tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post4746776936728675264..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Some Things I Learned About LanguageAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-4960474788889159912021-10-23T20:10:34.607-04:002021-10-23T20:10:34.607-04:00One daughter uses the ki'n mi'n pronunciat...One daughter uses the ki'n mi'n pronunciation and the other doesn't. The one who does is younger and learned her English in elementary school from native English speakers. The one who doesn't is a few years older and learned her English from me, with no other English speakers living nearby. We were overseas while they were small and moved to the US when the younger was in first grade. She had always slightly resisted using English, since none of her friends spoke it.<br /><br />The younger daughter also says I-ron, two distinct syllables, rather than iron as one syllable as I say it. Is that a thing, or just a quirk of my daughter?Tom Bridgelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13098048586042365606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-25898274621818438192021-10-20T21:17:35.990-04:002021-10-20T21:17:35.990-04:00I never knew of the "☢🌀⚠§" version unti...I never knew of the "☢🌀⚠§" version until high school.Kororahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06208444799799287420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-92188238618497566312021-10-20T12:46:16.261-04:002021-10-20T12:46:16.261-04:00@ Linj - I like The History of English Podcast by ...@ Linj - I like The History of English Podcast by Kevin Stroud, even though he is posting less regularly now. 150 episodes, and he is up to about 1500.<br /><br />John McWhorter does Lexicon Valley, which I like. He used to do Slate's Spectacular Vernacular, but it's more difficult to find him there, because there were other hosts before him and there are now other hosts after. He did a few year's worth though, if you want to take the time to burrow through it.<br /><br />@ random observer - even those who say the "t" say mit'n, which is halfway between MIH-ten and MI''en. The latter group actually gets more of the "eh" sound in.<br /><br />I overpronounce many consonants, which I learned partly from theater and partly from wanting to be precise (sometimes artificially so), so I don't look to my own speech a s a good example of anything. I had a little bit of a NE Coastal accent as a child but lost that going to college in Virginia. I am now very neutral in accent, like a newscaster. I easily pick up a softened version of the accent of anyone I am talking to without even trying. It seems both cummy and a politeness, to be more easily understood and to have no "side" to put folks off. My wife wonders if I take it too far and someone is going to think I am mocking them.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-13330200547335156152021-10-20T11:59:56.397-04:002021-10-20T11:59:56.397-04:00Your mitten/kitten reference reminds me of the end...Your mitten/kitten reference reminds me of the endless controversy over whether the h has any effect on the pronunciation of words like whipped, or indeed whether.<br /><br />For my part, I slide easily between no h sound at all, which I think is the American influenced standard, and slight softening of the w, which [heh] I think is the older standard here. Naturally, sometimes the latter sounds to some Americans like I'm overemphasizing the h. The endlessly vulgar [increasingly so] but occasionally culturally insightful cartoon "Family Guy" had a bit on this, surrounding the name of Cool Whip.<br /><br />On the other hand, the way I've pronounced mitten and kitten all my life, I think, corresponds to your glottal stop variant now that I think of it. Pronouncing the t almost sounds arch to me. Curious mirror of the way I think about the whip question.random observerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02348644823854777418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-37957105511524550962021-10-20T11:55:11.670-04:002021-10-20T11:55:11.670-04:00I always thought it peculiar that so many American...I always thought it peculiar that so many Americans think we Canadians say "oot" or "aboot" for "out" and "about". To us the double o, if familiar at all, would represent a thick Celtic dialect accent one might here from some Scots or Irish or from the more Gaelic-ancestry parts of Newfoundland or the Maritimes. The rest of us think we are saying "abowt" and hear the generic American pronunciation as, by comparison, a long, drawn out drawl. This of course must be why Americans used to that hear our more clipped pronunciation as though it were a double o, because it's too short for them. The way I usually visualize it is that:<br /><br />A person with the Celtic accent would say "aboot", actually pronouncing it as two o in succession, and likely aware on some level that this is dialect or even slang, and avoiding it in mixed company;<br /><br />Your run of the mill central or western Anglo Canadian will say "abowt" without much drawing out of the vowel.<br /><br />Our impression of the average northeastern American would say "abaouwt", just a tad more extending the vowel but almost to the point where to our ears it sounds like heading into an extended southern drawl, riffing on all the possibilities of the vowel except for an e sound.<br /><br />random observerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02348644823854777418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-64687487381373226302021-10-20T11:36:56.448-04:002021-10-20T11:36:56.448-04:00Do you have any language podcasts you would recomm...Do you have any language podcasts you would recommend? Thanks.LinJhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14257125345559627597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-45281416585132027952021-10-20T10:43:19.368-04:002021-10-20T10:43:19.368-04:00I've stopped my glottals.I've stopped my glottals.Sam L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00996809377798862214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-84292767260357682382021-10-20T09:01:42.460-04:002021-10-20T09:01:42.460-04:00Very informative. Thanks.Very informative. Thanks.Zachrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16081260898264733380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-61689958165881449282021-10-19T21:49:58.689-04:002021-10-19T21:49:58.689-04:00Interesting. The "tiger" version of een...Interesting. The "tiger" version of eeny meeny was the only one I knew for ages.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-85362912641230042372021-10-19T21:46:27.246-04:002021-10-19T21:46:27.246-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13708292845156439489noreply@blogger.com