with their own individual names for other nations will still use the common anglicised names which we are familiar with, when they deal with international events. It's just how things are, this century, and is not intended to slight other countries. In previous centuries French and Spanish prevailed, and now it's the turn of English. The big difference is that with our global connections nowadays, English has spread everywhere, instead of to only those places where colonial powers had prior influence. Another major factor is that English has historically been a language which accepts vocabulary from everyone else, so that many words in English come from other languages, and it has the greatest vocabulary than any language now in use. There is no Academie Anglaise devoted to keeping the language pure and free of intrusions. Because so many speakers of English have another language as their first, or mother tongue, there are huge variations in pronunciation, and in usage, which all serves to enrich English even further. I know we're having fun about such errors, but we all know that a useful language is alive and evolving all the time, otherwise, it dies, like classic Latin, but Latin evolved and became French, Italian, and Spanish. Only in Romania does the modern equivalent of Latin remain. As long as we only chuckle at the idiosyncrasies of language use, and don't condemn folk for them, then I guess we're safe from becoming language snobs. After all, it's only a tool for communication, and if we understand each other despite our differences, then what's the beef?  |
Bernie | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 02:57 am     Oops! Sorry for being so long-winded, folks. Language is my first love, and I got on my hobby horse and had a gallup-please excuse the rant...  |
Tobor7 | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 03:19 am     Thanks. 007 |
Dogdoc | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 06:08 am     If you pronounce the words "Mary" "marry" and "merry" so they all sound like "merry" chances are you learned to speak East of the Allegeny mountains. I liked your post too Bernie. I like the name change for the topic, we left Lisa far behind. I quess we our officially "out of the house" on this topic now. |
Fabnsab | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:01 pm     Ok, please excuse my ignorance but don't you pronounce those words the same, Dogdoc? If not, chalk it up to yet MORE words I pronouce wrong. |
Chiparock | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:10 pm     Bernie, that's not a rant; you presented an interesting, intelligent discourse on comparative language development and usage. You managed to share your thoughts on the subject in a concise, thoughtful manner which I found illuminating. You have made a positive contribution to this thread. No need at all to apologize! |
Jazzmaroo | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:33 pm     Bernie, what you said makes so much sense. I enjoyed reading your opinion and thoughts about different languages. |
Draheid | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:37 pm     Speaking of famous mispronunciations, (or maybe we weren't but we're gonna), does anyone remember the 'hoopla' about Ricardo Montalban's sales pitch for corinthian leather in cars and how much flack there was that he was not pronouncing corinthian correctly? Geez, that makes me feel old! LOL |
Bernie | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:50 pm     Thank you, Dogdoc, Chiparock, and Jazzmaroo I was afraid I'd 'done a Roddy" and either bored everyone silly, or annoyed everyone for being pedantic - Phew! |
Richardfan | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:53 pm     Don't know if this has been pacifically mentioned yet, but... What about pacific instead of specific? |
Bohawkins | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 01:53 pm     Bernie, you used the term Lingua Franca, and seemed to parenthetically define that as Latin. I am sure that you are aware that although those are both dead languages, they are quite different. Lingua Franca was a pidgin language, a trade language used by numerous language communities around the Mediterranean, to communicate with others whose language they did not speak. It is, in fact, the mother of all pidgins, having been in use in the Middle Ages and surviving until the nineteenth century, when it disappeared without a trace, leaving only a few anecdotal quotations in the writings of travelers or observers -- and the initial numerals in the mouths of the present-day children of Jerusalem, who use them as a counting-out rhyme, without being aware that they are not mere nonsense syllables, but the sad remnant of a once highly useful means of communication, an informal Mediterranean Esperanto. Like other pidgins, it had a limited vocabulary and a sharply circumscribed grammar, and lacked those things, such as verb tenses and case endings, that add specificity to human speech. The language was never written. No poetry, no folktales, no translation of the Bible, just a way to sell the merchandise you had to offer, or haggle for a better price on its purchase. The words that constituted this pidgin were mainly of Romance origin, in particular, Italian, Spanish and Occitan, the variety of French spoken on the mediterranean coast of France and its hinterland. |
Goddessatlaw | Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 02:06 pm     This is one of the most interesting and informative threads I've read in quite some time. I'm a little too distracted right now to make anything resembling an intelligent contribution, but I wanted to thank all the posters here for creating such a stimulating conversation. I've enjoyed reading all of your remarks. |
|