English Language - words, meanings and context

[geordief]

5 hours ago, Intoscience said:

This is very common were I live. My ex partner who was from out of the area originally constantly reminded me of this. Her view was similar to mistermack's that people from the area should get a better education on the English language. However she often took it a step further, which was one of a few things that irritated me, by insinuating that all the people from this area are "thick cavemen". 

The use of different dialect and slang doesn't bother me, I find it quite charming. 

What is the story with the actual pronunciation of the letter "H" ?

Is it "aitch: or  "haitch"?

 

I have heard both (we need to know)

 

37 minutes ago, swansont said:

Or maybe it's because he's not a lawyer. Every profession has its own nomenclature, and people outside of that profession won't be as well-versed in the language that is peculiar to it. As Peterkin notes, "quash" is likely one of those terms.

He knows now

[swansont]

12 minutes ago, geordief said:

He knows now

Yes, but perhaps you've had the experience of knowing something is A or B, but the topic is sufficiently esoteric, and encountered so infrequently that you can't remember which one is correct. (and then the 50/50/90 rule comes into play) 

I've had this happen to me on several topics

[Intoscience]

27 minutes ago, geordief said:

What is the story with the actual pronunciation of the letter "H" ?

Is it "aitch: or  "haitch"?

 

I have heard both (we need to know

Well, I'm no linguist so I could not say with any conviction.

All I do know is that in the area I originate from the H is dropped in the pronunciation of almost every spoken word, e.g.

Have - ave

Happy - appy

Hate - ate

How - ow

Edited July 7, 2022 by Intoscience
spelling

[mistermack]

27 minutes ago, geordief said:

What is the story with the actual pronunciation of the letter "H" ?

Is it "aitch: or  "haitch"?

I have heard both (we need to know)

Casting my memory back nearly sixty years, when they were trying to teach me a smattering of french at school, I seem to remember the term " ash aspire" ( my own spelling ) which meant a 'breathed' aitch. So maybe it comes to English from French, and they specify a distinction between the two. 

[StringJunky]

Aitch derives from French. Posh people follow that, hence  the derision by them for haitch. The structural form of the letter H is derived from Latin, pronounced haitch, therefore, I would say the 'correct' pronunciation,  if one is to be originalist,  is haitch.

[mistermack]

Sometimes it takes an outsider looking in to appreciate the English language :

https://soundcloud.com/kamrantavakoli/indian-teacher-explaining-the?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing     

 

[geordief]

53 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Sometimes it takes an outsider looking in to appreciate the English language :

https://soundcloud.com/kamrantavakoli/indian-teacher-explaining-the?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing     

 

Yes,pretty interesting (is that canned laughter,though?)

 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Yes,pretty interesting (is that canned laughter,though?)

I don't know, it might be, but I don't think so. I've heard the original, and it's very wooley sound, so this is a version that's been worked on digitally, hence the slightly artificial sound.

[swansont]

Some wisdom about English I've read over the years:

English was a language invented by Norman invaders to pick up
Anglo-Saxon barmaids. It retains much of this character.
     --- Either from H. Beam Piper or Paul Drye's English professor Peter Newman 

English doesn't "pick up" loan words, it consciously stalks them.
     --- Andrew Moffatt-Vallance 

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
     --- James D. Nicoll 
 

[geordief]

On 7/7/2022 at 12:46 PM, mistermack said:

Casting my memory back nearly sixty years, when they were trying to teach me a smattering of french at school, I seem to remember the term " ash aspire" ( my own spelling ) which meant a 'breathed' aitch. So maybe it comes to English from French, and they specify a distinction between the two. 

Don"t think so 

I don't see any pattern when looking at aspirated  french words and non aspirated french words vs their counterparts in the English language .

 

Nothing stands out to me ,anyway (could be buried in history)

I am not sure of the history of the well pronounced  "h" in either language -It did exist in Latin  on paper but I have no idea how it was actually  spoken.

 

Probably (=certainly),as with  us it varied across the  regions.

 

[mistermack]

Wikipedia says :

"In French spelling, aspirated "h" (French: "h" aspiré) is an initial silent letter that represents a hiatus at a word boundary, between the word's first vowel and the preceding word's last vowel. At the same time, the aspirated h stops the normal processes of contraction and liaison from occurring.^[1]

The name of the now-silent h refers not to aspiration but to its former pronunciation as the voiceless glottal fricative [h] in Old French and in Middle French.^{[citation needed]} "

It's all greek to me. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_h   

[geordief]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Wikipedia says :

"In French spelling, aspirated "h" (French: "h" aspiré) is an initial silent letter that represents a hiatus at a word boundary, between the word's first vowel and the preceding word's last vowel. At the same time, the aspirated h stops the normal processes of contraction and liaison from occurring.^[1]

The name of the now-silent h refers not to aspiration but to its former pronunciation as the voiceless glottal fricative [h] in Old French and in Middle French.^{[citation needed]} "

It's all greek to me. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_h   

That sounds like the way some of us pronounce "gotten" where we drop the "tt" and say "go-en" with the "tt" replaced by what I would call a "global stop" and may be the same thing as that "voiceless  glottal  fricative" in your link.

 

 

A "fricative" sounds like it  should mean "caused by rubbing" and "glottal"  means "connected to the tongue" (from Greek)

Edited July 10, 2022 by geordief

[geordief]

Saw this just now on CNN

"France and Germany weary over reduced Russian gas supply as Nord Stream 1 pipeline closes for maintenance"

 

Obviously  "wary"  but is that a computer error or could it be  a genuine  error?

 

A quick search seems to indicate that it may be a common(ish?) mistake to make

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/weary-vs-wary-difference-usage

 

(When I was at school   we had a cruel nickname  for our old Maths teacher.  He was called "Weary")