From: "Toto" <toto@sk.sympatico.ca>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 14:50:40 -0800 (PST)
To: "CypherPunks" <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: WordSmith Crypto -- Fw: AWADmail Issue 8
Message-ID: <00c101bd591a$1d493280$2a63a58e@uymfdlvk>
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-----Original Message-----
From: Wordsmith <wsmith@wordsmith.org>
To: linguaphile@wordsmith.org <linguaphile@wordsmith.org>
Date: Thursday, March 26, 1998 1:35 PM
Subject: AWADmail Issue 8


>                         AWADmail Issue 8, March 26, 1998
>         A Compendium of Feedback on the Previous Week's Words in AWAD,
>            and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Anu Garg (anu@wordsmith.org)
>Subject: AWADmail is back!
>
>AWADmail is back after a long hiatus.  Last week's theme, "Words whose
>pronunciations differ a lot from their spellings" generated a huge
response.
>Some sent their favorite words in this category (colonel coming at the top
>of the list), while others forwarded poems lamenting the intractability of
>English orthoepy and orthography.  Here are selected responses.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: E. Richard Cohen (ercohen@aol.com)
>Subject: Phonetic Pronunciation
>
>In line with this week's critique of English pronunciation, dare I bring up
>George Bernard Shaw's plea for spelling reform with the word 'GHOTI"
>
>GH   as in   "rough"
>O    as in   "women"
>TI   as in   "nation"
>
>GHOTI = "fish"
>
>    Also noted by Marc J. Broering (dad@louisville.edu), Ted Schipper
>    (ted.schipper@utoronto.ca), (Tim Nelson) tsn@deakin.edu.au, Sheila
>    Crosby (sheila@ing.iac.es), Vimala Rodgers (vimala@iihs.com) and
>    martina@aol.com. -Anu
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Derek Winkler (derek@aim-systems.on.ca)
>Subject: Ruminations & Ponderances
>
>It's funny that a couple of the words you're featuring for being pronounced
>differently than they are spelled have French origins. Being from Canada
and
>therefore being exposed to French, I look at the word and think "What do
you
>mean pronounced differently then they are spelled, how else would you
>pronounce oeuvre."
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: David Isaacson (isaacson@wmich.edu)
>Subject: Another Pronunciation for "chaos"
>
>One of the characters in Sean O'Casey's play, "Juno and the Paycock," (it's
>either Captain Jack Boyle or his sidekick "Joxer" Daly) regularly
>mispronounces this word as "chassis."
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Fred Bartlett (fredb@springer-ny.com)
>Subject: Chaos
>
>When I traveled to the old Soviet Union to edit the proceedings of a
>conference on nonlinear dynamics, I was baffled by the (English) speech
>of my Russian colleagues. They kept talking about "House" -- that is,
>"chaos". It was all perfectly reasonable (though wrong, of course):
>transliteration to Cyrillic and then pronunciation as if it were Russian.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Steve Royster (roysters@sec.gov)
>Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--rendezvous
>
>I was willing to let oeuvre pass after I mistook it initially for the
French
>word for "egg."  I learned something on that one.  But isn't "rendezvous" a
>direct French import?
>
>    See next message. -Anu
>
>French, as the comedian Steve Martin has noted, is more torturous than
>English: "It's like those French have a different word for everything!"  On
>the album "A Wild and Crazy Guy," from early in his oeuvre, Martin
describes
>a man who dies trying to speak French.
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Ken Maher (ken_maher@nhmbm1.dos.nortel.com)
>Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--chaos
>
>Your note on the need for pronunciation guidance in English reminds me of
>what I used to tell students when I taught English as a second language for
>ten years, mostly to native speakers of Spanish, Arabic, or Swahili.  All
>languages are thieves, but most languages have the good sense to hide what
>they've stolen by making it look like their own.  English, however, is more
>vain or, perhaps, careless, and often keeps the stolen goods in their
>original forms.  For example, when Spanish stole the word for driver from
>French, it changed the spelling to "chofer," whereas English kept it as
>"chauffeur."  This linguistic practice makes English one of the most
>difficult of the Latin-alphabet languages to learn to spell.
>
>    In polite company it is called borrowing.  Whether these
>    loanwords are ever returned is another matter.      -Anu
>
>------------------------------
>
>From: Bob Simmons (bsimmons@compassnet.com)
>Subject: (Mis)pronunciation Guide
>
>While I applaud your intention to include pronunciation in AWAD, I think
you
>should look for another source. Specifically, I have a problem with each of
>the last three days' pronunciations:
>
>oeuvre (oe-VRUH) -- since this one retains its French pronunciation, it is
>just about impossible to render in English.  When I say it, it sounds more
>like e(r)-vra (with neither syllable accented). The way you've written it,
I
>would say e(r)-VREW.
>
>segue (SAG-way) -- I have never heard this pronounced other than SEG-way
>
>rendezvous (RAN-day-voo) -- I would argue that RON-day-voo is closer.
>
>
>    While reducing a spoken sound to its written form is tough enough
>    in any language, it is nearly impossible to accurately represent
>    pronunciation information using only the lowest common denominator
>    of characters -- those found on a standard English keyboard. Not
>    all systems have the capability to show phonetic characters. (Once
>    Unicode is more widely adopted, it would be possible to show all
>    IPA characters but for now we have to do with the seven bit ASCII
>    character set).  It must also be noted that the pronunciation of
>    words varies a great deal from region to region and any single way
>    of pronouncing a word cannot be called the only correct one. In that
>    spirit, the pronunciation guide provided with the words here should
>    be taken as an approximation and not as a precise phonetic equivalent.
>
>    If you disagree with a given pronunciation or anything else in AWAD,
>    please drop me a line at anu@wordsmith.org.  Due to large volume of
>    messages, I can't always respond to you but I do read all
messages. -Anu
>
>...........................................................................
...
>Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to
>escape reproach. -Samuel Johnson
>
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www.wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html
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>to get the first issue, make the subject line as: AWADmail 01 .
>