On 12/07/2011 12:32 PM, Warp wrote:

> (spoken Finnish doesn't have nearly as many phonemes as many other languages,
> including English, which means that most finns can't even pronounce many
> English words correctly because of lack of practice).

Egg flied lice, anyone?

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On 08/07/2011 07:15 PM, nemesis wrote:

> Oh, and BTW, those verses... yeah, I can now understand why you can't stand
> poetry if such obtuse lines are all you can grasp of it...

As should be obvious, this is not poetry. This is lyrics. ;-)

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> On 08/07/2011 07:15 PM, nemesis wrote:
>
>> Oh, and BTW, those verses... yeah, I can now understand why you can't
>> stand
>> poetry if such obtuse lines are all you can grasp of it...
>
> As should be obvious, this is not poetry. This is lyrics. ;-)

And the difference is?

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 12/07/2011 04:22 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

>> On 08/07/2011 07:15 PM, nemesis wrote:
>>
>>> Oh, and BTW, those verses... yeah, I can now understand why you can't
>>> stand
>>> poetry if such obtuse lines are all you can grasp of it...
>>
>> As should be obvious, this is not poetry. This is lyrics. ;-)
>
> And the difference is?

Lyrics can be in an unintelligible language and still be delightful.

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On 12-7-2011 10:09, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> No, see, you're thinking that the English language follows some kind of
>> *logic*.
>
>    The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.
>
>    For example, how do you pronounce the word "read"? Impossible to say all
> by itself. It depends on the context. (Or, more precisely, it depends on the
> tense of said verb, both present and past tenses being written identically
> but pronounced differently.)

How about 'leading', is that always pronounced the same? You might think 
that is a leading question, but I always had a suspicion that in 
typography it might be pronounced different because of a different, 
heavy, origin.

... GIYF, yes that seems to confirm my suspicion.

There are brilliant poems and songs about consistent english 
pronunciation, I am sure they have been pointed at before in p.o-t

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 12-7-2011 13:32, Warp wrote:
> Francois Labreque<fla### [at] videotronca>  wrote:
>> How does Finnish deal with foreign words?
>
>    How does any language deal with foreign words?

We do it different. We import English (and other) words as is and they 
are pronounced as much as possible like in the original country. That 
becomes fun if it is a verb. Take for instance that you want to say that 
you saved data. Although we now have a Dutch word for it often the word 
'save' is used here too to describe this action. 'save' is in 
pronunciation close to the dutch 'zeef', the present perfect of which is 
'gezeefd', hence we say and write that 'we de data hebben gesaved', so 
we have an english word with Dutch inflections. That means that in the 
middle of a word we switch pronunciation rules from dutch to english and 
back. Even if the english word contains e.g. vowels that would be 
pronounced different in Dutch, like in this case.

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> On 12/07/2011 04:22 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

>>> On 08/07/2011 07:15 PM, nemesis wrote:
>>>
>>>> Oh, and BTW, those verses... yeah, I can now understand why you can't
>>>> stand
>>>> poetry if such obtuse lines are all you can grasp of it...
>>>
>>> As should be obvious, this is not poetry. This is lyrics. ;-)
>>
>> And the difference is?
>
> Lyrics can be in an unintelligible language and still be delightful.

And poetry can't?

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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>> Lyrics can be in an unintelligible language and still be delightful.
>
> And poetry can't?

I can only say this: I've yet to find any poetry that evokes anything 
other than boredom. This does not preclude the possibility of good 
poetry existing; it just makes me rather disinclined to search for it.

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

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On 7/12/2011 1:09, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> No, see, you're thinking that the English language follows some kind of
>> *logic*.
>
>    The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.

It's also the only language I know where the accent (as in stress) moving 
from syllable to syllable changes the parts of speech of the word.

We will progress, and thereby make progress.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 7/12/2011 1:34, Warp wrote:
>    Btw, Spanish is another language where you know how to pronounce written
> words unambiguously, even without context or previous knowledge.

That's because in the 1600's (1670? 1640?) one of the bishops basically said 
"Screw this - here's how people will now spell stuff in spanish..."

> between letters and how they are pronounced.

Technically, there isn't a 1-to-1 correspondence between letters and 
characters, either.  "ll" is one character, yes?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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