Gail Shaw wrote:

> How much fiction (excluding web comics) do you read?

In the last 3 years, I have read approximately 0 pages of fiction [not 
counting web comics, which is a very new trend for me].

What can I say? 90% of my life is spent writing computer programs. I 
don't *do* much else... [Unless you count sleeping anyway.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>  Personally I also oppose that type of "pronounciation syntax" which
>> looks more like the writer is having rough sex than anything else.
> 
> So that is what rough sex looks like. I did not know, thanks ;)

I feel I should interject something whitty here. But... seriously... I 
think it's already been done. Woah.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=734

[Note final panel.]

That's the best I could manage. :-S

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> What can I say? 90% of my life is spent writing computer programs. I 
> don't *do* much else... [Unless you count sleeping anyway.]

  How many of the points in this list would you say apply to you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness#Common_symptoms

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Stephen wrote:
> I did not know that "Barista" had entered the English language. Other
> than that I know all of them.

I've only ever heard it in reference to Starbucks. :-)

The only word I didn't know is sapphic.

And, incidentally, yes, Oedipus is supremely f'ed up. That's pretty much 
why it's still a part of the language thousands of years after it was 
written, in a different language yet.

> I would not say "supremely illiterate" but you don't have a broad
> enough education.

Or you don't read enough difficult books. Or you read them and skip the 
hard words.

It's sometimes fun trying to figure out what my wife (who learned 
Chinese first) is asking when she comes across a word she doesn't know. 
  "What's a mig-non?"

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Invisible wrote:
>>   "Barista" is rather easy to guess, especially if you know Spanish
>> (like I do).
> 
> Any hints on how to pronounce it?

Hint: All spanish is pronounced just like it's spelled. Some of the 
letters might have different pronunciation than you expect, yes, but 
it's amazingly consistent ever since some Spanish bishop in the 1690's 
(IIRC) did the opposite of what the French do, and said "this is a mess 
- let's make it consistent."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Warp wrote:
>   Ok, I was thinking about Americans, actually. British people probably
> have little problem with that name.

Depends where you're from. In Boston, worcestershire is one sylable. In 
Texas, "yup" is three.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Hint: All spanish is pronounced just like it's spelled.

  Not letter-by-letter, though. Some combinations of letters are
pronounced differently than those letters alone would be. For example,
the 'u' in "gu" is pronounced differently than in 'gui' (where it, in
fact, is not pronounced at all). Moreover, the 'g' in "gu" is pronounced
differently from the 'g' in "gi".

  The letter 'l' is pronounced differently when it's doubled: "ll"
(although official Spanish grammar considers 'l' and 'll' two distinct
letters of the alphabet, to be precise).

  The letter 'c' is pronounced differently depending on the following
vocal. If the following letter is 'h', it forms its own distinct letter
of the alphabet, pronounced differently from either 'c' or 'h'.

  There's a difference in pronounciation of the letter 'd' when it's
followed by a vocal compared to when it's followed by 'r' and a vocal.

  The pronounciation of the letter 'x' varies according to which
(Spanish-speaking) country you are in. Maybe even inside the same country.

  IIRC, there are no words in Spanish which start with an 's' and with
the second letter being a consonant. If a Spanish-speaking person tries
to pronounce a foreign word like that, he will usually instinctively
pronounce an 'e' at the beginning of the word (ie. before the 's'), for
some reason (I never understood why).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Let's add: c, s, and z have a different pronunciation in Spain, but in 
many Latin-american countries, they're pronounced the same way.

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Hint: All spanish is pronounced just like it's spelled.
> 
>   Not letter-by-letter, though. Some combinations of letters are
> pronounced differently than those letters alone would be. For example,
> the 'u' in "gu" is pronounced differently than in 'gui' (where it, in
> fact, is not pronounced at all). Moreover, the 'g' in "gu" is pronounced
> differently from the 'g' in "gi".

I didn't know that.

>   The letter 'l' is pronounced differently when it's doubled: "ll"
> (although official Spanish grammar considers 'l' and 'll' two distinct
> letters of the alphabet, to be precise).

Yeah. This and the "c" / "ch" are considered single letters. Like, in 
the dictionary, "lk" and "Lm" don't surround "ll". I think "r" and "rr" 
do the same thing, too. That's sort of what I was implying by "some of 
the letters are pronounced in unexpected ways."  I think the accents (as 
in stress on sylables) are very consistent too.

>   The pronounciation of the letter 'x' varies according to which
> (Spanish-speaking) country you are in. Maybe even inside the same country.

I'm sure stuff has drifted.  It's a heck of a lot more consistent than 
English, tho!

>   IIRC, there are no words in Spanish which start with an 's' and with
> the second letter being a consonant. If a Spanish-speaking person tries
> to pronounce a foreign word like that, he will usually instinctively
> pronounce an 'e' at the beginning of the word (ie. before the 's'), for
> some reason (I never understood why).

Cool. A lot of the oriental languages (mandarin, japanese) have mainly 
sylables with one consonant. (I.e., every consonant is close to a 
vowel.) So you don't get words like "consonants", which are easy for me 
to pronounce and hard for most people I know who grew up speaking chinese.

A funny story. "Hoya" is the spanish word for "cove" (as in, a bay of 
water good for parking boats). When the british/americans/English 
speakers took over the town next to where I live, they asked the spanish 
living there what it was called.  "La Hoya."  The brits then said 
"Hmmm... But it's spanish. Better mark it on the maps as "La Jolla".

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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> Yeah. This and the "c" / "ch" are considered single letters. Like, in 
> the dictionary, "lk" and "Lm" don't surround "ll". I think "r" and "rr" 
> do the same thing, too. That's sort of what I was implying by "some of 
> the letters are pronounced in unexpected ways."  I think the accents (as 
> in stress on sylables) are very consistent too.

Dictionaries don't show those as separate letters (anymore).

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