Unfortunately a large number of Londoners might say things like this, if they live in areas such as the East end, or South London, but the loss of the 'h' shouldn't be a thing, and it mostly isn't (I think, but to be perfectly honest, I haven't spoken to every person in London) and an even larger number would pronounce it pretty much how it's written (but again, I haven't spoken to most of the London population).

I will agree though, that English is taken from a large number of other languages, particularly Medieval French, Latin, Germanic and other such things.

 

Actually, the loss of the 'h' is probably one of the few things about language differences that does bother me.

I have an aunt that says yooman, yoomur, etc. Drives me up the wall.

Also, since I'm too lazy to multi-quote, yes HoS, fuck the Hammerstein index. Fuck it with a rake.

 

I fucking hate English period.

I mean really pronunciation is completely random. Worst part is it corrupts other languages as well. Fucking English. I used to be able to read signs on the way to home since in my motherlanguage(Turkish) you read as written.

I mean really "c" letter has like 2 different sounding(or was it 3) depending where it is written. What the fuck man.

not that other languages much batter.

/rant.

 

Rin: Pimp-slapping language- and grammar-nazis since May 2007.

 

I think that when you gain a more thorough, deeper understanding of a language you also start appreciating it. When you struggle to form a coherent sentence you obviously won't like the language that much, but when the forming of sentences becomes somewhat natural, fluent almost, that's when you start appreciating the language. You can concentrate on making the sentence flow better, you become aware of nuances in words bringing a whole new dimension to writing. I think that's when learning a language becomes something other than a chore.

Then again, you were speaking about pronunciation, which I somewhat agree with. Finnish is very different from English and as such I struggle the most with speaking, rather than writing or understanding English. On the other hand I'm usually dealing with someone who has a rather meager understanding of English and I've noticed that speaking in simple words, not concentrating on the exact pronunciation of the words but the clarity. Basically, I don't need to dazzle the person I'm talking to with my awesome English skills, I need to make them understand what I mean.

 

Lol you think "c" is bad?

Though
Cough
Through
Borough
Ought

 

All of these used to rhyme, by the way. That "gh" sound used to be the same as the current German "ch" (also the Scots pronunciation of "ch" in "loch"). That sound is [x] in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was a variation of [h] (which was how the sound was spelled in Old English. The "g" in "gh" is thought to come from the [x] voicing to [ɣ] (nowadays, we often spell the [x] as "kh" so it makes sense that its voiced equivalent would be "gh".

Anyway, in middle English, all instances of "ough" (that particular spelling arose in Middle, not Old English) were pronounced [oːx] or [uːx], and due to whether or not the syllable was stressed, the Great English Vowel Shift caused the "ou" to change or retain is pronunciation. The "gh" disappeared, or changed to either [f], [k], or nothing at all. Sadly, the spelling never went away.

Here's all the North American pronunciatons of "ough":

/oʊ/ as in "though" (cf. toe).
/uː/ as in "through" (cf. true).
/ʌf/ as in "rough" (cf. ruffian).
/ɒf/ as in "cough" (cf. coffin).*
/ɔː/ as in "thought" (cf. taut).*
/aʊ/ as in "bough" (cf. to bow).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(combination) for the various other British pronunciations (mostly in place-names).

*For those whose dialects have undergone the caught/cot merger, the vowels in these two words are pronounced the same; but they are different for everyone else.

 

This probably is a large part of why HBP is so loathed on here: Romance, especially teenage romance, taking over a story. Nothing wrong with those relationships forming in the story, it's a part of life after all, but can the Harlequin bullshit. The honeymoon phase doesn't last forever.

There aren't any particular pairings that will automatically turn me off from reading, but it makes me feel slightly ill to power through 20 pages of "X blushed and looked away," "Y blushed when X waved to Y", "Y couldn't pay attention because he couldn't stop staring at X", "X felt like thrashing Z because Z was talking to Y", in depth descriptions of awkward stuttery teenage angst, etc.

The other peeve irking me at the moment is what I will refer to as "Dobby ex machina", which needs no explanation.

 

Unfortunately, that's canon.

 

Though the canon version did end in a good way.

Rest in Pieces, Dobby.

 

Is it just me, or does that sound like the title for an awesome HP/Mirai Nikki crossover?

 

There are countless reasons I don't read or watch (or whatever) anime, but one of the biggest is I have no fucking clue how to pronounce the names. I had enough trouble with [insert any Russian novel name here], I'm not about to subject myself to it for a goddamn cartoon.

 

One thing that always annoys me is how some authors don't know any other word for shock. It isn't shock if it happens 10 times in a row...

 

But Portus, Japanese is easy as fuck to pronounce*: a = a in father; i = y in city; u = oo in boot; e = ei in weigh (short**); o = oa in boat; ai = eye; ei & ee = ei in weigh (long**); ou & oo = oe in toe; uu = oo in too. A double consonant*** is just that: Think of the difference between how you pronounce the k-sound in "bucket" vs. "black cat".

Mirai Nikki = "mee righ kneek key".


* These are English approximations of Japanese vowels. English "long" "vowels" are actually diphthongs, whilst the Japanese vowels are pure. Furthermore, Japanese e and o are half-way between the core vowels in "bate" and "bet" (for e) and "caught" and "boat" (for o). Finally, the Japanese u is un-rounded, meaning that you pronounce it without pursing your lips like you do in English.

** You can clap your hands for each instance of a vowel in Japanese. A long vowel takes two claps and a short vowel only takes one. Otherwise, there is no difference in pronunciation between a long or short e.

*** Japanese consonants are pronounce more like they are in Spanish, which does not aspirate its initial Ps, Ts, and Ks the way English does.

 

Yes, of course. It's so simple. Thank you, Rin. :|

 

I would agree but Rin chooses an example that I apparently got right even if I never bothered to even attempt to try so I have to wonder how many I got right by accident...

That said the phonetic differences between English and Portuguese are pretty big so Japanese isn't very hard to get, Russian on the other hand is so far beyond me that I could probably learn another language in the time it would take for me to pronounce things reasonably.

 

There's a huge amount of irony in the fact that you spelled 'phonetic' phonetically.

 

Damn that's what I get by writing things in two different languages at the same time, I really hate those words that are almost the same but not quite(In this case fonetico/phonetic) ...

Though considering I was speaking about talking not writing the irony is not so great, it is far easier to do the former for a few words than the latter as languages always have those words you write and it simply doesn't look like the correct one even if you know it is.

 

A huge peeve of mine has to do with the bank statements in a great deal of indy!Harry fics, where it reads something like:

297,543,786 Galleons
384,975,478 Sickles
967,839,574 Knuts

Now, in addition to the numbers seemingly picked at random, and the fact that there is no possible way Harry would have this much money, why the hell do they come up with these giant-ass numbers for Sickles and Knuts? Last time I checked, people in the U.S. didn't go around with bank statements reading "twelve 100's, eight 10's, 5 1's, 12 quarters, 3 dimes, and 54 pennies", so there's no conceivable reason that this would be different in the Wizarding World. :facepalm

 

...Except for the fact that wizarding money is always kept in the coin format. So it would be x galleons, y sickles and z knuts.

Also last I checked Harry doesn't live in the US.