At 10:28 -0700 8/21/1999, JoAnne Marie wrote:
[snip]
>I had a bit of trouble with a 'Jordy'
Ee, ba goom. That wer a Geordie.[1]
>once - and a New Zealander, but frankly I do not consider these 'instances
>of difficulty' preclusive to a relatively comprehensive understanding of
>English as spoken (or 'foneemikly ritten'!) by whom-so-ever!
[snip]
Gud an yer.
>OK, I *do* understand the etymological argument (with the exception of
>'faux amis' like "derive"), but 'surely' its not 'right' that the same
>sequence of 'signs' (presumably used to represent sounds) should have
>different pronunciations between 'neighboring languages'!, for example
>"silence" in English and in French - no wonder we have difficulty learning
>foreign languages! (Bawndjoor, mawnseeur)
Mercy buckets. "Comment fool porter fool hosiered women blown monk sewer?"
(James Joyce, Finnegans Wake)
>JoAnne Marie, jmarie@filnet.fr
>CV, Phonetics and Poetry on:
>http://www.filnet.fr/perso/jmarie
[1] Diminutive of George, referring to a native of Northumberland, UK. See
"Larn Yersel Geordie", and the Geordie passport, both available from local
vendors of tourist chachkeles. For example, there is a story of a Geordie
in the old West that ends
"Were they playing war drums?"
"Na, they wer playin thir ayn."
The national motto is "Gerrit doonyer", a reference to Newcastle Brown Ale.
-- Edward Cherlin edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu "It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know that ain't so."--Mark Twain, or else some other prominent 19th century humorist and wit
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