The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread 36

[Timsup2nothin]

This is the problem with English.
"Well, we have this rule of spelling here that we use to indicate a long o sound."
"Wait, I thought this was the rule for indicating a long o sound?"
"Yeah, that does too."
"So, two different rules for the same thing?
"Right."
"Is there any way to know which one to apply?"
"No, you just have to guess." <chuckle>
<sigh> "Okay, fine. So which rule should we use to indicate that the o in the name of those critters is a long o?"
"Neither, we'll just expect people to know it." <maniacal laughter>
<sigh>

 

[Takhisis]

growth
broth
sloth

It should just be spelled slowth.
So:

This is the problem with English.
"Well, we have this rule of spelling here that we use to indicate a long o sound."
"Wait, I thought this was the rule for indicating a long o sound?"
"Yeah, that does too."
"So, two different rules for the same thing?
"Right."
"Is there any way to know which one to apply?"
"No, you just have to guess." <chuckle>
<sigh> "Okay, fine. So which rule should we use to indicate that the o in the name of those critters is a long o?"
"Neither, we'll just expect people to know it." <maniacal laughter>
<sigh>

It was a convention at some point that a single consonant after a vowel meant the vowel was a diphthong and two or more consonants meant it wasn't. See rated/ratted, for example (the pronounciation of Byzantine is all over the place, btw), but with slowth… it's two letters that replace an earlier one single grapheme (þ). Sloþ would more or less have fitted the rule, but if you have growth (from grow) then you can certainly have slowth (from slow).

Maybe I should just start spelling it with a w.

 

[cardgame]

Yeah if you want us to say it slowth you're gonna have to spell it slowth

not doing it otherwise

 

[Kyriakos]

Byzantine is pronounced in a far cooler way in english. Primarily due to the "y" not making an "e" sound there. But not just due to that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm gonna floor you with this one, cardgame, but the real pronounciation of ‘Mackenzie’ is ‘Mackenyie’.

Not in Canada, it isn't.

 

[Arakhor]

Yeah if you want us to say it slowth you're gonna have to spell it slowth

not doing it otherwise

Which is of course why paedophile, oestrogen and so on are spelled that way, right?

Byzantine is pronounced in a far cooler way in english. Primarily due to the "y" not making an "e" sound there. But not just due to that.

Bye-ZAN-tine, right?

 

[Synobun]

Which is of course why paedophile, oestrogen and so on are spelled that way, right?

They're not.

 

[Arakhor]

And of course you don't pronounce them that way any more either, right?

 

[Takhisis]

Byzantine is pronounced in a far cooler way in english. Primarily due to the "y" not making an "e" sound there. But not just due to that.

Bye-ZAN-tine, right?

Vizantinós/í/ó and declense appropriately. It's the only way.

Not in Canada, it isn't.

Let's start with the Gaelic spelling, ‘Mac Coinnich’ i.e. son of Kenneth.
That ‘y’ sound (English ‘y’, not IPA ‘y’), used to be spelled with a character known as ‘yogh’ (ȝ), which, if it renders properly, you will see derives from a g. For the same sound shift, see how German ‘gelb’ corresponds with English ‘yellow’.
So MacKenȝie it was, until the printing press came along and presses imported into the British isles didn't have a ȝ character, but they did have g (they didn't have þ either, so þ was replaced with th) and it was replaced with a z which looked quite similar in the style used at the time, and eventually people forgot that that zed* was supposed to be pronounced as the old yogh was (also þ was replaced with Y, see ‘ye olde’).

If you use this at the Society for Creative Anachronism just say that a random idiot on a forum taught you.
btw I found out there's a possibly more elegant explanation on wikipedia.

*or zee if you prefer

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Vizantinós/í/ó and declense appropriately. It's the only way.

Let's start with the Gaelic spelling, ‘Mac Coinnich’ i.e. son of Kenneth.
That ‘y’ sound (English ‘y’, not IPA ‘y’), used to be spelled with a character known as ‘yogh’ (ȝ), which, if it renders properly, you will see derives from a g. For the same sound shift, see how German ‘gelb’ corresponds with English ‘yellow’.
So MacKenȝie it was, until the printing press came along and presses imported into the British isles didn't have a ȝ character, but they did have g (they didn't have þ either, so þ was replaced with th) and it was replaced with a z which looked quite similar in the style used at the time, and eventually people forgot that that zed* was supposed to be pronounced as the old yogh was (also þ was replaced with Y, see ‘ye olde’).

If you use this at the Society for Creative Anachronism just say that a random idiot on a forum taught you.
btw I found out there's a possibly more elegant explanation on wikipedia.

*or zee if you prefer

"Z" is pronounced "zed" in Canada, unless the speaker has been contaminated by too much American media.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If you use this at the Society for Creative Anachronism just say that a random idiot on a forum taught you.

Why, I've never thought of you as random, Tak.

 

[Takhisis]

There is madness in my methods.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why, I've never thought of you as random, Tak.

He is sort of a constant.

 

[Synobun]

He's a menace.

 

[Dachs]

Why, I've never thought of you as random, Tak.

Or clumsy. He's an elegant poster, for a more...civilized age.

 

[Arakhor]

A blade of light in these dark times, one might say.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Nobody seems to have gotten my joke.

 

[metatron]

Nobody seems to have gotten my joke.

You're objecting to one self-ascribed characteristic in implicit contrast to the other, so as to inflict a tease among friends on Takh?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, that's it. Thank you.

Now it may just be that people understood perfectly well and were riffing in their own way on my comment, so that the conversation could eventually be brought around to light zaberz.

 

[Synobun]

lazer sword*