Subtle differences between the US and the UK that baffle me/you/us.

HelloHello on 15/4/2013 at 16:44

It's actually a bit misleading to say that English is a mongrel language, because really you have two factors. The Norman invasion, which introduced a superstratum layer of vocabulary (which was Norman French) for legal and administrative purposes, and then the fact that Latin was the the lingua franca of literature in Europe for over a thousand years which added another layer of superstratum vocabulary. The actual substratum of the language isn't all that much changed, but since we're not serfs/peasants these days working on the land for our daily subsistence we obviously use a lot more superstratum vocabulary then in earlier times.

That's your history lesson for the day.

P.S. That's probably a gross simplification, but there's a few words which reveal the triple layered lexical cake I am talking of.

e.g. Overseer from Old English origins, Surveyor from Norman French and Supervisor from the same Latin root.

SubJeff on 15/4/2013 at 18:25

Quote Posted by demagogue

But English is practically German + French anyway.

Dear Sir,

I politely request that you desist from such scandalous folly. German is but a crude form of concatenated English cultivated by forest barbarians, and French the result of lazy tongues lolling about in the mouths of drunken blaggards.

It is for this reason that Germanic types lack wit, although their efficiency is to be somewhat lauded I suppose, and the Francophones sound like the licentious dandies their mothers raise them to be.

Next you'll be comparing the utterances of the Spaniards to English and that, I dare say, would be taking things an iota too far.

Pistols at dawn? Don't doubt my conviction, sir, if indeed you are worthy of that title, what.

Yours

Subjective Sinjin-Smythe Effect-Toplolly

Jason Moyer on 15/4/2013 at 18:54

Quote Posted by demagogue

The pronunciation of colonel as 'kernel' always struck me as very odd, and pushing the boundaries of English phonetics past its breaking point. After studying German, it looks a little better; I can imagine the "ol" like "ö" and figure how the "er" gets in there, and it's like the spelling of Cologne with the pronunciation of Köln. But English is practically German + French anyway.

According to Mirriam Webster:

alteration of coronel, from Middle French, modification of Old Italian colonnello column of soldiers, colonel, diminutive of colonna column, from Latin columna
First Known Use: 1567

Also, apparently lieutenant comes from Middle English.

faetal on 15/4/2013 at 20:19

Did SubJeff's bow tie just start spinning?

We're ripe with Germanic words too - intermittent, outgoing, incoming etc...

Harvester on 15/4/2013 at 20:55

My English skills are generally pretty decent for a foreigner, but the most troublesome part of the language, for me, is when you encounter a new word in writing on the Internet or somesuch, it's sometimes impossible* to know how that word is pronounced until you hear someone say it on TV. For example, for years I read the word epitome and thought it was pronounced eppie-tome as in tome of wisdom, until I heard someone say it out loud. The word itself gives no hint as to how it should be pronounced, as is often the case with English words. Why are comb, tomb and bomb pronounced way differently (for years I thought tomb in Tomb Raider was pronounced like bomb)?

Dutch is in many ways a much harder language to learn for foreigners than English, but pronunciation has rules that are way more clear than in English.

* yes I know about text-to-speech and such things, but that's relatively new, I used to have a bigger problem with it

demagogue on 15/4/2013 at 21:12

Interestingly, I think Dutch is the most similar sounding to English of a foreign language, if you had to pick one. If one reads it aloud, it almost flows like English. I remember two Dutch tourists speaking quietly in another room, just quiet enough I couldn't make out the words, and I swore I thought they were speaking in English. That doesn't happen for Spanish or French or German or some Scandinavian whatnot, I think.

SubJeff on 15/4/2013 at 22:37

Quote Posted by Harvester

for years I read the word epitome and thought it was pronounced eppie-tome as in tome of wisdom

We all did that once upon a time bro, even the English. I first came across (fnar fnar) many words in books because I read a lot as a kid. These were English words that aren't heard often, especially amongst my peer group. I have a friend who still pronounces lots of things the way he imagined them in his head and he'll even argue with you if you correct him. He's 100% white English from Durham.

Quote:

for years I thought tomb in Tomb Raider was pronounced like bomb

:laff:
Sorry dude, but this is 100% legit hilarious. I can't speak any other languages (though I'm trying) so props to all you multi-lingual chaps, but there are some mis-pronunciations that are just damn funny. I'm sure it works the other way. In fact I'm sure it does - one of my Taiwanese friends always rips me to shreds over my hopeless tone control.

demagogue on 15/4/2013 at 22:52

I never criticize foreigners trying to speaking English because I know what it's like on the other side. When I was teaching English in Japan, my students were coming out of the gym one day with footballs (soccer balls), but one student didn't have one. So I asked him in Japanese the equivalent of (in my mind) "What, you don't have a ball?", but since Japanese doesn't distinguish singular and plural, to them it sounded a lot more like "What, you don't have any balls?" He looked down at himself with an exaggerated mopey face, and all the students just hit the ground laughing hard. Even saying the simplest thing is fraught on all sides with sounding stupid.

Neb on 16/4/2013 at 05:20

The first time I ever tried to pronounce 'paradigm'. Oh god, the scars run deep.

Harvester on 16/4/2013 at 06:30

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

Haha, it can be even worse. At least I knew the B in tomb was silent. Some of my less English-savvy friends actually pronounced the B. :D