Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - kanajlo

Pages: [1] 2
1
I've never heard or read of the plural of "stadum" being expressed as "stadia" in the United States. It would seem as strange to me as to encounter "college campi" instead of "college campuses."

2
It's often overlooked that the written numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine need hyphens. It is preferable to write them out completely instead of simply writing 21 and 99.

A "three-year-old" or a "three-year-old child" requires hyphenation.

3
"The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick."
"Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy; kids'll [young goats] eat ivy too -- wouldn't you?"

4
I think "actually" is a good alternative. "Indeed," in this part of the world (Texas) sounds a bit pedantic and/or British, as does "in point of fact."

5
"When all is said and done" sounds prolix and irritates my ear.

6
I was always taught that "as regards" is a clear, short way of expressing this important concept that doesn't sound high-handed or awkward.

7
Your Thoughts Exactly / Re: A Day in May
« on: August 01, 2010, 10:59:06 AM »
"Mayday" as a cry for help came from the French m'aidez, which means "help me." As we all know, the French invasion of England had a profound effect upon the language, and continued to do so for centuries, as French was often the language of science, culture, and diplomacy.

There are other words that have all five common vowels in order:

abstemious
abstemiously
abstentious
adventitious
adventitiously
arenicolous
arsenious
cavernicolous

8
Difficulties and Resistance to Spelling Reforms in the English language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_spelling_reform

# Public resistance to spelling reform has been consistently strong, at least since the early 19th century, when spelling was codified by the influential English dictionaries of Samuel Johnson (1755) and Noah Webster (1806).
# English vocabulary is largely a melding of ancient Latin, Greek, French and Germanic terms, which have very different phonemes and approaches to spelling. Some reform proposals tend to favor one approach over the other, resulting in a large percentage of words that must change spelling to fit the new scheme.
# The large number of vowel sounds in English and the small number of vowel letters make phonemic spelling difficult to achieve. This is especially true for the three vowels /uː/ (e.g.: fume, moon), /ʌ/ (e.g.: hut, sun) and /ʊ/ (e.g.: look, put) which are represented in English by only two symbols, oo and u. Spelling these phonemically cannot be done without resorting to unusual or novel letter combinations, diacritic marks or the introduction of new letters[14].
# The variety of local accents makes it difficult to agree upon spellings which take into account most accents. Furthermore, some words have more than one acceptable pronunciation, regardless of dialect (e.g. economic, either). Spelling reform may solve this issue by continuing to allow multiple pronunciations of a standard spelling, as happens today with the modern standard spelling of such words, or by allowing multiple acceptable spellings for such words. Other spelling reform proposals impose a new spelling that is based on a particular pronunciation.
# Some inflections are pronounced differently in different words. For example, plural -s and possessive -'s are both pronounced differently in each of cat(')s (/s/), dog(')s (/z/) and horse(')s (/ɪz/). The handling of this particular difficulty distinguishes morphemic proposals, which tend to spell such inflectional endings the same, from phonemic proposals that spell the endings according to their pronunciation.
# The English language is the only language in the top ten major languages that lacks a worldwide regulatory body with the power to promulgate changes to orthography. The establishment of such a body may be necessary before any coordinated efforts to reform English spelling can be undertaken globally.
# Some words are spelled so differently when compared with their pronunciation — such as tongue and stomach — that changing the spelling of such words would noticeably change the accustomed shape of the word. Similarly, the irregular spelling of very common words such as is, are, have, done and of makes it difficult to respell such words to remove the irregularity without introducing a noticeable change to the appearance of English text. Such difficulties tend to create acceptance issues.
# Spelling reforms render pre-reform writings more difficult to understand and read correctly in their original form, often necessitating translation and republication. Today, relatively few people choose to read classic literature in the original spellings as most of it has been republished using modern spellings.[15] Similarly, changes in "modern" spelling could require new translations of old text, and translation of previously "modern" texts into the new standard, in order to keep the works accessible going forward.
# For people profoundly deaf since birth or early childhood (who might already find reading and writing very challenging), each change of spelling would be arbitrary, as they would be unable to use sounds as a guide, and they would thus have to unlearn and learn each case individually.

9
A plan for the improvement of spelling in the English language

By Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Generally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeiniing voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x"— bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez —tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivili.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

(Translation: Finally, then, after some twenty years of orthographical reform, we would have a logical, coherent spelling in use throughout the English-speaking world.)

10
Language Humor at its Finest / Re: On the Job
« on: July 11, 2010, 01:39:16 AM »
Things You Don’t Want to Hear During Surgery

"Oops!"

11
Language Humor at its Finest / Re: Miscellany
« on: July 11, 2010, 01:36:00 AM »
HOW TO ARGUE EFFECTIVELY AND DEMOLISH YOUR OPPONENTS

(continued)

a. If your opponent quotes a famous person, say that that quote was taken out of context. "Text without context is pretext." (Maybe there was no context, but don't admit that.)
b. If your opponent makes a very important point, say, "That is irrelevant and immaterial," even if it is not.
c. If your opponent is presenting a long argument, say, "Do we really have time for this lengthy dissertation? Can we somehow sum up the entire point in less than three sentences?"
d. If your opponent cites the opinion of a celebrity or authority, reply that "Steven Pinker, the famous American scientist, would probably disagree with you." It does not matter if you don't know much about Steven Pinker. Your audience will know less.
e. If your opponent says anything about you, personally, anything at all, say "Is it necessary to bring ad hominem arguments into the midst of a serious discussion? I expected better manners from you."

12
Students’ Sounding Board / Re: Sexist jargons
« on: July 11, 2010, 01:06:58 AM »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
Singular "they"
Main article: Singular they

Since at least the 15th century, "they" (though still used with verbs conjugated in the plural, not the singular), "them", "themself", "themselves", and "their" have been used, in an increasingly more accepted fashion, as singular pronouns. This usage of the word "they" is often thus called the singular "they". The singular "they" is widely used and accepted in Britain, Australia, and North America in conversation and, often, in at least informal writing as well. It is important to note that this is not recognized by the SATs and other standardized tests.

    * I say to each person in this room: may they enjoy themselves tonight!
    * Anyone who arrives at the door can let themself in using this key.
    * Eche of theym sholde ... make theymselfe redy. — Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon (c. 1489)

13

"F & W
More or less follows the Oxford and Cambridge definitions, with the addendum:
*shall, will:  the formal view on he use of shall and will is that to indicate simple futurity, shall is used in the first person, will in the second and third; their roles are reversed to express determination, command, inevitability etc., while in questions, the choice depends on the form expected in the answer.   These rules apply to American usage only at the most formal level.

Merriam-Webster is of much the same view."



While formal usage makes distinctions between shall and will, those distinctions are becoming less important as the word "shall" is on its way to extinction in everyday speech in the US.

14
 "Our perception of what’s grammatically and idiomatically correct in language actually depends on the linguistic community we are living in."

Comment: Exactly right. Maybe some English speakers say "a lot of years," but in those areas where I have lived, I have never heard it. What is comprehensible and what is customary are often quite different, depending upon where one lives.
In the King James version of the Bible, it says that a certain person died "full of years." In the seventeenth century, perhaps that was often heard and said, but no longer.

15
Well, keep up the good work, Jose, and good luck...to everyone learning English.

Pages: [1] 2