clipka wrote:
> Darren New schrieb:
>>
>> My wife grew up in China, so she's always stumbling across funky 
>> things English does wrong. I love this stuff. :-)
> 
> How about "oversee" and "overlook", for instance?

That was one of the best, up there with "undust the furniture."


She asked me to check an email she was sending out. It said "John should 
overlook the project."  I said to change it to oversee, because overlook 
means to not look at. She said "But I want him to look over it."  I said 
"Yes, if you look over something, you don't overlook it, you oversee it." 
She said "fuckin' English."  :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:08:57 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:

>She said "fuckin' English."  :-)

She's not the only one in the world to say that ;-)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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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" an
d 
not two like "fru••••ït" would be. It was so cut
e. :-)
•
-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New schrieb:
> 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 not two like "fru••••ït" would be. It was so cute. :-)

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?


Anyway - Skol!
(*claps heels*)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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] anonymousorg> 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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"Jeremy "UncleHoot" Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecmo> 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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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4ab5dcc6@news.povray.org...
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> 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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