The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: misterqueue on January 31, 2006, 11:04:14 am
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The strip (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=01312006)
And that friends is how Mr. Raymond Q. Smuckles attempted to win that Ol' Great Outdoor Fight, by callin' in favors.
Well both you and I know how far that gets you here in Achewood, surprisingly far.
Also, since when did 2...5 = 215? Is this new math?
EDITED BY V to add permalink
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The plan begins to unravel.
~Paul
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Blood of Champion sounds like a food brand.
like, maybe sausage? or... hm.
it definitely sounds like it should have a little "TM" after it
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Blood of Champion sounds like a food brand.
like, maybe sausage?
Like those sausages made of clotted blood. Black pudding, is it? My Spanish grandmother called them morcilla. But even before I became an ovo-lacto-vegulonian I wouldn't even try one of those.
It also sounds like something out of the witches' chant from Macbeth. You know, Eye of newt and toe of frog / Blood of champion and tongue of dog...
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So, I'm confused. He doesn't have to qualify because he's BOC, but then he asks who he'll fight. Won't he fight 3,000 guys? It seems like the single fight would be for qualification purposes.
If he calls up all 2,999 fighters and calls in favors in every strip for the next 3 years, I'll stop reading. At some point. Most likely.
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What about this strip necessitated the monday hiatus?
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So, I'm confused. He doesn't have to qualify because he's BOC, but then he asks who he'll fight. Won't he fight 3,000 guys? It seems like the single fight would be for qualification purposes.
If he calls up all 2,999 fighters and calls in favors in every strip for the next 3 years, I'll stop reading. At some point. Most likely.
He's fighting the one guy at the hotel to PROVE he's BOC. If he can beat a previous champion then he can prove that he has the Champion's Lineage.
I fail to see how this is easier than birth certificates though.
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Birth certificates are a way for PUSSIES to hide behind THE MAN. No flimsy piece of paper is gonna back you up, not where you're goin'.
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Why would something like the G.O.F. even need preliminary rounds? I would expect they would take just about any stiff that called in to fill the 3000 man quota...
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Why would something like the G.O.F. even need preliminary rounds? I would expect they would take just about any stiff that called in to fill the 3000 man quota...
Ah but this isn't any stiff, this is Envelope Martinez, the 1997 champion with the animatronical xmasesquey display!
Did I mention his name is Envelope? Did anyone else see this? The man (cat) is named Envelope here people. This shit is crazy! MUY LOCO
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What about this strip necessitated the monday hiatus?
"Beep bop dootle dop"
that is the part that took three days.
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Ah but this isn't any stiff, this is Envelope Martinez, the 1997 champion with the animatronical xmasesquey display!
Did I mention his name is Envelope? Did anyone else see this? The man (cat) is named Envelope here people. This shit is crazy! MUY LOCO
I noticed this. HEY. Maybe ju an' me are amigos!
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So is the favor being asked that Envelópe should throw the fight? That seems a little dishonest, even for Ray.
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Ray's ethics are not those of the common cat. The Blood of Champion flows through his veins, and thus is he above the primitive morality of the feline hoi polloi.
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Like those sausages made of clotted blood. Black pudding, is it? My Spanish grandmother called them morcilla. But even before I became an ovo-lacto-vegulonian I wouldn't even try one of those.
It also sounds like something out of the witches' chant from Macbeth. You know, Eye of newt and toe of frog / Blood of champion and tongue of dog...
The english call them black pudding and it's not heavily spiced. The spanish version is much spicier, tastier, and I enjoy it. I've had congealed duck blood at a chinese restaurant and that was sans spices -- it scared my co-diners but it wasn't altogether bad, just not very flavorful, like meat jello.
Blood sausage, per se, is by no means the worst thing to eat. (I believe, here even, I stated the worst thing to eat was placental blood sausage served with cheese made by milk lactated by men who were forcibly given hormone injections, and cultured with rennet from a panda.)
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Presumably if Ray was just a regular cat off the street he'd need to fight several qualifying rounds, probably against several opponents each time. But as BOC he gets just one fight against one guy.
I can't wait for the Burgess Meredith-esque character to show up.
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I can't think of anything witty to say about it, but I love this. I love Envelope. I love the animatronic Nativity display. I love the alt-text. I love "beep bop dootle dop." I am loving this comic strip very much today. Thank you Mr Onstad for my free entertainment.
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Envelópe Martinez is so fucken brilliant.
Of course, it must be pronounced enve-LOW-pay.
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Envelópe Martinez is so fucken brilliant.
Of course, it must be pronounced enve-LOW-pay.
I can't put my finger on it, but something about the accent on the O doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't strike me as following the phonemic rules for Spanish, like the emphasis is on the wrong syllable for that vowel. Maybe Wombat can back me up.The name really sounds like it should be Envélope instead.
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I'm no expert on Spanish talk but I think as far as names go you can go hog wild and place accents on any old vowel you want. Like Roger said it would be pronounced "en-ve-LO-pay".
This strip is in fact very good! Beep Bop Dootle Dop was by far the highlight and deserves to be remembered. And the thought that we'll get to see Ray's neighbor is exciting I love where this is going and to think it came from that sackchat thing. Speaking of which Ray's phone does not have a sack hanging from it. That didn't last long.
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Yes, but is it EHN-ve-LOW-pay or AHN-ve-LOW-Pay? That's what I want to know.
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I can't put my finger on it, but something about the accent on the O doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't strike me as following the phonemic rules for Spanish, like the emphasis is on the wrong syllable for that vowel. Maybe Wombat can back me up.The name really sounds like it should be Envélope instead.
I'm no authority on Spanish either, but in Portuguese we use the same word, and the accent is on the O. The difference is that we pronounce it more like enve-LAW-pay.
In any case, I was thinking of something similar to guadalupe.
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I'm no authority on Spanish either, but in Portuguese we use the same word, and the accent is on the O. The difference is that we pronounce it more like enve-LAW-pay.
In any case, I was thinking of something similar to guadalupe.
In spanish you don't need the accent mark on the O in "Envelope" at all. By default [in the absence of accent marks] the pronounced accent is always on the second-to-last syllable if the word ends in a vowel.
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Yes, but is it EHN-ve-LOW-pay or AHN-ve-LOW-Pay? That's what I want to know.
If I had to pick between those two pronunciations I'd say it's definitely "ehn-ve-LO-pay". The other, "ahn-ve-LO-pay", would be Anvelope. As far as I know most letter's and words in Spanish are pronounced the way they look (unlike stupid old English(read/read lead/lead way/weigh)) so the E in Envelope would have an Eh sound to it, like pathetic. And the A in Anvelope would sound like that noise you make when the doctor puts the stick down your throat. "Say Ahh!"
dang i like teletype, it's the shit
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I think Mr Chee is correct. You only use the accent mark in Spanish if the accent is on an unexpected syllable. You don't bother using it for the predictable, regular accent. Unfortunately I am currently in a caffeine-deprived state that is interfering with my ability to remember what the stress rule for Spanish is - goddamit people why won't you let me leave my past behind anyway - but I think it sounds right that we don't really need the accent mark.
Oh, and the first syllable is definitely not "Ahn". You're thinking French, or something.
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I think Mr Chee is correct. You only use the accent mark in Spanish if the accent is on an unexpected syllable. You don't bother using it for the predictable, regular accent. Unfortunately I am currently in a caffeine-deprived state that is interfering with my ability to remember what the stress rule for Spanish is - goddamit people why won't you let me leave my past behind anyway - but I think it sounds right that we don't really need the accent mark.
Trust me on Spanish, mate. I have put very much thought and research into language in general and Spanish in particular.
The major rules for accenting in Spanish [Castellano] are as follows.
1) If the word ends in n, s, or a vowel the word is by default pronounced with an accent on the second-to-last syllable and no accent mark is placed.
1a) If the accent is NOT on the penultimate syllable then the accent mark is on whatever vowel is accented.
2) If the word does not end in a letter from (1) then the accent by default is on the last syllable and no accent mark is placed.
2b) If the accent is not on the last syllable the accent mark is similarly placed on whatever vowel is accented
3) If two words are spelt exactly the same one must have an accent mark on the stressed syllable to differentiate the two. Generally the word that is more forceful or emphatic is the one spelt with the mark
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In spanish you don't need the accent mark on the O in "Envelope" at all. By default [in the absence of accent marks] the pronounced accent is always on the second-to-last syllable if the word ends in a vowel.
Maybe that's why the word looks funny to me then.
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I think Mr Chee is correct. You only use the accent mark in Spanish if the accent is on an unexpected syllable. You don't bother using it for the predictable, regular accent. Unfortunately I am currently in a caffeine-deprived state that is interfering with my ability to remember what the stress rule for Spanish is - goddamit people why won't you let me leave my past behind anyway - but I think it sounds right that we don't really need the accent mark.
Oh, and the first syllable is definitely not "Ahn". You're thinking French, or something.
You guys take things way to seriously.
So, Vayse or Vahse?
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So, Vayse or Vahse?
According to Miss Manners, it's only a VAHse if you plan to put DAHsies in it. I follow her rule.
I feel like I should split this, but I'm not sure how...
Anyway, "Envelope Martinez" wins this strip. That's all.
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What if you put Dahlias in it?
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Tomaytoes or Tomahtoes?
Coohpons or Cue-pons?
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Tom AY toes.
COO pons.
Vase rhymes with Phase.
WELCOME TO AMERICAN ENGLISH 101
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Tom AY toes.
COO pons.
Vase rhymes with Phase.
WELCOME TO AMERICAN ENGLISH 101
I get irritated when people say "coo min" instead of "cyoo min" even though I intellectually believe the former is the proper pronounciation.
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How do you pronounce Worcestershire?
Wer-CEST-er-sheer?
WER-ster-sheer?
Wor-ces-ter-shy-er?
WUR-stur-shur?
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How do you pronounce Worcestershire?
Garum
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Wander like the wind, little thread!
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As follows:
vayse
COO-pons
to-MAY-toes
WUR-stur-shur
And now that we're through with that...
Let's call the whole thing off.
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Worcestershire?
I pronounce it so it rhymes with "Jough".
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jough = joe, rhymes with dough?
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Vase rhymes with Phase.
Rhymes with face you mean. Phase rhymes with stays.
and you are the poetry dude too.
~Paul
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jough = joe, rhymes with dough?
Isn't there a thread somewhere where Jough talks about the pronunciation of his name? All I know is that it is neither Jough like Joe nor Jough like Jeff.
I gave up around there, and when pronouncing it mentally, I give it the same sort of strange back of the throat emphasis that Brits give to Vincent van Gogh.
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Tomatoes = to-MAY-toes
Coupons = COO-pons
Worcestershire? = WUR-stur-shire
Jough = Steve
~Paul = Awesome
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Rhymes with face you mean. Phase rhymes with stays.
and you are the poetry dude too.
~Paul
I was about to say this, TOO! "Vase rhymes with phase"? What? You mean "vase rhymes with face," jough. Right?
It bugs me when people pronounce vase like, "vaws." But "phase"? What?
And ... and ... Worcester is wuhster. Therefore, Wuhstershire Sauce. Maybe that's a New England thing. "Wuh" isn't really the sound I'm looking for, but I can't think of a better way to explain the pronouncing. Wough? Wooh? It's like, the first syllable of "wuss." Wuss-ter.
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man.
my latin teacher should read achewood, just because he feels the need to go into hour long rants about every mispronunciation he hears.
he can back it all up, too. that's the fun part.
he contends that the "northern" way to pronounce many words is, in fact, working under reverse logic. A word is pronounced a certain way. this pronunciation is then shown using letters. Then, certain uppity northern types decide that it should be pronounced "the way it's spelled". So, wooster becomes worchester, "according to the spelling", when the spelling is really only an approximation of the pronunciation.
except for the whole "being southern" thing. There are certain words which he refuses to pronounce correctly.
so far: anything ending with "-en" Den is "din". Pen is "pin".
he is simultaneously the reason I hate latin, and the reason I love latin. damn him for that.
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Vase is pronounced as if the s were a z.
It does not rhyme with face. It rhymes with phase, ways, stays, maze, pays, rays, lays, days, and gays.
No one gets "days" wrong, but everyone gets Vase wrong. Why is that?
Also, people mispronounce "flaccid" all the time. It's not FLAS-sid, but FLAK-sid. You pronounce the first c as a hard k, as in succinct (although I hear people mispronounce this as suh-SINKT too).
THERE ARE RULES ABOUT ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION, PEOPLE
My favourite mispronunciation though is often, pounced sometimes as OFF-tin instead of the more correct silent-t OFF-en, whereas these same people won't say "LIST-en" for listen.
Also, library (people leave out the first r), February (same thing) and then people who ADD an r where it doesn't belong, saying BORT instead of BAWT for bought.
That's just soooooooooo lazy.
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Cite?
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Has Ray always been left handed?
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Has Ray always been left handed?
There are three things I love about this post:
You used your first post solely to ask about Ray's hand preference.
Your avatar.
The fact that when I read your name, I read it as "me lack," and immediately began thinking about what it could be that you lack. I settled on lacking a soul.
Excellent first post, welcome.
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I wonder if the phone on your avatar's bathing suit has a ChatSack® attached to it.
Also, welcome.
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I don't believe we've seen him write left-handed before, but I am not one who remembers when the cartoon cat wrote last and could thus look it up. Which hand did he shoot with when he Got Things Done On The Euphemism?
I personally pronounce it WOO-ster-sheer, which is somewhat close to how people in the UK say the name of the sauce, but then again, these same people have a town called Reading which is pronounced "Redding," so there you go.
I have a pet peeve about the first C in Arctic being missed. I don't have a problem with the first D in Wednesday being missed, though, because everyone does that and why can't we just change the name?
Melack, the little man in your icon is disturbing, especially when I imagine that my icon is looking at yours. I don't much like the look on my icon's face if that is indeed the case. Also, that cellphone had better not be set to vibrate on incoming calls.
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Next Jough is going to go all Carlin on us and explain that forte and fort are pronounced the same.
I choose to believe Melack's avatar is a tiny cartoon Ron Jeremy
Maybe Ray is just using his upstage hand?
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My friend, the pretentious editrix, always says acrosst rather than across. Whyyyyyy?
Also, cache should be pronounced as cash, but most people won't have any idea what you're talking about if you do so.
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Is there another way to pronounce cache? Strangely, even after studying computer science for many years and having classes with a lot of total idiots, this is one of the words I've never heard mispronounced - like RAM.
Wow, 187 posts!
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It's not so much an issue in computer stuff, but when you refer to a cache of weapons, say, a lot of people will pronounce it as cachet. For some reason.
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I never got over a physics teacher of mine in high school who pronounced "joules" like "jowls," personally, even when the textbook corrected his mistake. The fact that he was a huge, jowly guy just added to the hilarity.
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My family says acrosst, ludicroust, &c as a regional thing. I do also sometimes when I'm agitated but I really try not to. But then they also swap out short e's and i's at will (pen/pin) and never end a word with a long o (windas).
My SO mocks me mercilessly for saying "appriciate" with a short i instead of appreciate
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I hate when people mispronounce plebian.
It's Tout De Suite people, and pronounce it properly or not at all.
I despise when people pluralize person by utilizing "persons".
Also irregardless is not a word, regardless of whether or not they added it to the dictionary because people are moronic.
Without without regard is regard! DUMB FUCKS! I am sorry board, I am sorry that this has turned me into Pat.
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Question: is "irrespective" a word? I've been seeing it a lot in scientific publications lately, and it looks terribly wrong, but I'm not sure whether I'm reflecting "irregardless" scorn onto it or what.
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Irrespective is a word, but it's archaic.
You're getting hung up on the irr, but the problem with "Irregardless" is the mixture of the Ir- and -less, both are a wonderful example of a prefix and a suffix respectively, but much like pickles and chocolate SHOULD NEVER BE MIXED!
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I hate when people mispronounce plebian.
I don't know how to say that one. But I'm down with plebeian. [/asshole]
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Wow, is it time for the Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar Thread again? It's like clockwork around here.
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I don't know how to say that one. But I'm down with plebeian. [/asshole]
Damn you Cort... you win this time.
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Vase is pronounced as if the s were a z.
Hell no.
Also, library (people leave out the first r), February (same thing) and then people who ADD an r where it doesn't belong, saying BORT instead of BAWT for bought.
Warsh as in warsh the car.
~Paul
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Even the most educated people in my office say contrack instead of contract and retrack instead of retract.
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obviously, diversity will be the death of culture.
however, when persons mispronounce words, they don't do so out of ignorance,
they simply don't like you.
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obviously, diversity will be the death of culture.
however, when persons mispronounce words, they don't do so out of ignorance,
they simply don't like you.
I shall say liberry at you. And nucular. Don't think I won't. And bringing me a shrubbery won't do you any good. You're in for it now!
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Also, people mispronounce "flaccid" all the time. It's not FLAS-sid, but FLAK-sid. You pronounce the first c as a hard k, as in succinct (although I hear people mispronounce this as suh-SINKT too).
I wouldn't know... people don't get much opportunity to use words like "flaccid" around me. They're too busy trying to remember their third grade menmonics re: "stalagmite" vs. "stalagtite."
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I still don't get how there are regional dialects anymore. I mean, weren't we all raised by the same television?
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I wouldn't know... people don't get much opportunity to use words like "flaccid" around me. They're too busy trying to remember their third grade menmonics re: "stalagmite" vs. "stalagtite."
That's a classy, classy typo, dude. Also, a tiny can, although I highly doubt you need it.
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That's a classy, classy typo, dude. Also, a tiny can, although I highly doubt you need it.
The worst part is that I almost posted "thrid grade," and caught it. And I remember thinking, "Man, how stupid would THAT have made me look?" I felt a lot better for having caught it. Oops.
I guess ultimately I was too focused on my rock-like cock - just like all the ladies.
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jough--
I'll never forget... I was in italy, on a school exchange thing, and the teacher was explaining dialects. And she says "does anyone here speak in dialect?" and one kid raises his hand, with the general manner of a person admitting they have genital herpes. the entire class stares at him while he tries to say something in this wierd north-eastern italian dialect (it basically sounded like someone speaking italian with mush in their mouth), only to blush and stop when everyone burst out laughing at him.
I wish dialects in the US would not go away. Making fun of my dad for not being able to pronounce "drawers" will never get old, and I want future generations to have this same ability.
I find that dialects seem to be more and more a matter of choice. there are some kids in my classes who sound very very southern, whose families are from the north. and then there are others of my friends, whose families have lived in the south for bagillions of years, who sound perfectly northern.
of course, my relatives all say I have a southern accent, so who knows. I guess I do have the distinction of having a Latin teacher whose given name, for most of his life, was Bubba. Also, getting to tell people that I was in a garage band that played in a barn.
I love regional wierdness. It's too bad that it's slowly going away. I think I might start saying "ya'll."
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I've started saying "y'all," and I've spent maybe five months combined time in the South. It's just a good word.
I feel slightly strange about regional accents, because I always appear to have "not from around here" as my accent, wherever I am. When I grew up in Alaska, all was well, but when we moved and I started eighth grade in Nebraska, everyone insisted I had an "Alaskan accent." (No such beast, I insist to this day.) I go to college in Massachusetts, and suddenly everyone thinks I talk like a Midwesterner. Either I pick up accents easily or I just have a funny voice that people like to blame on wherever I've been lately.
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It's really weird in my family. Though we were all raised in Alabama, none of my siblings really have a pronounced accent, though as far as I know I'm the only one who consciously changed mine to erase the vestiges of it. My oldest niece somehow picked up the St. Louis "a" pronunciation. I'm told that I sound like I'm from Pittsburgh.
People here in Southern California always seem to be really shocked that I'm from Alabama. I blame Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy for this. I should not have to explain accent variations to people who live where the surfer culture began but do not talk like surfers.
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Out of curiosity what is the St. Louis "a" pronunciation? I'm from here and lived here for a majority and I don't even know that.
Unless you're talking about the South St. Louis people who say 44 as "Farty Far", but I was a North City kid so I didn't pick that up thankfully.
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Yeah, as far as I know, St. Louis folk are often used as examples in television and such, because our speech is like the definition of "non-regional diction."
However, once you get a little further away from the city, people do adopt "Farty Far" type speech, as well as things like "warsh," which DRIVES ME COMPLETELY CRAZY AND MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH PEOPLE IN THE FACE. St. Louis proper, in contrast, has no accent that I'm aware of.
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Out of curiosity what is the St. Louis "a" pronunciation? I'm from here and lived here for a majority and I don't even know that.
Unless you're talking about the South St. Louis people who say 44 as "Farty Far", but I was a North City kid so I didn't pick that up thankfully.
That's the one. I only used St. Louis because of a Sklaar brothers' bit about radio there. Having spent all of 3 hours in St. Louis, I didn't know that it was actually a non-St. Louis speech pattern.
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Yeah, as far as I know, St. Louis folk are often used as examples in television and such, because our speech is like the definition of "non-regional diction."
However, once you get a little further away from the city, people do adopt "Farty Far" type speech, as well as things like "warsh," which DRIVES ME COMPLETELY CRAZY AND MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH PEOPLE IN THE FACE. St. Louis proper, in contrast, has no accent that I'm aware of.
Yeah, trying living near "Warshington." I constantly want to kick these people in the throat. Just say DC if you can't pronounce the other part right, dingus.
I remember hearing a few years ago that Univision was training all their talents to speak mexican-spanish as it is supposedly the most neutral in this hemisphere
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hm.
I'll bet, if you look back to... frontier times? That "warsh" was the right way to say it.
just like "varmints", and "vittles".
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On the subject of vaguely frontier-y regionalisms I can't stand:
"maysure."
It was bad enough when my eighth-grade home ec teacher did this, but when I got to ninth grade and my geometry teacher did it, I wanted to cleanse it with fire.
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Man, I'm probably going to be an English major and I don't get worked up over your "human words."
I think that when you have regularly dealt with people who sound like they might, at any moment, just begin crowing the word "HOOTENANNY!!" over and over again, things get a little lax around the language centers of your brain.
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I hated reading the entirety of this thread. It made me come so close to hating so many of you. I almost took away cans for craps sake! Do you guys really care that much about the pronunciation of words? People can't really help it nor should they need to help the way they talk. It's natural for us to speak this way. The only people that don't have any dialect or mispronunciations are big ass holes that like to be right all the time. They look down on others and have pointy sometimes upturned noses. They have friend but no one likes them. They wear glasses that are always in style. They are never and were never made fun of for glasses. I'd rather talk funny like than be that guy.
By the way, it was really fun to type all that.
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Homo Frenzy is just jealous because he's not cool like we are.
Telemarketers used to teach people to speak with a Nebraskan "aw shucks" accent because it sounded trustworthy. Imagine Johnny Carson calling you to ask if you're happy with your long distance carrier. How can you say "no, go fuck yourself" to Johnny Carson?
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big ass holes
Are you talking about Meteor Crater out in Arizona or did you mean to say "big assholes"?
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Can the hole of an ass not be two words?
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I guess it depends on punctuation.
Like, "Gina has a big-ass hole!"
Or "Hobo Frenzy is a big ass-hole."
See?
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I guess it depends on punctuation.
Like, "Gina has a big-ass hole!"
Or "Hobo Frenzy is a big ass-hole."
See?
HEAR YE HEAR YE
Let it be known that GINA poſſeſes Lady-Parts of a most Brobingdagnian size; such that he who tranſgreſſes their enormous Bound-aries be subjected to ENGULFMENT.
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Let it be known that GINA poſſeſes Lady-Parts of a most Brobingdagnian size; such that he who tranſgreſſes their enormous Bound-aries be subjected to ENGULFMENT.
Can for poſſeſes and ENGULFMENT.
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Guys, I'm sorry, I gotta interrupt: "Envelópe Martinez" is still the funniest shit I have ever heard.
Jough: I have never heard anyone say "flaxid" in my life. Anyway, even if "flaxid" makes more sense in terms of rules of pronunciation, you have to admit there's a certain cruel, onomatopoietic poetry in the "c" in "flaccid" going from a hard to a soft consonant.
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People here in Southern California always seem to be really shocked that I'm from Alabama. I blame Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy for this. I should not have to explain accent variations to people who live where the surfer culture began but do not talk like surfers.
Royal Hawaiians were surfing here for hundreds of years before any Californian tried it.
What was the topic again?
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no.
see, the double C in flaccid is...
god damn. i cannot remember the word at this early in the morning.
there are other words that have the double letter where you have to pronounce them separately. there is a word for it. hm.
I will ask people until I remember.
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I gotta New York accent.
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I love my southern (Houston) accent.
~Paul
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I wish dialects in the US would not go away. Making fun of my dad for not being able to pronounce "drawers" will never get old, and I want future generations to have this same ability.
Thanks to my mom, I honestly thought "draw" was the word for "drawer" until I was a sophomore in high school. I had no idea what a "drawer" was. I think I managed to shed what few scraps of a Boston accent she had passed on to me by the time I reached adulthood, though.
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Your regional colloquialisms are cute, but aren't a major problem. Poor pantsrobot still lapses into Scots now and again..
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Ohio accents can be pretty neutral but if you're from Ohio and you have an accent IT WILL BE UGLY. Some people from the Cleveland area turn the letter A into two syllables - "math" becomes "may-ath," "nap" becomes "nay-ap," etc. It's almost as bad as the stereotypical Long Island accent to mine ears.
Nearer to West Virginia and Pennsylvania are those who say "warsh" and pronounce iron as "eye-run." Some of them even have a mouth-breather drawl that turns simple words like "no" or "got" into a three-second utterance. This is the worst accent in the country because it makes people sound stupid, just like a Dixie accent only without all the redeeming charm. If you saw any of the recent Country Boys series on PBS, you know what I'm talking about. A guy I know from Youngstown would tell you that "Alvis" lived in Graceland. What a douchebag.
The worst American accents:
1. Appalachian drawl
2. Minnesota/North Dakota
2a. Chicago/Wisconsin
3. Any variation on Valley Girl/Surfer Dude
4. Cleveland
5. Long Island
6. Bronx
7. New Englanders with their "wicked" this and "pahk the cah in the yahd" that.
8. Philly
Everyone else in the USA speaks perfectly neutral English with pronunciation influenced only by personal speech impediments.
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6. Bronx
Watch yourself, buster. The recovering academic in me was proud of managing to stay out of this thread. But now it's getting personal.
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On the subject of vaguely frontier-y regionalisms I can't stand:
"maysure."
It was bad enough when my eighth-grade home ec teacher did this, but when I got to ninth grade and my geometry teacher did it, I wanted to cleanse it with fire.
It took me quite a while to realize that "maysure" isn't just a word meaning "more likely than may-haps"
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Ohio accents can be pretty neutral but if you're from Ohio and you have an accent IT WILL BE UGLY. Some people from the Cleveland area turn the letter A into two syllables - "math" becomes "may-ath," "nap" becomes "nay-ap," etc. It's almost as bad as the stereotypical Long Island accent to mine ears.
Nearer to West Virginia and Pennsylvania are those who say "warsh" and pronounce iron as "eye-run." Some of them even have a mouth-breather drawl that turns simple words like "no" or "got" into a three-second utterance. This is the worst accent in the country because it makes people sound stupid, just like a Dixie accent only without all the redeeming charm. If you saw any of the recent Country Boys series on PBS, you know what I'm talking about. A guy I know from Youngstown would tell you that "Alvis" lived in Graceland. What a douchebag.
The worst American accents:
1. Appalachian drawl
2. Minnesota/North Dakota
2a. Chicago/Wisconsin
3. Any variation on Valley Girl/Surfer Dude
4. Cleveland
5. Long Island
6. Bronx
7. New Englanders with their "wicked" this and "pahk the cah in the yahd" that.
8. Philly
Everyone else in the USA speaks perfectly neutral English with pronunciation influenced only by personal speech impediments.
7.
I'm having lots of fun with this topic, even though I can't contribute much to it, not being a native speaker of English and all.
But you got to tell me where to get audio samples of all these accents you've been talking about.
Another question: is there an actual phonetic difference between the regular "-ing" gerund and when people write without the "g", as in Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'?
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The g sound is dropped entirely so the word sounds pretty different. Say sing and then say sin and you'll have an idea.
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Yeah, "lovin'" sounds totally different from "loving." It's pretty freaky.
On the Minnesota/ND accent -- I've never noticed it so much as an accent as mostly a function of word choice (ah, "hotdish!") and the cultural elements that you'd expect from people with a fundamentally mild lifestyle. Of course, I could be blind to it, since my mother's from central Minnesota and I speak more and more like her as time goes by.
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To be more precise, there is no 'g' at the end of the standard pronunciation of the gerund -ing. It is a sound we don't have a single letter for, a velar nasal. The 'g-dropped' version substitutes a different nasal consonant, [n]. You can prove to yourself that there is no [g] at the end of the gerung -ing by listening to the difference between the words 'singer' and 'finger'. "Singer" has only the velar nasal in the middle. "Finger" has the velar nasal followed by [g]. The cluster of velarnasal-g never ends a word in English, so you will see that -ing sounds like the middle of 'singer', not like the middle of 'finger'.
By the way, I'm not positive if there are dialects where those two words are pronounced identically, but I never came across one in my years of teaching, so I think the examples should work for everyone.
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Yeah. What wombat said. But regardless, the "velar nasal" is dropped entirely for those words. So runnin' sounds like "run in" said very quickly and not like running that much at all.
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if the best accent isn't the accent of the people you are around,
YOU ARE IN THE WRONG PLACE.
get to your wicked good place ya'll, before the goin' get's gone.
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My sister and I were always told we were accent neutral (even by her actor boyfriend who went to COLLEGE for ACCENTS). However, we both have hints of the geographical areas we prefer. Lisa talks with the gruffness of the eastern New York area, and I say "y'all" and drag my long i's (one-two-three-four-fiiiiiive-six-seven-eight-niiiiiine-ten) as done in parts southern.
One thing I've noticed is that I tend to drop my you's for "ya." At work, I greet passengers with "How ya doin'?" a lot, but not the way it would be done by a cab driver that has never left the Empire State. It's... weird.
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no.
see, the double C in flaccid is...
god damn. i cannot remember the word at this early in the morning.
there are other words that have the double letter where you have to pronounce them separately. there is a word for it. hm.
I will ask people until I remember.
Diaresis?
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Diaresis?
Dude, leave the Scientologists out of this. Seriously.
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To be more precise, there is no 'g' at the end of the standard pronunciation of the gerund -ing. It is a sound we don't have a single letter for, a velar nasal. The 'g-dropped' version substitutes a different nasal consonant, [n]. You can prove to yourself that there is no [g] at the end of the gerung -ing by listening to the difference between the words 'singer' and 'finger'. "Singer" has only the velar nasal in the middle. "Finger" has the velar nasal followed by [g]. The cluster of velarnasal-g never ends a word in English, so you will see that -ing sounds like the middle of 'singer', not like the middle of 'finger'.
By the way, I'm not positive if there are dialects where those two words are pronounced identically, but I never came across one in my years of teaching, so I think the examples should work for everyone.
Rotating Josephs!. I've been studying English for at least 15 years now and I never realized that "singer" and "finger" weren't pronounced the same way.
Guess I'll have to return my CPE then.
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dierisis?
the end of the word "flaccid" coincides with the end of a metrical foot?
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Rotating Josephs!. I've been studying English for at least 15 years now and I never realized that "singer" and "finger" weren't pronounced the same way.
Guess I'll have to return my CPE then.
Until Wombat mentioned it, I never really considered that they are pronounced slightly differently. And I've been speaking English for 36 years now. It's possible that certain people from certain language backgrounds would have great difficulty with the difference - maybe even impossible for sum.
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All those years in grad school and slaving away for tenure are finally worth it: I have taught people some phonology in a thread titled "Whose ass am I kicking."
It's possible that certain people from certain language backgrounds would have great difficulty with the difference
Possibly, but they have other worse problems. Probably the worst pronunciation difficulty for speakers of other languages are the two sounds (yes, there are two) spelled 'th' in English. These are very rare sounds in the languages of the world, so hardly anyone comes to English as a second language with any experience with them from their native tongue. You have probably noticed that nonnative speakers have trouble with those sounds, and maybe you've also noticed that children learn to pronounce these sounds late - it is typical for children to acquire rare sounds later in their development.
Just a little of what counts as a Fun Fact in linguistics for those who might care. Now, how about those cartoon cats?
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Linguistics is one of those things that I wish I knew about. As an English major, I always wanted to take a class in it, just an introductory class to learn a little about it. But alas, no linguistics class at my university.
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But alas, no linguistics class at my university.
True many places - which also means sadly no jobs teaching them for my grad students. One of the reasons I'm glad to be out of it. Now, anyone have any questions about cleaning up reptile and amphibian poop?
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Until Wombat mentioned it, I never really considered that they are pronounced slightly differently. And I've been speaking English for 36 years now. It's possible that certain people from certain language backgrounds would have great difficulty with the difference - maybe even impossible for sum.
I pronounce the words identically, but then again English isn't my first language.
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I pronounce the words identically, but then again English isn't my first language.
His parents spoke Klingon at home.
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His parents spoke Klingon at home.
I keep trying to figure out if this would be funnier if his parents were Kligons or if they weren't.
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I keep trying to figure out if this would be funnier if his parents were Kligons or if they weren't.
I've been told by a D&D geek friend that my father is really a dwarf because he is 5'6" and can easily lift twice his own weight, even at age 50.
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I've been told by a D&D geek friend that my father is really a dwarf because he is 5'6" and can easily lift twice his own weight, even at age 50.
I don't know whether that makes him a dwarf or not, but it clearly makes him someone whom I would not fuck with. Has he been in the GOF?
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I've been told by a D&D geek friend that my father is really a dwarf because he is 5'6" and can easily lift twice his own weight, even at age 50.
See if he's any good at detecting secret passages. If you try and toss him, does he get mad?
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I don't know whether that makes him a dwarf or not, but it clearly makes him someone whom I would not fuck with. Has he been in the GOF?
He should be...
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He should be...
does this mean that you think your Father Kicks Ass,
or
that you Want Your Father's Ass Kicked?
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does this mean that you think your Father Kicks Ass,
or
that you Want Your Father's Ass Kicked?
The former
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The question that begs asking here is, does your mom have a beard?
Or are you only some sort of half-breed?
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My lady-friend's dad is totally a dwarf. He's German, short, bearded, stout and loves both beer and Wagner. Any day now, he's going to bust out his war-axe and my ass will be grass.
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Always carry around some gold to distract him. When he busts out the war-axe you can toss the gold in the other direction and run like hell.
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My lady-friend's dad is totally a dwarf. He's German, short, bearded, stout and loves both beer and Wagner. Any day now, he's going to bust out his war-axe and my ass will be grass.
Does your lady-friend know that you're actually just after the Nibelung Hoard?