[Thad E Ginathom]

Yes, that's true. Even if not, once a wrong word gets stuck in the head, it is tough to change it.

[Ricci]

Some common mistakes people make :

1) "Please explain me virtualization."
It's supposed to be explain *to* me.

2) "The team comprises of 12 people."
Of is redundant in this case, it's supposed to be "The team comprises 12 people." Alternative term is "consists of".

3) Often seen in newspaper reports - "The container collided with the bus head on."
What they mean to portray is a truck (or lorry in the Queen's English) carrying a container, often a tractor-trailer type of truck - is conflated with container. The container is the payload of the truck, not the truck itself.


My main axe to grind with English is its penchant to assimilate words from other languages which are pronounced completely differently, so out of norm with regular English, it's baffling. French words in particular.

Like rendezvous. Who in their senses would guess that it's pronounced "ron-they-wooh" , or lingerie , which is pronouced "lawn-jer-ray".
If I meet the English gentlemen who assimilated other languages into English, I'd curse them in my worst English accent sprinkled with attempted Punjabi/Harvanvi cuss words.

Meanwhile, enjoy this movie clip, Thad E G sir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym8u-YoiT6E

[Thad E Ginathom]

My main axe to grind with English is its penchant to assimilate words from other languages which are pronounced completely differently, so out of norm with regular English, it's baffling. French words in particular.

We are a mongrel people with a mongrel language. You do not have to travel far from England to find countries where, whilst not everybody looks the same, there is a noticeably typical type, eg tall and blonde. There is no physical English type: our genetics are a patchwork quilt, and so is our language. Learning all those peculiar pronunciations and spellings is no easier for us just because we're born there! In fact, some of us remain pretty bad at the spelling all our lives!

Isn't it astonishing that English, when spoken or written with some knowledge and care, is not only flexible and expressive, but even beautiful! Those ancestors of mine must have got something right!

By the way. It should be Please explain virtualisation to me, and ron-day-voo

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

We are a mongrel people with a mongrel language. You do not have to travel far from England to find countries where, whilst not everybody looks the same, there is a noticeably typical type, eg tall and blonde. There is no physical English type: our genetics are a patchwork quilt, and so is our language. Learning all those peculiar pronunciations and spellings is no easier for us just because we're born there! In fact, some of us remain pretty bad at the spelling all our lives!

Isn't it astonishing that English, when spoken or written with some knowledge and care, is not only flexible and expressive, but even beautiful! Those ancestors of mine must have got something right!

By the way. It should be Please explain virtualisation to me, and ron-day-voo

Presuming you've seen Izzards mongrel nation? Its brilliant,like everything else he does.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by Ricci

My main axe to grind with English is its penchant to assimilate words from other languages which are pronounced completely differently, so out of norm with regular English, it's baffling. French words in particular.

True, as I'd written before English has borrowed plenty of terms from French, Old English aka Anglo-Saxon aka Germanic words, then Yiddish, Aramaic, Sanskrit.. you name it. Each region has its own "new" English so to speak, influenced partly by what language the natives spoke prior to the arrival of English.

When I was young, I always imagined that English was/is the original language and that the French, Germans and others copied from it. I always cringed when the English teacher in school said "on-velope", I found it kind of strange than a French pronunciation is being used for an English word.. little did I know that things are the direct opposite of what I had assumed. I still feel its a bit nutty to use French pronunciation when speaking in English, I do a half-grimace when people say res-to-rahn (restaurant) or on-velope when speaking the rest of the sentences in the garbled Indian accent. Strangely enough American accent is the only one I can understand 100% clearly, Indian accent (which of course I talk in as well) and British accent flies mostly off the top of my head.

I am interested in branding, being a marketing guy.. and when speaking of branding its hard to ignore France/Switzerland, the worlds leaders in luxury apparel manufacturing (manufacture is correctly used here, because it means manu-factum i.e made by hand), cars are in no way "manufactured". So let me entertain with some French pronunciations of luxury brands which worldwide, everyone else gets them wrong, very wrong.

- Cartier - Cah-ti-yay
- Jaeger LeCoultre - Zhey-Zhey Leh-Cool-turh
- Hermes - Heh-mehzs
- Roger Dubuis - Roh-zhaey Du-vee
- Vacheron Constantin - Vashero'n Constantahn

The only error English speakers like us make is in assuming that every written word by default should be pronounced in the same way as in English. Latin-origin language speakers type J (yay) in many words instead of Y.. that's because most languages other than Sanskrit and English do not recognise J (jay), this includes Yiddish, Hebrew and Old-Latin

[carboy]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

- Jaeger LeCoultre - Zhey-Zhey Leh-Cool-turh
- Roger Dubuis - Roh-zhaey Du-vee

I am pretty sure these should be pronunced as

Jaeger LeCoultre -> Zheygey Leh Cooltruh
Roger Dubuis -> Roh-zhaey Du booyee

[tilt]

And "Hermes" is pronounced "Er-mez". The H is silent in French.

LeCoultre - Le-coolth. The "re" is lightly aspirated (almost like lightly hawking before spitting), never explicitly pronounced.

Ricci, I believe it's more than a penchant. English is what is referred to as a basterdized language with an extensive list of words borrowed from other languages. Obligatory Wikipedia Link.

Note to mods: OK, the profanity filter here substituted my original word for asterisks. The original word meant "illegitimate offspring", and in this particular context is not considered profane, but is actually the correct word to be used.

Cheers

[avingodb]

So two guys in my school batch have their wedding anniversaries today. People started wishing them like "Happy Anniversary Arun and Vinay!"

I tried telling them that this implies that they are married to one another but no one gets it!

[noopster]

Originally Posted by avingodb

So two guys in my school batch have their wedding anniversaries today. People started wishing them like "Happy Anniversary Arun and Vinay!"

I tried telling them that this implies that they are married to one another but no one gets it!

This is one of those quirks of the English language that we love!

And sometimes hate: I remember meeting a classmate of mine after years and she announced that she was pregnant. I offered my congratulations, adding that "(my wife) and I had a baby girl last year".

She looked at me a little wide-eyed and hesitant and went, "What do you mean 'had'...?" I hastened to assure her that both mother and child were fine! Later I checked if I had slipped up on the usage, but no..."had a baby" is perfectly right. Probably my friend was used to people telling her that they'd been "blessed with" a baby or some such, so I thought better use that from that point on

[avingodb]

Originally Posted by noopster

This is one of those quirks of the English language that we love!

True that,

But my point was that there were two separate anniversaries and wishing the two guys in one sentence made it look all the more funny.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I still feel its a bit nutty to use French pronunciation when speaking in English, I do a half-grimace when people say res-to-rahn (restaurant) or on-velope when speaking the rest of the sentences in the garbled Indian accent.

But it is an "ONvelope" that you put your letter in. That is, simply, the correct pronunciation. We usually do not leave the "T" at the end of restaurant silent, but some people insist on having affectations, eg "an 'otel."

Strangely enough American accent is the only one I can understand 100% clearly, Indian accent (which of course I talk in as well) and British accent flies mostly off the top of my head.

In a commercial situation, people who "speak English" have said that they do not understand my accent. Sorry, but there is a hard truth here: my "accent" is about as accent-less as it gets, and if they do not understand it, then they do not actually speak English, and are probably not actually qualified to do their job. I have known native-Indian call-centre trainers whose students would certainly not misunderstand me. Actually, that is true of those whose speciality was American English too!

Originally Posted by avingodb

So two guys in my school batch have their wedding anniversaries today. People started wishing them like "Happy Anniversary Arun and Vinay!"

I tried telling them that this implies that they are married to one another but no one gets it!

It does. try suggesting Happy Anniversaries

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by carboy

I am pretty sure these should be pronunced as
Jaeger LeCoultre -> Zheygey Leh Cooltruh, Roger Dubuis -> Roh-zhaey Du booyee

Well, one of the brand ambassadors of JLC, Clive Owen who is British does say ZheyZher LehCooltruh but that isn't accurate enough.. since the French do not pronounce 'R' directly.. they prefer to mute it with a spitting action as has been described by tilt above. This is one of the hardest brands to pronounce with the Germans calling it Yaeger LeCoultruh but in official brand videos it is pronounced Zheyzhey Leh-Cool-turh. As for Roger Dubuis they say it pretty fast and hence the b in Dubuis goes literally mute. The President of Roger Dubuis Georges Kern pronounces it as Rohzheyr Duvee. There can be slight changes based on the location though.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

But it is an "ONvelope" that you put your letter in. That is, simply, the correct pronunciation. We usually do not leave the "T" at the end of restaurant silent, but some people insist on having affectations, eg "an 'otel."

True, but as you said.. the affectations. Even if 'onvelope' is how it should be said in English, it needn't be quite as nasal as native French speakers, that's how I hear those people saying it. That part to me seems put-on and if each word is to be pronounced according to its roots then we'll all be tongue-twisted to the point of going mute.

In a commercial situation, people who "speak English" have said that they do not understand my accent. Sorry, but there is a hard truth here: my "accent" is about as accent-less as it gets, and if they do not understand it, then they do not actually speak English, and are probably not actually qualified to do their job. I have known native-Indian call-centre trainers whose students would certainly not misunderstand me. Actually, that is true of those whose speciality was American English too!

Well yes, again I guess I wasn't being precise. Maybe its just me but I think the British English of a few decades ago was easily understandable, actors like Michael Caine have the perfect accent. Today its unbearably changed and even if I belong to this generation I cannot seem to easily understand the multitude of slang, shortcut phrasing and dilution by Irish/Scottish accents that seem to have invaded Great Britain's great language.

[Thad E Ginathom]

B...B...But...

The vast majority of English people speak with some sort of regional accent. The only thing that has changed over the decade is for the regional differences to have become blurred.

I think we should be respectful of our Scottish, Welsh and Irish brethren, who also have varieties and regional variations within the whole. Not to mention whole other languages, which, in the case of Welsh, is official. Music to the ears! If a little difficult to decipher at times. They are certainly as much a part of Great Britain as England is.

There never was a country full of people who spoke anything close to standard (received pronunciation) English, outside of certain parts of Southern England (someone once told me that it itself is actually a regional accent: I don't know if that is true), middle-class and academic circles. Even upper-class English is somewhat different.

I'm a decade out of touch with my mother country. I can remember teenagers whose talk I had to uncompress in my head to know what they had said, from thirty years ago. I have no idea how they would speak now.

Most of the English speaking Indians that I know speak English much as I do. Many of them spent long periods of their lives abroad. Quite a few hold American passports! Curiously, they tend not to have accents that match the passports.

Here's a UK-region curiosity. Jersey, in the Channel Islands, has its own language. An English friend of mine told me that she could understand it easily because she had studied medieval French!

(I'm trying to remember how Michale Caine speaks!)

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

(I'm trying to remember how Michale Caine speaks!)

He has the signature Londoner accent, a refined smooth style of speaking. His natural Cockney accent though, I cant get many words.. its too fast and the pronunciations and word usage cannot be understood easily at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBjp1oEZcwU

Here we go ;D

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

He has the signature Londoner accent, a refined smooth style of speaking. His natural Cockney accent though, I cant get many words.. its too fast and the pronunciations and word usage cannot be understood easily at all.

Interesting. Probably more so than watching a movie extract.

Yes, it's London. No, it is not "refined." As he says, his accent comes from the working class, and he kept it, rather than adapting to the "posh" theatrical style of the day (Dhaarling). And, as he also says, it is not cockney, which would be much stronger. I strongly suspect that his accent has changed over the years, because these things do as we mix with others.

I wonder if you would find the words hard to understand if you read a transcript? It's colloquial, a bit rough and ready (which is his style) and there is an occasional wrong tense, but otherwise, nothing strange about it. Maybe I'll request my wife to take it down in shorthand and type it. She could do that heaps quicker than I can, and you can see how it looks in type.