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From: Warp
Subject: Re: When words and phrases change their meaning
Date: 20 Sep 2009 13:40:15
Message: <4ab668ff@news.povray.org>
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > One thing I hate about English is its inconsistent pronounciation.
> I regret pointing out to her that "fruit" is one syllable like "froot" and
One word which took me a long time to learn to pronounce correctly is
"island". That 's' is just so confusing by being there, but being completely
silent.
And I'm still not sure I'd pronounce the word "sure" properly. That's one
of the most difficult words in the entire English language, for sure.
Sewer, shore, sir... no problem, but somehow "sure" is just evil. I can't
pronounce it properly. I hate that word.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> And I'm still not sure I'd pronounce the word "sure" properly. That's one
> of the most difficult words in the entire English language, for sure.
Heh. That reminds me of another one. My wife had been pronouncing "sugar"
the way it was spelled, with no "sh" sound. Eventually I corrected her, and
she got it right on and off for a while. Then one day at the table she asked
me to pass the sh-s-s-sh-sh-s-sh... And I passed the sugar. So that became a
running joke for a while.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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On Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:10:35 +0200, clipka <ano### [at] anonymous org> wrote:
>
>This reminds me of a famous TV show that's traditionally repeated over
>and over again every new year's eve in German television - an old
>black-and-white recording of a sketch played by Freddie Frinton and May
>Warden somewhen somewhere, called "Dinner for One". Virtually every
>German knows the dialogues by heart. One of Frintons lines, playing a
>butler, is "Would you like some fruit"? - where he pronounces the
>"fruit" exactly like that.
>
>So no, she's not the only one - even respectable English butlers apear
>to be mispronouncing it at times... or maybe that's the /right/ way to
>pronounce it?
>
Well Christoph, the British upper class pronounce things in their own way. The
Guardian's cartoonist's Steve Bell does a wonderful phonetic rendition. An
example can be found at the Monday May 26 link at
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stevebell/index.html#
I know the film you mean, funnily enough it was a German programmer who told me
about it about 10 years ago.
The same as last year. :D
--
Regards
Stephen
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From: Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay
Subject: Re: When words and phrases change their meaning
Date: 21 Sep 2009 11:15:37
Message: <4ab79899@news.povray.org>
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"Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftware cmo> wrote in message
news:4ab3db6b$1@news.povray.org...
>I can think of handful of examples of this. In most of these cases, the
>meaning has changed to the opposite, and it's quite confusing.
>
> "Gunning for you." I my mind, it was just a few years ago when this
> meant, "I'm rooting for you." or "I'm behind you 100%." Now, it's just
> the opposite. "I'm coming after you." or "I'm going to try to stop you."
> I believe the phrase probably originated in the trenches, and when you
> left the trench, you surely hoped that your friends were gunning for you.
> Or perhaps it had to do with tail-gunners. If no one was gunning for you,
> you were simply up there flying around while someone else was shooting at
> you! I can still find a couple examples of the older definition on the
> Web, so you don't think I'm just smoking crack. ;-)
> http://www.definition-of.com/gunning+for+you
> http://www.allwords.com/word-gun.html
>
I was actually wrong about this. Using Google's book search, I was able to
find the term dating back to at least 1905, and it was always used in the
sense of "I'm coming after you." But here is where things get tricky. I
might say, "I'm gunning for Obama to win," meaning "I want Obama to win."
But if I said, "I'm gunning for Obama," it would mean that exact opposite.
Very strange, and both are correct usages.
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From: Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay
Subject: Re: When words and phrases change their meaning
Date: 21 Sep 2009 11:29:44
Message: <4ab79be8$1@news.povray.org>
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"Warp" <war### [at] tag povray org> wrote in message
news:4ab5dcc6@news.povray.org...
> Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
>> She said "fuckin' English." :-)
>
> One thing I hate about English is its inconsistent pronounciation.
>
> Mean, dean, clean, cleanse... wait, what?
>
> Feather, leather, leader... huh?
>
> Read, read (depending on tense).
>
My favorites: comb, tomb, bomb. Not to mention the fact that "comb" should
be spelled like "come", but "come" isn't even pronounced like it should be.
How "dumb" is that? hehe
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