The Questions not worth their own thread thread VII

[Earthling]

Well, what I meant, was when posting your etymology link it derides "tea-sodden football hooligans" and overall doesn't seem like a very professional source on etymology, but the actual relevent content like I said I did find elsewhere.

 

[kulade]

Well, the history of dictionary writing has been plagued with bored and desperate strikes at humor.

That particular site is well-sourced and relatively reliable; I rely on in a lot.

 

[Lord Baal]

Well in America, we don't pronounce the word /gɑoʊl/. In the UK, do you pound naols into wood? Do you communicate by E-maol? I think it's about time to baol on archaic spelling; it totally faols. If you wanted an old spelling why even change it from gayhole? Sounds like a good word to me. "Jail" is a far more descriptive of the sound than "gaol."

(although I'd prefer something like "jeil" being a bit closer to phoneticyness)

The word is pronounced 'jay-oll.' Nail is pronounced 'nay-ill.' Seems pretty straightforward.

 

[Dachs]

The word is pronounced 'jay-oll.' Nail is pronounced 'nay-ill.' Seems pretty straightforward.

You're right. "You're doing it wrong" is pretty straightforward.

 

[Lord Baal]

You're right. "You're doing it wrong" is pretty straightforward.

Nope. It's well established that Americans don't pronounce or spell words correctly. Ass. Need I say more?

 

[Dachs]

Nope. It's well established that Americans don't pronounce or spell words correctly. Ass. Need I say more?

Just because you're wrong doesn't mean you need to resort to name-calling, sport.

 

[Lord Baal]

Just because you're wrong doesn't mean you need to resort to name-calling, sport.

Either you didn't get it, or you're being obtuse. Either way, I declare myself the winner, all the while doing a Bender impression.

 

[Brighteye]

Well in America, we don't pronounce the word /gɑoʊl/. In the UK, do you pound naols into wood? Do you communicate by E-maol? I think it's about time to baol on archaic spelling; it totally faols. If you wanted an old spelling why even change it from gayhole? Sounds like a good word to me. "Jail" is a far more descriptive of the sound than "gaol."

(although I'd prefer something like "jeil" being a bit closer to phoneticyness)

Why should spelling reflect your pronunciation? There is huge variability in pronunciation, and how the word used to be written adds character and nuance by reminding the reader of the associations.
The second 'vowel' in gaol is more of a grunt, as far as I can tell, in most British and American pronunciation. It's not portrayed by any of our vowels.

You're right. "You're doing it wrong" is pretty straightforward.

I'm glad that you understood and accepted his message.

 

[Gigaz]

What does the abbreviation l.a.m.b. mean?

 

[Dachs]

Look-At-Me Bisexual. No, it's actually not really applicable to lj. As far as I know.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

This summer in traffic jam, caught beside a car blaring this horrible thumping music and causing a minor earthquake. It was painful at the time, and ever since, I've had this ringing in my ear that won't go away. Is there anything I can do about it?

 

[SG-17]

Go see a doctor?

 

[Brighteye]

This summer in traffic jam, caught beside a car blaring this horrible thumping music and causing a minor earthquake. It was painful at the time, and ever since, I've had this ringing in my ear that won't go away. Is there anything I can do about it?

I think that what you need to do is become a hypochondriac. I know that's hard to do for someone so relaxed about health problems, but give it a go.

 

[Bill3000]

People who can't understand British spelling need to spend more time improving their brains.

People who think that obsolete spellings that have no predictable pronunciation patterns are a good thing need to spend more time improving their brains.

The second 'vowel' in gaol is more of a grunt, as far as I can tell, in most British and American pronunciation. It's not portrayed by any of our vowels.

No. You're simply referring to the second part of the diphthong. jail/gaol are both pronounced /dʒeɪl/. You're referring to the [ɪ]. But this is part of a single diphthong - /eɪ/. This phone in the diphthong is in many English words as a separate phonem, such as "bit", "nit" and "fit". The diphthong /eɪ/ is the "long a" and is represented in many ways, the most common being [a..e] and [ai].

However, these are still single syllable words. The reason why [ao] was used was because it was spelled like that in old french - jail/gaol come from Norman Old French "gaole". They represent the same sound, as you can see in "pail", "mail", "fail", etc.

And don't say that it's not portrayed by any of the "vowels" - you're confusing phonology with orthography. The spellings [a e i o u] are not vowels.

"gaol" fails basic English pronounciation rules; [g] before [a] tends to be /g/, not /dʒ/. It offers nothing other than a meaningless complexity outside of historical etymology, and that's a really poor reason to keep an obsolete spelling. [ao] is very rare to begin with, and therefore it was simply to merge it with [ai] and make the original [g] [j] as it is pronounced via spelling rules (/dʒ/).

Why should spelling reflect your pronunciation? There is huge variability in pronunciation, and how the word used to be written adds character and nuance by reminding the reader of the associations.

Because they have the same pronunciation in the standardized dialects?

You can still create a written system which has the maximum number of phonetic distinctions between its dialects, you know.

Also, those spellings can still be predictable considering the predictability of sound changes. You can still designate the differences between [which] and [witch] (as, say, [which] and [wich]) and if your dialect makes a wine/whine merge, you can still predict the pronounciation of the spelling.

Or if you actually want a standardized language, you can use a single dialect as your basis and include the pronounciation in it and then people will just have to learn it when looking at the written tongue.

That's not an excuse for poor spelling conventions, however.

 

[Flying Pig]

Why is there an L and an R written on my headphones? Does it make a difference which way round they go?

 

[holy king]

if the song you're listening to is recorded in stereo, it should make a difference, yes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Left and Right, it doesn't *really* matter but it's nice to have the right way.

 

[Ulyaoth]

Are those pronunciation characters Bill was just using supposed to appear as nothing more than a weird mushed up bunch of lines? Like in wikipedia, the characters are always all smushed together and impossible to read. What happened to the letters I was taught in school for pronunciation which were basically just the letters with lines or dots to show how they're supposed to be pronounced?

 

[Mirc]

Are those pronunciation characters Bill was just using supposed to appear as nothing more than a weird mushed up bunch of lines? Like in wikipedia, the characters are always all smushed together and impossible to read. What happened to the letters I was taught in school for pronunciation which were basically just the letters with lines or dots to show how they're supposed to be pronounced?

That's the International Phonetic Alphabet, and it's amazingly useful if you're studying languages, linguistics, or history of languages. Indispensable, I'd say, for anyone who wants to go deeper than the basics.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

I pronounce jail and nail as "jayl" and "nayl" not "jay-oll" and "nay-ill"