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Author Topic: Words and Grammar and Stuff  (Read 126261 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1030 on: March 07, 2017, 01:42:22 PM »
MY priest is very much against that sort of practice.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1031 on: April 22, 2017, 05:35:36 AM »
I heard a Brit on the tely use Twitter as a verb instead of the usual tweet that you hear on American television and it dawned on me that he was not wrong to do so, odd as it might have sounded. My question is this: wouldn't that phrasing actually be more correct than saying tweet since tweeting would have to be taken metaphorically (or whatever that figure of style is) ?
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1032 on: January 06, 2018, 11:55:38 AM »
When I was in highschool I once saw an Italian friend read a book and looked over her shoulder and started reading a passage out loud from behind her to annoy her. The book was in her native language so she was surprised I spoke Italian. I didn't, but the nice thing with Italian is, if you know the rules you can sound pretty much any word. That's true to a large extent of most Latin languages. The French try to make it more difficult by changing the sounds of vowels but there are always rules to it all, no matter how many accents they add. German may be a collection of exceptions with some grammar to the side, but reading it is usually not a problem (barring the abundance of bizarre associations).

Not so in English. If you don't know how a word is meant to be read you often cannot read it properly. Every time I read fantasy I find out towards the middle of the book that I have been getting half the characters' names wrong for hundreds of pages. I'm still reeling from Jordan's Seanchans from four years ago.

Your language is dumb and you should all feel bad.

</rant>
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Teproc

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1033 on: January 06, 2018, 12:09:27 PM »
Yep, French pronunciation is very complex, but eventually it makes sense. Present me with a word I've never heard of and I should be able to pronounce it. English, though it has a much simpler grammar and overall structure (which is very convenient in terms of making it an international language, something I wish our country would stop whining about and fighting against in the EU), is a nightmare to pronounce. New rules for every word.

This is the "commiserating about English" thread, right ?
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1034 on: January 06, 2018, 12:49:02 PM »
As far as I'm concerned.
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Bondo

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1035 on: January 06, 2018, 04:32:32 PM »
I’m not sure there is a correct way to pronounce words in English.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1036 on: January 06, 2018, 05:50:04 PM »
That's what my Irish friends keep telling me.
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oldkid

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1037 on: January 06, 2018, 09:02:50 PM »
When we were teaching our kids how to read phonetically, we stumbled across a resource that said that there were just more than a hundred phonetic rules for English that works in every case.

They lied.  We found exceptions to many of the rules they stated were absolute.  Even so, the rules were filled with exceptions and strange, sometimes contradictory, language.

Let's face it.  English borrows words from every language on earth, calls every new word it's own, and then attempts to keep the pronunciation rules, but messes it up, so we have a new word with a different pronunciation and a different meaning than the original context.

English speakers are like pirates that steal gold from everyone, dye it red so it can only be used by other pirates, which makes it unusable for most of the world, but since everyone has pirates, red gold ends up being the most used currency, even though it belongs nowhere.

English is both horrible and wonderful.  And I'm glad I started learning pronouncing it from birth.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1038 on: January 07, 2018, 04:57:06 AM »
Meh, it's very easy to pick up.

Is phonetic teaching the method that works great but schools don't use or the shitty method that's the norm in most schools?
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oldkid

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Re: Words and Grammar and Stuff
« Reply #1039 on: January 07, 2018, 11:56:41 AM »
Pretty much.  Most schools in the US use a combination of phonics and other methods, even speed reading.
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