Tue, 21 Dec 2021 06:51:17 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 6:04:29 AM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
>> On 20.12.2021 23:03, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>(Oh, dear, there's a great deal of misinfromation in that spate of
>words about English (in the mouths of Germans) but I can't let
>lhis one go.)
>
>[I can't find the weird transcription that was claimed for this word]
>
>> >Where do they say "rainbow" that way?
>>
>> Midwest (approx.). E.g. the a capella group "Home Free" (at least two
>
>Oy. Finally, after many years, I seem to have gotten Ruud to stop
>citing sung lyrics as examples of the pronunciation of _anything_.
>
>You need to know that singers are drilled endlessly in "distorting"
>their vowels so that the words are intelligible when sung, and that
>often means pronouncing them in ways they would never use in
>speaking.

Not all singers are opera singers.

>> of them utter rather rænbo?, i.e., no /ej/ or /e?/ there. (I have no
>> idea whether this is a typical AE phenomenon in some areas or if it
>> is an influence from the languages of the ancestors of those people:
>> German and Swedish.)
>
>None of the above.

Op 21-12-2021 om 16:11 schreef Helmut Richter:
> On Tue, 21 Dec 2021, wugi wrote:
>
>> Where did you read that? My rendering would be /ej/ or even /e:j/ as I wrote
>> earlier. I just tried to see a reason for Brits having /e(:)/.
>
> If this is meant to be American pseudo-phonetics, I cannot comment.
> I simple can’t read that.
>
> If this is meant to be IPA or a similar code (e.g. SAMPA), I do not find
> /e:/ a suitable representation. I do not think Brits pronounce en:'bait'
> exactly the same as Germans pronounce de:'Beet'.
>
> COD has /ɛɪ/ which is much closer to en:'bait'.
>
I agree, and prefer still /j/ for a halfvowel.

--
guido wugi

On 21.12.2021 15:49, wugi wrote:

>Where did you read that? My rendering would be /ej/ or even /e:j/ as I
>wrote earlier. I just tried to see a reason for Brits having /e(:)/.

Oh, I see. (Sorry: my ThunderBird's fault. :))

Tim

On 21.12.2021 15:51, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>(Oh, dear, there's a great deal of misinfromation in that spate of
>words about English (in the mouths of Germans) but I can't let
>lhis one go.)

Errare humanum est. :)

>Oy. Finally, after many years, I seem to have gotten Ruud to stop
>citing sung lyrics as examples of the pronunciation of _anything_.

But those US guys otherwise have fine, clear, pronunciations. I am
able to understand them (unlike in the case of many other US singers
who are "mundfaul" phonetically).

>You need to know that singers are drilled endlessly in "distorting"
>their vowels so that the words are intelligible when sung, and that
>often means pronouncing them in ways they would never use in
>speaking.

I understand this and thank you for underscoring that such habits exist.
(Yet in 'rainbow' I don't see anything else than kinda "simplification"
of /rein-/ => /renn-/. And, to me, this is a surprise, knowing that
all native "Anglo" variants are so ... full of genuine /ej/ sounds,
unlike in German dialects, where such an /ej/ization is a scarcity.)

>None of the above.

So, those pronunciations are only (unaccepted) regional habits or such
ones, that are typical of some singing artists?

>And it took me several occurrences to realize that your "AE" is what
>we refer to here as "AmE." And "BE" must be "BrE."

I've read "AE and BE" for decades now. At least here in Europe
(but also in myriads of UK and US books, periodical publications,
perhaps in such ones as TIME Mag. and The Economist).

>>I had written "as in other languages" - vide supra - very well knowing
>>that Anglos make of cooperate kəʊɒpəreɪt and kə(ʊ)ʌpəreɪt.
>
>No, those are very much BrE. AmE knows how to pronounce [ow].

Yes, of course (əʊ versus oʊ; as well as just /kə/ in some cases).

I wrote "in other languages" because (in a hurry) I couldn't
remember examples in English. Cooperate (and practically all
Latin co-o- words in English) doesn't fit as an example for /o-o/
(unlike in other languages, such as French, Italian, German etc:
coopera-/koopera: in these the pronunciation is O_stop_O and
by no means an /ɔː/).

>Merriam-Webster failed to protect its trademark,

Trademark?!? The usage of a letter or of an interpunction thing
being a trademark?! OMG, what a (dystopic) ... world! :-)

>Bantam is (was?) a paperback reprint publisher. It certainly is not the
>source of whatever dictionary you are looking at.

But they have used exactly the same grapheme and most of the
American phonetic transcription style/system (which, honestly,
I don't like, although I understand it within seconds).

Then how come that most (all??) US dictionaries of this kind
have used the same grapheme combinations? For so many decades
now.

>Please. You are very confused. Did you miss the part about backslashes >to avoid claims of phonemicization? American dictionaries cover a wide
>variety of dialects

Yes. But whenever I look up sth. in an Amer. Engl.-Engl. dictionary
I wish to know the "standard" (common) diphtong in a word like "lake".
And those US printed editions always show me this kind of "roofed" /a/,
which is to be read as if it were written "ay"/"ey". The same in almost
all online dictionaries, such as this one:

<https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lake>

__Lake or Lake of (lāk) or Loch (lŏk, lôKH)

[....]

lake 1 (lāk)
n.
1. A large inland body of fresh water or salt water.
2. A scenic pond, as in a park.
3. A large pool of liquid: a lake of spilled coffee on my desk.
[Middle English, from Old French lac [...]]
lake 2 (lāk)
n.
1. A pigment [....]
2. A deep red. __________________________________________

If I'd wish to look for dialect varieties in the pronunciation of a word
or another, I know that these dictionaries rarely show me some detail or
another - mostly nothing at all (because of the lack of ... space for
such peculiar details whenever these don't alter the semantics of that
word).

What you are always doing: mixing up average transcriptions
(important esp. for non-native Engl. speaking people) with the
so-called "narrow transcriptions", that are virtually unknown
even for more than 90% of Brits, Americans, Australians etc.
Hence the numerous "confusions" and hence the creation of too many
superfluous threads or thread parts - as well as of numerous polemic
ones. :-))

>-- though BrE dictionaries seem to leave those matters
>to "dialect dictionaries" in the tradition of Henry Sweet et al.

Amer. aver. dictionaries, esp. Websters, Bantams and other 1-2
also neglect dialectal pronunciations, if they are too numerous:
such books, thick as a brick, cost ... money! And no one would
pay hundreds of US$ or € for a copy only to be able to look up
the correct standard pronunciation as well as the BE and the AE
pronunciation of, say, "wrath" and "sloth". Average bookstores
and public libraries don't even possess such specialized books
that show the students how Engl. words are pronounced in various
US and UK or AUS regions. Such books are quite "rara
avis" for any language. And they aren't interesting to all those
foreigners who only wish to get an "average" yet good dictionary.
In this respect, a Webster or an OED copy (even 80-100 year old
ones) would do.

If I look up "lake", I don't wish to know how a New Yorker from
Queens, Staten Isl. or Yonkers pronounces it, neither the pro-
nunciation by a Midwesterner from Milwaukee, Skokie (IL) or
Akron, OH, neither Austin or Dallas (TX) 'drawls'. Nor from
Aberdeen, Galway and Swansea (UK & Irl)), nor some Cockney
'loyk' (or whatever) pronunciation.

Tim

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 11:03:20 AM UTC-5, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Tue, 21 Dec 2021 06:51:17 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
> <gram...@verizon.net> scribeva:
>
> >On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 6:04:29 AM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> >> On 20.12.2021 23:03, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> >(Oh, dear, there's a great deal of misinfromation in that spate of
> >words about English (in the mouths of Germans) but I can't let
> >lhis one go.)
> >
> >[I can't find the weird transcription that was claimed for this word]
> >
> >> >Where do they say "rainbow" that way?
> >>
> >> Midwest (approx.). E.g. the a capella group "Home Free" (at least two
> >
> >Oy. Finally, after many years, I seem to have gotten Ruud to stop
> >citing sung lyrics as examples of the pronunciation of _anything_.
> >
> >You need to know that singers are drilled endlessly in "distorting"
> >their vowels so that the words are intelligible when sung, and that
> >often means pronouncing them in ways they would never use in
> >speaking.
>
> Not all singers are opera singers.

Believe it or not, pop singers also study to hone their craft.

> >> of them utter rather rænbo?, i.e., no /ej/ or /e?/ there. (I have no
> >> idea whether this is a typical AE phenomenon in some areas or if it
> >> is an influence from the languages of the ancestors of those people:
> >> German and Swedish.)
> >None of the above.

On 21.12.2021 16:06, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>You may fail to realize that people flocked to London from all over
>Britain, bringing with them not only their local dialects but also their centuries-
>old local orthographic traditions, all of which fed into what eventually
>became the standard orthography. We have no holograph ms. of Chaucer
>(1400), but when Caxton introduced printing to England (1475), importing
>Flemish typesetters (who also brought with them their own orthographic
>traditions from Ghent, which is why we have h in the "ghost" words), he
>had a wide variety both of dialects and of orthographies to choose from and
>famously wondered about what to use for the plural of "egg." There was
>no standard at all for spelling until nearly 300 years later (Johnson's
>Dictionary, 1755). You can study the development of English spelling
>inn two ways: Dobson's massive *English Pronunciation 1500-1700* (1968)
>or in the recent statistical approach used by Berg and Aronoff, who actually
>count the spellings of affixes from the beginning of English until 1800 or so.

Nice (thank you). I don't state "good" or "bad". Only that it'd be "too
late" for an ortho reform, i.e., attemting at "composing" something
similar to a good phon. transcription. Unlike the French who managed
to get a complex system, but which barely has exceptions, so it is
almost one of the "wysiwyg" kind. (German writing was a chaotic one
from the Old High German periot up to the Enlightenment era and even the
1st half of the 19h c. But the efforts in the 17th-18th-19th c. were
worthwhile - so that even Mark Twaine would've master it. :-D Although
the latest reform thereof, in the 90s is a "Verschlimmbesserung", i.e.
a bad result.)

>>Germanic dialects (by comparing) one can imagine how the (slightly
>>adapted) old writing habits still in use was a valid transcription
>>for the then English usage of the 1100-1500 time periods (e.g. German
>>Nacht /nʌχt/, genug: in the Low German variant: jenuch /je'nʊχ/, Duwe
>>/'du:və/ (standard G.: Taube /'tɑʊbə/), Blut /blu:t/).
>
>There was a massive Romance (Norman French) component in the
>vocabulary, which woud stymie German(ic) orthography.

(The Romance vocabulary has nothing to do with the old West Germanic
and Norse words, i.e. in my examples with -gh- in night, enough, laugh
as compared with German Nacht, dialectal jenuch, Lach, where -gh-
and -ch- have nothing to do with the Romance universe, at least "ab
urbe condita" up to the modern times of "io vorrei il menu" or
"un taco; por aqui".)

Yes, I know. But this is another subject: I know that the Romance
vocabulary in English exceeds 60% of the words (very often very
French words, such as pigeon, jail, rendition), as if English were
a Romance idiom, which it isn't, since the most important vocab is
a (West-)Germanic one. In my assertion above I only wished to show the
spelling of some Germanic English words (i.e., how they once were) can
be compared to today's German, Dutch & al. dialects (e.g. enough:
Low German jenuch; Engl. knave - Ger. Knabe and Knappe, yet with
modified semantics).

>Whatever you think is alongside the Enter key on a German keyboard
>is lost above. David comes from the era of typewriters. American typewriters
>do not provide for those diacritics that clutter up other languages.

OK (I should've looked at the US keyboard arrangement first. But strange
& interesting: both my Germ. & US-Engl. kb (Win 10) show the
apostrophe key in the same position: Return's next-door neighbor :-)).

Tim

On 21.12.2021 16:11, Helmut Richter wrote:

>If this is meant to be IPA or a similar code (e.g. SAMPA), I do not find
>/e:/ a suitable representation. I do not think Brits pronounce en:'bait'
>exactly the same as Germans pronounce de:'Beet'.

Of course not. But many German would pronounce bait almost = Beet. :D

>COD has /ɛɪ/ which is much closer to en:'bait'.

This ɛɪ is as good as eɪ and ej (everywhere in this and neighboring
galaxies :)).

Tim

On 21.12.2021 17:32, wugi wrote:

>>COD has /ɛɪ/ which is much closer to en:'bait'.
>
>I agree, and prefer still /j/ for a halfvowel.

Me too. ɪ in such circumstances may have become a standard only in
the 70s and 80s. Prior to those decades, almost no manuals and
dictionaries for European students had used /ɪ/ (which might
have been preferred by Brits, I don't know).

Tim

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 12:47:47 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> On 21.12.2021 15:51, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >(Oh, dear, there's a great deal of misinfromation in that spate of
> >words about English (in the mouths of Germans) but I can't let
> >lhis one go.)
>
> Errare humanum est. :)

:-)

> >Oy. Finally, after many years, I seem to have gotten Ruud to stop
> >citing sung lyrics as examples of the pronunciation of _anything_.
>
> But those US guys otherwise have fine, clear, pronunciations. I am
> able to understand them (unlike in the case of many other US singers
> who are "mundfaul" phonetically).

That's _because_ they distort their pronunciation to give the acoustic
_effect_ of the spoken words. If they sang just as they speak, it would
come out as "mundfaul" (nice word).

> >You need to know that singers are drilled endlessly in "distorting"
> >their vowels so that the words are intelligible when sung, and that
> >often means pronouncing them in ways they would never use in
> >speaking.
>
> I understand this and thank you for underscoring that such habits exist.
> (Yet in 'rainbow' I don't see anything else than kinda "simplification"
> of /rein-/ => /renn-/. And, to me, this is a surprise, knowing that
> all native "Anglo" variants are so ... full of genuine /ej/ sounds,
> unlike in German dialects, where such an /ej/ization is a scarcity.)

They / their vocal coach goofed?

> >None of the above.
>
> So, those pronunciations are only (unaccepted) regional habits or such
> ones, that are typical of some singing artists?

They're idiosyncratic?

> >And it took me several occurrences to realize that your "AE" is what
> >we refer to here as "AmE." And "BE" must be "BrE."
>
> I've read "AE and BE" for decades now. At least here in Europe
> (but also in myriads of UK and US books, periodical publications,
> perhaps in such ones as TIME Mag. and The Economist).

I wonder when such things would even come up in general magazines
like those.

But not in sci.lang or AUE.

> >>I had written "as in other languages" - vide supra - very well knowing
> >>that Anglos make of cooperate kəʊɒpəreɪt and kə(ʊ)ʌpəreɪt.
> >No, those are very much BrE. AmE knows how to pronounce [ow].
>
> Yes, of course (əʊ versus oʊ; as well as just /kə/ in some cases).
>
> I wrote "in other languages" because (in a hurry) I couldn't
> remember examples in English. Cooperate (and practically all
> Latin co-o- words in English) doesn't fit as an example for /o-o/
> (unlike in other languages, such as French, Italian, German etc:
> coopera-/koopera: in these the pronunciation is O_stop_O and
> by no means an /ɔː/).

English uses glottal stops very differently from German.

> >Merriam-Webster failed to protect its trademark,
>
> Trademark?!? The usage of a letter or of an interpunction thing

The name "Webster" or "Webster's" was purchased by the G. C.
Merriam company from his estate after his death. No other
dictionaries _should_ have "Webster('s)" in the name.

> being a trademark?! OMG, what a (dystopic) ... world! :-)
>
> >Bantam is (was?) a paperback reprint publisher. It certainly is not the
> >source of whatever dictionary you are looking at.
>
> But they have used exactly the same grapheme and most of the
> American phonetic transcription style/system (which, honestly,
> I don't like, although I understand it within seconds).

We don't know who "they" is.

> Then how come that most (all??) US dictionaries of this kind
> have used the same grapheme combinations? For so many decades
> now.

Tradition. M-W has always been the leading dictionary publisher. Their
supremacy wasn't even challenged by W. D. Whitney's *Century Dictionary*
produced in an incredibly short time in the 1890s.

> >Please. You are very confused. Did you miss the part about backslashes
> >to avoid claims of phonemicization? American dictionaries cover a wide
> >variety of dialects
>
> Yes. But whenever I look up sth. in an Amer. Engl.-Engl. dictionary
> I wish to know the "standard" (common) diphtong in a word like "lake".
> And those US printed editions always show me this kind of "roofed" /a/,
> which is to be read as if it were written "ay"/"ey". The same in almost
> all online dictionaries, such as this one:

You need to read the front matter to find out exactly what they intend
by each symbol.

> <https://www.thefreedictionary.com/lake>
>
> __Lake or Lake of (lāk) or Loch (lŏk, lôKH)
>
> [....]
>
> lake 1 (lāk)
> n.
> 1. A large inland body of fresh water or salt water.
> 2. A scenic pond, as in a park.
> 3. A large pool of liquid: a lake of spilled coffee on my desk.
> [Middle English, from Old French lac [...]]
> lake 2 (lāk)
> n.
> 1. A pigment [....]
> 2. A deep red. __________________________________________
>
> If I'd wish to look for dialect varieties in the pronunciation of a word
> or another, I know that these dictionaries rarely show me some detail or
> another - mostly nothing at all (because of the lack of ... space for
> such peculiar details whenever these don't alter the semantics of that
> word).
>
> What you are always doing: mixing up average transcriptions
> (important esp. for non-native Engl. speaking people) with the
> so-called "narrow transcriptions", that are virtually unknown
> even for more than 90% of Brits, Americans, Australians etc.
> Hence the numerous "confusions" and hence the creation of too many
> superfluous threads or thread parts - as well as of numerous polemic
> ones. :-))
> >-- though BrE dictionaries seem to leave those matters
> >to "dialect dictionaries" in the tradition of Henry Sweet et al.
> Amer. aver. dictionaries, esp. Websters, Bantams and other 1-2
> also neglect dialectal pronunciations, if they are too numerous:
> such books, thick as a brick, cost ... money! And no one would
> pay hundreds of US$ or € for a copy only to be able to look up
> the correct standard pronunciation as well as the BE and the AE
> pronunciation of, say, "wrath" and "sloth". Average bookstores
> and public libraries don't even possess such specialized books
> that show the students how Engl. words are pronounced in various
> US and UK or AUS regions. Such books are quite "rara
> avis" for any language. And they aren't interesting to all those
> foreigners who only wish to get an "average" yet good dictionary.
> In this respect, a Webster or an OED copy (even 80-100 year old
> ones) would do.
>
> If I look up "lake", I don't wish to know how a New Yorker from
> Queens, Staten Isl. or Yonkers pronounces it, neither the pro-
> nunciation by a Midwesterner from Milwaukee, Skokie (IL) or
> Akron, OH, neither Austin or Dallas (TX) 'drawls'. Nor from
> Aberdeen, Galway and Swansea (UK & Irl)), nor some Cockney
> 'loyk' (or whatever) pronunciation.

Once again, far too much verbiage.

What you want is a "pronouncing dictionary." The often updated
BrE one is Jones-Gimson. An American one was published in
1944 (Kenyon-Knott) and there was nio market for revisions.

And "Bantam" is not the name of a dictionary! You could consult
the copyright page.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 1:20:54 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> On 21.12.2021 16:06, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >Whatever you think is alongside the Enter key on a German keyboard
> >is lost above. David comes from the era of typewriters. American typewriters
> >do not provide for those diacritics that clutter up other languages.
>
> OK (I should've looked at the US keyboard arrangement first. But strange
> & interesting: both my Germ. & US-Engl. kb (Win 10) show the
> apostrophe key in the same position: Return's next-door neighbor :-)).

That's just apostrophe! You suggested there was something strange there.

On Tue, 21 Dec 2021, wugi wrote:

> I agree, and prefer still /j/ for a halfvowel.

Is halfvowel the same as nonsyllabic? Yes, that should be noted.
Is there any difference between /I̯/ and /j/?

Siebs writes German diphthongs as /ɑe/, /ɑo/, /oø/ instead of the more
common /ɑɪ/, /ɑʊ/, /ɔɪ/. If you equip these with nonsyllabic markers, that
is /ɑe̯/, /ɑo̯/, /oø̯/, there may be a slight difference to /ɑɪ̯/, /ɑʊ̯/, /ɔɪ̯/
(which is the same as /ɑj/, /ɑw/, /ɔj/) but certainly these are recognised
as the same phonemes.

--
Helmut Richter

On 21.12.2021 19:56, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>That's _because_ they distort their pronunciation to give the acoustic
>_effect_ of the spoken words.

Yes, understandable; and I know that. Only that in the case of rainbow,
to my ears, a short "renn-" syllable is less clear than a
"raaaaeeeeiiiinnn"- one.

>If they sang just as they speak, it would come out as "mundfaul" (nice word).

Mundfaul is someone who barely "mumbles" and/or also ... "nuschelt",
i.e. utters various consonants & vowels that can be understood more
by inferring, speculating combinations of meanings (plausibilities :-))

>They / their vocal coach goofed?

No idea. Hence addressing this aspect to native-speakers here.

>They're idiosyncratic?

Perhaps the best thing would be to email them the question why "rennbo"
or "rannbo" (even Rambo???) and not "raynbo" ;)

>I wonder when such things would even come up in general magazines
>like those.

Now and then. (And not only William Saffire used to deal with langu.
aspects. I once read of the Nooristani and Kushan Burushas and their
idioms, Burushaski etc, in TIME magazine, about 40 years ago.)

>English uses glottal stops very differently from German.

That's true (esp. of BE. Since AE gl. stops are very "mild", almost
not extant).

>The name "Webster" or "Webster's" was purchased by the G. C.
>Merriam company from his estate after his death. No other
>dictionaries _should_ have "Webster('s)" in the name.

Oh, I see, you meant "Webster". But I assume the other publ. houses
pay Merriam for getting the right to print "Webster" on their
dictionaries.

>We don't know who "they" is.

BTW, Bantam was acquired by the German giant Bertelsmann (owned
by the Reinhard Mohn's family in W-Germany).

>Tradition.

Or: the traditional American average phon. transcr. (by picking
up morcels from the Engl. normal writing for showing certain types
of pronunciation --- instead of using the Daniel Jones & IPA graphemes
in use esp. for British Engl.).

>You need to read the front matter to find out exactly what they intend
>by each symbol.

Merriam's (& Simon & Schuster's) Webster even repeats the whole list in
the footer of each page; three long lines (starting with "a" in "fat"
and ending with ">" "derived from")

>Once again, far too much verbiage.

Then feel free: ignore it. ;> (In most cases, verbiage is to be
preferred instead of being "mundfaul" and having "Nuschel"-talk,
which only generate ambiguity and ... <worse>.)

>What you want is a "pronouncing dictionary."

To me, Webster, D. Jones (both paper & online) as well as other
dictionaries will do (many of them online). For special, regional
pronunciations, I'd choose other sources; and ask native-speakers
to show the genuine pronunciation.)

>And "Bantam" is not the name of a dictionary! You could consult
>the copyright page.

Mine (two diff. editions) are called "The New Bantam English
Dictionary" (each approx. 1060 pages).

Tim

On 21.12.2021 19:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>That's just apostrophe! You suggested there was something strange there.

Yes, apostrophe, but it differs in (A) simple text editors and (B) in
typographic renderings (such as by Word, whenever in the options the
"typographic" version is chosen [x], both for the screen usage and
for printouts). This is why many people use the accents, ´ and `,
instead of '. (Esp. when people haven't learnt type writing rules, in
any language. To them the ' apostrophe is no apostrophe at all. :-))

Tim

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 6:29:45 AM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Monday, December 20, 2021 at 5:19:27 PM UTC-5, DKleinecke wrote:

> > /fayr/ /wayr/ /shawr/ /flawr/

> Note that you need (what SPE would call) a low-level rule to
> make an approximant (/r, l/) syllabic after a diphthong. You
> can choose to do that by inserting a shwa [@] before it or by
> putting a "syllabic" diacritic below the [r] or [l].

I didn't intend syllabic /r/. These are, to me, one syllable words.

An example of what you mean would be "bottom" /botm/. Perhaps
more to the point /boksr/

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 3:22:08 AM UTC-8, Tim Lang wrote:
> On 20.12.2021 23:02, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> >I know stress is phonemic in English but my system is defective in
> >having no orthographic way to mark it.

> How about this kind of apostrophe: "'"? For which modern keyboards
> have an extra key (usually neighboring the "Enter"/"Return" key).
> Or applying an accent upon the vowel of the relevant syllable (as in
> Spanish) in order to avoid ambiguous reading situations.

As I imagine English stress to be there are only two cases - stress on
the first or second syllable. Thus only one case needs to be marked.
English has so many monosyllablic words that initial stress is clearly
the unmarked case. One solution I have toyed with is /:/ - /rekrd/
/re:kord/ which is quite adequate in itself but horrifying to people who
think /:/ means "long vowel"

It's not typewriters I'm thinking of - it's ASCII.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 2:52:29 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> On 21.12.2021 19:56, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> >The name "Webster" or "Webster's" was purchased by the G. C.
> >Merriam company from his estate after his death. No other
> >dictionaries _should_ have "Webster('s)" in the name.
>
> Oh, I see, you meant "Webster". But I assume the other publ. houses
> pay Merriam for getting the right to print "Webster" on their
> dictionaries.

No more than any pharmaceutical maker pays Bayer for using the
word "aspirin." They did not protect their trademark, so it has become
a generic noun. Xerox and Coke are zealous about protecting those
names; Kimberly-Clark apparently less so with "Kleenex."

> >We don't know who "they" is.
>
> BTW, Bantam was acquired by the German giant Bertelsmann (owned
> by the Reinhard Mohn's family in W-Germany).
>
> >Tradition.
>
> Or: the traditional American average phon. transcr. (by picking
> up morcels from the Engl. normal writing for showing certain types
> of pronunciation --- instead of using the Daniel Jones & IPA graphemes
> in use esp. for British Engl.).

(a) BrE phonemes _and allophones_ are significantly enough different
that it wouldn't work. (b) Jones _began_ half a century after the American
tradition was established. IPA wasn't big in Britain (even though Passy
wrote in English sometimes), and the OED went with some barely
interpretable adaptation of one of Sweet's many proposals for phonetic
transcription. They switched to IPA about the same time they went digital.

> >You need to read the front matter to find out exactly what they intend
> >by each symbol.
>
> Merriam's (& Simon & Schuster's) Webster even repeats the whole list in
> the footer of each page; three long lines (starting with "a" in "fat"
> and ending with ">" "derived from")

The front matter has at least a quarter-page for almost every one of
the symbols. (I know nothing of S&S.) Someone at AUE discovered
that M-W _finally_ put the front matter of the Collegiate on its web site.

> >Once again, far too much verbiage.
>
> Then feel free: ignore it. ;> (In most cases, verbiage is to be
> preferred instead of being "mundfaul" and having "Nuschel"-talk,
> which only generate ambiguity and ... <worse>.)
>
> >What you want is a "pronouncing dictionary."
>
> To me, Webster, D. Jones (both paper & online) as well as other
> dictionaries will do (many of them online). For special, regional
> pronunciations, I'd choose other sources; and ask native-speakers
> to show the genuine pronunciation.)

Merriam-Webster published the Kenyon & Knott, generations ago.

> >And "Bantam" is not the name of a dictionary! You could consult
> >the copyright page.
>
> Mine (two diff. editions) are called "The New Bantam English
> Dictionary" (each approx. 1060 pages).

The copyright page tells you the original publisher and date.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 2:58:15 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> On 21.12.2021 19:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >That's just apostrophe! You suggested there was something strange there.
> Yes, apostrophe, but it differs in (A) simple text editors and (B) in
> typographic renderings (such as by Word, whenever in the options the
> "typographic" version is chosen [x], both for the screen usage and
> for printouts). This is why many people use the accents, ´ and `,
> instead of '. (Esp. when people haven't learnt type writing rules, in
> any language. To them the ' apostrophe is no apostrophe at all. :-))

ASCII is pretty much obsolete.

There are keyboard shortcuts for the open-quote and close-quote
characters in MSWord, in case you've turned off "Smart Quotes"
but want them anyway. You can change your document from ASCII
quotes to smart-quotes in MSWord with two simple Find-Change
operations. Put single-quote in both the Find and the Replace-with
windows, and then double-quote in both windows an repeat,

If your text is marked German-language or French-language, it
does them automatically, too -- German with the low and high
"backward" ones, French with guillemets.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 3:00:33 PM UTC-5, DKleinecke wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 6:29:45 AM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Monday, December 20, 2021 at 5:19:27 PM UTC-5, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > > /fayr/ /wayr/ /shawr/ /flawr/
>
> > Note that you need (what SPE would call) a low-level rule to
> > make an approximant (/r, l/) syllabic after a diphthong. You
> > can choose to do that by inserting a shwa [@] before it or by
> > putting a "syllabic" diacritic below the [r] or [l].
>
> I didn't intend syllabic /r/. These are, to me, one syllable words.

I can't imagine the sound! How does your tongue go from the [j]
position to the [ɹ] position without some sort of intermediate vocalic
noise?

> An example of what you mean would be "bottom" /botm/. Perhaps
> more to the point /boksr/

The last sound in "fire" is for me the same as the last sound in "boxer."

(You still need a "low-level rule" to turn the "segment" syllabic.)

On 21.12.2021 22:33, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

>No more than any pharmaceutical maker pays Bayer for using the
>word "aspirin."

Or some companies/countries paid some substantial fees for
at least some "initial" time (ie, long ago) for that aspirin.

>(a) BrE phonemes _and allophones_ are significantly enough different
>that it wouldn't work. (b) Jones _began_ half a century after the American
>tradition was established.

OK. But the practicality, at least for foreigners who wish to learn
this modern "lingua franca" Jones & IPA are much better (even easier
to learn).

>IPA wasn't big in Britain

It has been "big" on the continent for several generations.

>The front matter has at least a quarter-page for almost every one of
>the symbols. (I know nothing of S&S.)

Of course, it has big lists and explanatory notes (incl. pertaining
to grammar). But in many cases the footer three lines shows the
reader what the American transcription sign means. This will do
in order to know how to read (i.e. to pronounce - at least the
most popular variant of the relevant word; and in most cases,
if there is a major difference AE<->BE, the main variants are
given).

>Merriam-Webster published the Kenyon & Knott, generations ago.

Seems to be one of the best (and in quite frequent, updated, editions
in contrast with the British OED).

>The copyright page tells you the original publisher and date.

Unfortunately, in the one copy I have, about 2-3 dozens of
initial pages (incl. cover and "impressum" data) are lost;
and the other (integer) copy I can't find. But they are quite
this edition, 1979, by Edwin B. Williams publ. house; 2nd edition
(in 1977 the 1st ed. might have been issued, but I am not sure):

<https://www.buchfreund.de/de/d/e/9780553170184/the-new-bantam-english-dictionary?bookId=84569415>

cover
<https://www.buchfreund.de/de/d/e/9780553170184/the-new-bantam-english-dictionary?bookId=84569415#&gid=1&pid=1>

the same - with ISBN codes:
<https://www.abebooks.com/9780553170184/New-Bantam-English-Dictionart-055317018X/plp>

(These editions use quite the same Amer. system for transcr. as Webster
copies do.)

Tim

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 1:42:06 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 3:00:33 PM UTC-5, DKleinecke wrote:
> > On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 6:29:45 AM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Monday, December 20, 2021 at 5:19:27 PM UTC-5, DKleinecke wrote:
> >
> > > > /fayr/ /wayr/ /shawr/ /flawr/
> >
> > > Note that you need (what SPE would call) a low-level rule to
> > > make an approximant (/r, l/) syllabic after a diphthong. You
> > > can choose to do that by inserting a shwa [@] before it or by
> > > putting a "syllabic" diacritic below the [r] or [l].
> >
> > I didn't intend syllabic /r/. These are, to me, one syllable words.
> I can't imagine the sound! How does your tongue go from the [j]
> position to the [ɹ] position without some sort of intermediate vocalic
> noise?
> > An example of what you mean would be "bottom" /botm/. Perhaps
> > more to the point /boksr/
> The last sound in "fire" is for me the same as the last sound in "boxer."
>
> (You still need a "low-level rule" to turn the "segment" syllabic.)

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 1:37:49 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 2:58:15 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
> > On 21.12.2021 19:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >
> > >That's just apostrophe! You suggested there was something strange there.
> > Yes, apostrophe, but it differs in (A) simple text editors and (B) in
> > typographic renderings (such as by Word, whenever in the options the
> > "typographic" version is chosen [x], both for the screen usage and
> > for printouts). This is why many people use the accents, ´ and `,
> > instead of '. (Esp. when people haven't learnt type writing rules, in
> > any language. To them the ' apostrophe is no apostrophe at all. :-))
> ASCII is pretty much obsolete.
>
> There are keyboard shortcuts for the open-quote and close-quote
> characters in MSWord, in case you've turned off "Smart Quotes"
> but want them anyway. You can change your document from ASCII
> quotes to smart-quotes in MSWord with two simple Find-Change
> operations. Put single-quote in both the Find and the Replace-with
> windows, and then double-quote in both windows an repeat,
>
> If your text is marked German-language or French-language, it
> does them automatically, too -- German with the low and high
> "backward" ones, French with guillemets.

On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 1:37:49 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> ASCII is pretty much obsolete.
So are typewriters. I started my phonology back when ASCII was the state
of the art.

> There are keyboard shortcuts for the open-quote and close-quote
> characters in MSWord, in case you've turned off "Smart Quotes"
> but want them anyway. You can change your document from ASCII
> quotes to smart-quotes in MSWord with two simple Find-Change
> operations. Put single-quote in both the Find and the Replace-with
> windows, and then double-quote in both windows an repeat,

I don't use MSWord. While I was still using Ubuntu I used Gedit.
When I changed to Windows 10 I brought a copy of Gedit over and
it works in Windows. Gedit gives me what I want and I find Word
is much too complicated.

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 13:37:47 -0800 (PST): "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:

>On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 2:58:15 PM UTC-5, Tim Lang wrote:
>> On 21.12.2021 19:59, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>> >That's just apostrophe! You suggested there was something strange there.
>> Yes, apostrophe, but it differs in (A) simple text editors and (B) in
>> typographic renderings (such as by Word, whenever in the options the
>> "typographic" version is chosen [x], both for the screen usage and
>> for printouts). This is why many people use the accents, ´ and `,
>> instead of '. (Esp. when people haven't learnt type writing rules, in
>> any language. To them the ' apostrophe is no apostrophe at all. :-))
>
>ASCII is pretty much obsolete.

No. Still very much alive. A subset of Unicode/UTF-8. Quite a few
languages can be written with just that: English, Interlingua, Basque,
Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malayu, Elefen (Lingua Franca Nova), Swahili
(I think), Xhosa and Zulu (I think); and lots more almost: Dutch,
German (with ö=>oe etc. ß=>ss), Spanish (leaving out diacritics rarely
causes comprehension difficulties), Portuguese (same), Italian (same),
etc. etc.

>There are keyboard shortcuts for the open-quote and close-quote
>characters in MSWord, in case you've turned off "Smart Quotes"
>but want them anyway. You can change your document from ASCII
>quotes to smart-quotes in MSWord with two simple Find-Change
>operations. Put single-quote in both the Find and the Replace-with
>windows, and then double-quote in both windows an repeat,

Yes, https://rudhar.com/sfreview/curlquot/aucurlen.htm .

But I no longer use Word and Windows, and won’t, and I type the
curlies directly from the keyboard: ‘’, “”, «», ´, ¨.
`¿¡²³¤€¼½¾‘’¥×
áßðfghjœø¶'
äåé®þüúíóö«»¬

>If your text is marked German-language or French-language, it
>does them automatically, too -- German with the low and high
>"backward" ones, French with guillemets.

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 16:38:41 -0800 (PST): DKleinecke
<dkleinecke@gmail.com> scribeva:

>On Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 1:37:49 PM UTC-8, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> ASCII is pretty much obsolete.
>
>So are typewriters. I started my phonology back when ASCII was the state
>of the art.
>
>> There are keyboard shortcuts for the open-quote and close-quote
>> characters in MSWord, in case you've turned off "Smart Quotes"
>> but want them anyway. You can change your document from ASCII
>> quotes to smart-quotes in MSWord with two simple Find-Change
>> operations. Put single-quote in both the Find and the Replace-with
>> windows, and then double-quote in both windows an repeat,
>
>I don't use MSWord. While I was still using Ubuntu I used Gedit.

I didn't know about gedit. Just installed it and it looks spartan. But
no doubt I could learn it. Myself I use nano (formerly pico), and
sometimes xed (especially when converting old iso-8859-1 files, which
xed reads correctly automatically. Nano does not.

All of this under Linux Mint (which is based on Ubuntu, which is based
on Debian), and Ubuntu Server, sometimes Rasberry OS (also based on
Debian). Locale set to UTF-8 of course. Even nano now supports Arabic
and Hebrew, with the correct direction.

>When I changed to Windows 10 I brought a copy of Gedit over and
>it works in Windows. Gedit gives me what I want and I find Word
>is much too complicated.

Gedit seems to a text editor, not a word processor like Word. Very
different type of software. The non-Microsoft equivalents of MS Word
are OpenOffice and LibreOffice. I use the latter sometimes, but I
don't like it. Typing HTML directly is much more comfortable.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 06:53:44 +0100: Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com>
scribeva:
>I didn't know about gedit. Just installed it and it looks spartan. But
>no doubt I could learn it. Myself I use nano (formerly pico), and
>sometimes xed (especially when converting old iso-8859-1 files, which
>xed reads correctly automatically. Nano does not.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Gedit
On closer inspection, quite a nice program.

Especially the snippets feature, to insert often used bits of text,
can come in handy, although I didn't find how it works, yet. Yes, I
did:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gedit/stable/gedit-plugins-snippets.html.en
..

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com