• (disco) in reply to Jaloopa
    Jaloopa:
    DCRoss:
    BEE-tuh

    Standard pronunciation in the UK. BAY-tuh sounds strange to my ears.

    Greek pronunciation: VEH-tuh (or something reasonably close to that).

    Filed under: Also, THEL-tuh (th voiced, as in the, not thing)

  • (disco) in reply to DCRoss
    DCRoss:
    to borrow a phrase

    That's not a phrase. It's two sentences, one of which is compound (two sentences spliced together with a semicolon), and more clauses and phrases than I felt like bothering to count.

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername
    anotherusername:
    It was a lengthy post about French pronunciating things correctly that depended on the assumption that the French pronunciate anything correctly in the first place. So, it begged the question.

    I didn't (Belgium off, toaster!) complain because I recognized that this is, at least arguably, true.

  • (disco) in reply to Jaloopa
    Jaloopa:
    He also couldn't spell it out because "ess" and "eff" both came out as "eth"
    ð
    HardwareGeek:
    **Modern** Greek pronunciation: VEH-tuh (or something reasonably close to that).
    FTFY. I studied Ancient Greek for a year or so in an upper primary school extension course (previously I'd been doing Latin, but switched to get a head start on high school Greek), and the pronunciations there were much closer to what you might expect (initial B and D sounds in β and δ; significant differences between η, ι, and υ, and between ο and ω; a much more strongly voiced χ; probably others I can't think of off-hand). When I went to high school and did Modern Greek I had to learn a whole bunch of new pronunciations.

    Filed under: The b and d sounds are now rare, but occur as μπ and ντ respectively, Useful Knowledge

  • (disco) in reply to Scarlet_Manuka
    Scarlet_Manuka:
    HardwareGeek:
    **Modern** Greek pronunciation: VEH-tuh (or something reasonably close to that).
    FTFY.

    For some definition of Modern. Classical Greek, yes, definitely /b/ and /d/, and the other differences you mention. However, AIUI, the pronunciation shifts occurred by Byzantine Greek, at the latest, and may have occurred or been occurring as early as Koine Greek.

    Scarlet_Manuka:
    μπ and ντ respectively

    Μπ I knew (I have a souvenir mousepad from the 2004 Athens Olympics that shows the sports, and baseball is μπέιζμπολ), but ντ is new to me, or at least I had forgotten it.

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername
    anotherusername:
    Mostly because we've borrowed so many words from French, German, and about a zillion other languages, none of which follow the English rules for pronunciation...
    Partly … but also partly because during certain times when people gave serious thought to English spelling, there was the idea that homonyms shouldn’t be spelled the same, in order that the meaning would be apparent from just the word by itself. Then there’s the additional problem that modern English spelling largely reflects pronunciation of a few hundred years ago, rather than having been updated to stay current. (French also suffers from that, mainly in the last letter(s) of words being written but not pronounced.)
  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    ■■■■■■■ off, toaster!

    I think your toaster got lost, I never received it.

  • (disco) in reply to Luhmann

    Just keep using Discourse; it has more toasters than anybody could ever want.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek

    I'm still waiting for the flying toasters

  • (disco) in reply to Luhmann
    Luhmann:
    I'm still waiting for the flying toasterscars.

    They promised us we'd have flying cars in the future. The future is now. Where are my flying cars?

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    DCRoss:
    to borrow a phrase

    That's not a phrase. It's two sentences, one of which is compound (two sentences spliced together with a semicolon), and more clauses and phrases than I felt like bothering to count.

    It's a phrase which brought a few friends along for context.

  • (disco) in reply to Gurth
    Gurth:
    **French also suffers from that**, mainly in the last letter(s) of words being written but not pronounced

    I'm pretty sure they enjoy it.

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername
    anotherusername:
    Gurth:
    **French also suffers**

    I'm pretty sure they enjoy it.

    There's a word for that.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    anotherusername:
    Gurth:
    **French also suffers**

    I'm pretty sure they enjoy it.

    There's a word for that.

    autoschadenfreude?

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername

    Not the word I what thinking of, but sure, why not? That, too.

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername

    Isn't that when you are happy you crashed your car?

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    That's not a phrase. It's two sentences, one of which is compound (two sentences spliced together with a semicolon), and more clauses and phrases than I felt like bothering to count.

    And phrases shouldn't go out alone. The English language might be out there.

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