Re: Off Topic: English Grammar, Spelling, colloquialisms, etc.

new topic     » goto parent     » topic index » view thread      » older message » newer message
DerekParnell said...
Kat said...

... she meant "many" instead of "mini" (they are pronounced differently) ...

Ever visited Christchurch or Johannesburg?


I'd like to visit Christchurch (despite the name), not so much Johannesburg.

What you said earlier, Derek, about different pronunciations in different countries (to make this simple, lets say english-speaking usa, UK, NZ, Oz, and some of India and Malaysia and SA), got me thinking about a scenario in which people who program in Eu got togther to meet in real life, and couldn't understand each other speaking the Eu keywords, but understood the written code perfectly. Would it be decided how to pronounce anything in the interest of easier and speedier communication? If i pronounce "cat" as "cow", wouldn't it make for tedious conversation to understand not feeding "cow" milk to infants? If i had a horrible southern drawl, and pronounced "while" as "wall", and had a wonderful 3D drawing program with a wall() function, wouldn't you get tripped up sometimes in discussing the program? They do that here. What if i had a hydrology program and pronounced "well" as "whale"? They do that here.

Once upon a time, dictionaries carried one way of diction, so that anyone saying that word spoke it as anyone else, and communication was possible. Now, dictionaries are being modified to include all possible ways of saying a word, to make it possible to decrypt what someone else is saying, but they don't specify a correct diction any more.

useless

new topic     » goto parent     » topic index » view thread      » older message » newer message

Search



Quick Links

User menu

Not signed in.

Misc Menu