English is the LAST language that gets to complain about how you pronounce stuff.
Ever read an english word that you haven't heard before? You're pronouncing it wrong.
Which one of the dozens if not hundreds of regional and culturally originated dialects and accents do you mean?
actually more modern than that of the US because the US imported the UK one around the time of colonization
That's not how it works.
Like the Spanish- French- and Portuguese-speaking parts of the Americas, American English may have developed from an earlier form of English, but It has since gone through its own parallel evolution, making it just as "modern" as British English.
The US one evolved as well, just preserved rhoticity which is a major feature. There's no "UK accent" (nor "us accent") either - West country accents for example are still rhotic
Sure but even that isn't all encompassing. I'm from SoCal and my accent/dialect has so many archaicisms that I'm probably one of the only people under 50 with the damned thing. What I get for being around old people I guess.
Though I do suppress into something approaching the general accent when talking to others, mostly because for example Mountain Dew gets mangled into münten doo.
But this is someone complaining about an English word and how it is pronounced compared to spelling. Yes, it comes from another language. That is the entire reason English has a lot of examples like this.
We have a third grader, and he's pretty good at reading. Recently he has been arguing with us about the pronunciation of some new words from his homework.
The problem is, his arguments are sound! He's accurately following the rules he learned for sounding out words.
When this has come up in the past, all I've been able to do is acknowledge his argument and explain to him how English has all kinds of weird rules and exceptions, and it's the kind of thing you remember with experience using the words. Like, there is no new rule to learn, and you don't have to freak out about remembering all these exceptions. It will just come with time. (Because we all know there's nothing that kids like more than olds telling them to just wait or give it time, lol)
But the point is that the person complaining isn't complaining about the French, but about some imagined English dude who picked the pronunciation of rendezvous for fun
Fair enough. Then it must have been the same dude who decided all the other words with random pronounciations. If you find them, tell them to go fuck themself.
Wait wait wait wait.........I'm pretty good at catching things. You're saying I could get a drive by kitten adoption? That sounds super fast, efficient, and then I'd have a kitten on my way home from work!
To be fair, usually when a language adopts a new word from other languages, they start spelling it in there own fashion. English is unusual in that they use the original spelling.
Not always, the word skosh(meaning just a little bit or a tiny amount) comes from the Japanese word sukoshi(少し), but that can probably be attributed to the language not generally using romanized letters.
It's a very interesting word to me since its one of the very few words that migrated from Japanese to English and isn't a name of something. The way it came over is also rather interesting, as it was through collaboration between US and Japanese soldiers during the Korean war.
My favorite are British English, who can't stand the French to the point that they say things like filet with a hard T.
This also reminds me of a recent trip to Colorado, where they do the same thing with Spanish words, anglicizing all of them. Salida (sa-LIE-da) is the first one that's coming to mind, but I know there are other cities in Colorado that are clearly Spanish words that they've just abused.
Not to long ago, I was mourning the loss of the Conversatron 3000. It was a forum site that was nothing but comedy writers, using the medium to tell a flavor of joke and observational humor that could only work on that medium. A lot of it had this formula of "dumb question/observation", "dumber retort", "setup", and finally "witty punchline." Sometimes, that would just thread on for multiple rounds. Rarely, threads were open to user comments too.
Now I understand why that hasn't come back. We don't need it anymore.
One of the funniest aspects of Detroit is how bastardized all the French street names are pronounced by locals. Gratiot, Dequindre, Livernois come to mind but there are too many examples.
118 Comments
arandomthought@sh.itjust.works · 129 pts · 246d
English is the LAST language that gets to complain about how you pronounce stuff. Ever read an english word that you haven't heard before? You're pronouncing it wrong.
AstaKask@lemmy.cafe · 36 pts · 246d
The UK should do a major spelling reform and troll the shit out of the U.S and their then "archaic" English.
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz · 22 pts · 246d
Ðat wúd bē sō sili, hüever it wúd absolútli rúin ŪK-ŪS komūnikāshon
Sum myt sā ðat's a gúd þing ðō
zerofk@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 246d
That looks unironically great. Relatively easy to read and as far as I could tell, internally consistent. Two things current English spelling lacks.
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 246d
I've worked on it as a personal writing system for probably like a year or so now
Y'v werkt on it az a personal ryting sistem for probabli lyk a jēr or sō nü
logi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 245d
One major issue is that it'll expose all regional differences in pronunciation in the spelling and now we'll disagree about the spelling instead.
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 245d
We already do though, one's color is another's colour and one's spelled is another's spelt
Those would be kuler and spelt in my dialect and writing system
faintwhenfree@lemmus.org · -8 pts · 246d
UK is the worst, US makes sense at least to some degree.
Gloucestershire - pronounced glostershire Warwick - pronounced warrick And there like hundreds of these weird ones.
arudesalad@piefed.ca · 46 pts · 246d
Place names are cheating. Almost all of them come from old/other languages that have very little resemblance to modern english.
undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch · -11 pts · 246d
The UK accent is actually more modern than that of the US because the US imported the UK one around the time of colonization.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 19 pts · 246d
Which one of the dozens if not hundreds of regional and culturally originated dialects and accents do you mean?
That's not how it works.
Like the Spanish- French- and Portuguese-speaking parts of the Americas, American English may have developed from an earlier form of English, but It has since gone through its own parallel evolution, making it just as "modern" as British English.
FishFace@piefed.social · 16 pts · 246d
The US one evolved as well, just preserved rhoticity which is a major feature. There's no "UK accent" (nor "us accent") either - West country accents for example are still rhotic
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 246d
Good thing, too, pirates would sound silly saying, "Ahhhhh, shivah me timbahs!"
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 246d
There is an accent called General American (GenAm), however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American_English?useskin=vector
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 246d
Sure but even that isn't all encompassing. I'm from SoCal and my accent/dialect has so many archaicisms that I'm probably one of the only people under 50 with the damned thing. What I get for being around old people I guess.
Though I do suppress into something approaching the general accent when talking to others, mostly because for example Mountain Dew gets mangled into münten doo.
Rothe@piefed.social · 6 pts · 246d
No, that is garbled nonsense based on the misunderstanding of a factoid.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 11 pts · 246d
But this is someone complaining about an English word and how it is pronounced compared to spelling. Yes, it comes from another language. That is the entire reason English has a lot of examples like this.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 246d
You can work it out through tough thorough thought, though.
Zink@programming.dev · 7 pts · 246d
Seriously!
We have a third grader, and he's pretty good at reading. Recently he has been arguing with us about the pronunciation of some new words from his homework.
The problem is, his arguments are sound! He's accurately following the rules he learned for sounding out words.
When this has come up in the past, all I've been able to do is acknowledge his argument and explain to him how English has all kinds of weird rules and exceptions, and it's the kind of thing you remember with experience using the words. Like, there is no new rule to learn, and you don't have to freak out about remembering all these exceptions. It will just come with time. (Because we all know there's nothing that kids like more than olds telling them to just wait or give it time, lol)
GreenShimada@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 246d
Of all people, Gallagher made the point in the 80s. I think George Carlin also did a set about English words once.
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 246d
English is basically three languages stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat
robocall@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 246d
"Tough" ought to be written as "tuff"
Brainsploosh@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 246d
dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 246d
I imagine they'd rather go further back down the literacy tree to where only the priesthood and nobility could read.
Lucky us, they're one in the same now!
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 246d
lividweasel@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 246d
But tuff is already something else.
robocall@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 246d
that was a fun fact! but I think it's ok if one word has multiple meanings
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 246d
No
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 246d
yes
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 246d
Even if you have heard an English word before, you're probably still pronouncing it wrong
FishFace@piefed.social · 3 pts · 246d
But the point is that the person complaining isn't complaining about the French, but about some imagined English dude who picked the pronunciation of rendezvous for fun
arandomthought@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 246d
Fair enough. Then it must have been the same dude who decided all the other words with random pronounciations. If you find them, tell them to go fuck themself.
FishFace@piefed.social · 3 pts · 246d
I sure will!
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 246d
English is * the last language that should complain; unfortunately, 54% of the US population has a literacy level below that of a 6th-grade student.
edit: typo
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 71 pts · 246d
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 29 pts · 246d
FTFY
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 246d
Now listen here you little kitten murderer 😾
VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 246d
What's worse, m*rdering kittens, or posting things that would offend advertisers?
And now, for our sponsors:
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 245d
Won't someone think of the shareholders! 😭
rumba@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 246d
hey, VoteNixon just ran over it, Firefly is the one that brought it into the world and threw it into traffic :)
SethTaylor@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 245d
This guy absolutely destroys pussy
EDIT: I don't know why I worded it like that but I stand by it.
FuCensorship@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 246d
FUUUUUUUUU^UUUUUUCCCKKKK^
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 245d
F**K THE DOPPLER EFFECT!
rumba@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 246d
I love this
Because god forbid someone reposts an image here from Reddit that had been censored. what a travisty :)
Strangest fucking hill to die on.
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 246d
The original uncensored version took three seconds on TinEye.com to find.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 246d
Again, who cares enough to bother?
H3mp79@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 246d
Individuals who can spell might care.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 246d
ehh, let the votes sort em out :)
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 246d
Shitposting is a art.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 245d
I vote for "a big giant astroid to end it all"
........what? Are we not discussing how who we're going to vote for in 2028?
Buffy@libretechni.ca · 6 pts · 245d
Hero.
Anivia@feddit.org · 5 pts · 245d
Saving the ecosystem one shitpost at a time
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 245d
Wait wait wait wait.........I'm pretty good at catching things. You're saying I could get a drive by kitten adoption? That sounds super fast, efficient, and then I'd have a kitten on my way home from work!
Klear@quokk.au · 31 pts · 246d
FUCK
Lemminary@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 246d
I got chu, fam
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 246d
No thanks, I'm a bit tired right now. Maybe later 🤷
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 246d
We must self censor. To comply with the shitfeed updoots.
X@piefed.world · 22 pts · 246d
Pretty sure it was the Swedish who decided the pronunciation of “rendezvous”. Kinda obvious, really.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 16 pts · 246d
I blame the Danish
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 15 pts · 246d
Speaking as a Dane, I accept the blame. In fact it was me. I decided it.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 6 pts · 246d
Thanks, southern sibling.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 246d
You're welcome, northern not-banana 😁
djmikeale@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 246d
Hov hov du
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 246d
They stole the sound from French letters during the Franco-Swedish War.
Digit@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 245d
When some of them had one[1] with with some of the French?
[1: A rendezvous]
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 246d
Us Germans also use this word, but where I come from, we pronounce it RANG-deh-WUH.
Beautiful.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 246d
Is that a German or English w?
rustydrd@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 246d
German, so like VOO.
abbadon420@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 246d
Now I'm sinking about this video
io@piefed.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 246d
english readers will reads this as räng de wah xD
rung de voo i would pronounce it ron de voo tho
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 246d
To be fair, usually when a language adopts a new word from other languages, they start spelling it in there own fashion. English is unusual in that they use the original spelling.
jpablo68@infosec.pub · 9 pts · 246d
And you also have words like Wednesday...
Hupf@feddit.org · 7 pts · 246d
Worcestershire sauce
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 246d
WAR-shǝ-stir
smeenz@lemmy.nz · 3 pts · 245d
Woden's day
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 246d
French in particular gets a lot of words with original spellings because it used to be the language of the courts in England.
this@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 246d
Not always, the word skosh(meaning just a little bit or a tiny amount) comes from the Japanese word sukoshi(少し), but that can probably be attributed to the language not generally using romanized letters.
It's a very interesting word to me since its one of the very few words that migrated from Japanese to English and isn't a name of something. The way it came over is also rather interesting, as it was through collaboration between US and Japanese soldiers during the Korean war.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 246d
Hancho (via head honcho) also comes to mind.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 246d
I think kawaii is in the process of being absorbed, though I've mostly seen it in more weeby areas of the internet, so hard to say for sure.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 246d
I wouldn't consider it anywhere near mainstream at this point.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 245d
My favorite are British English, who can't stand the French to the point that they say things like filet with a hard T.
This also reminds me of a recent trip to Colorado, where they do the same thing with Spanish words, anglicizing all of them. Salida (sa-LIE-da) is the first one that's coming to mind, but I know there are other cities in Colorado that are clearly Spanish words that they've just abused.
Aljernon@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 244d
People from Nevada make a point of pronouncing their state different than the Spanish word
smeenz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 245d
In "there" own fashion huh ?
Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 246d
No no a Mongolian is a personal who lives in the Mongol region north of China. She called you a Mongoose
Qtech@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 246d
No no a Mongoose is a small carnivorous animal. She called you a Monologue.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 5 pts · 246d
I'm pretty sure she called you a mango
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 246d
I’m a tangerine.
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 246d
orange
Digit@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 245d
aquarius.
rumba@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 246d
https://genius.com/Soul-coughing-super-bon-bon-lyrics
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 246d
mongolia is not part of china
SorryQuick@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 246d
The vast majority of mongols are in china, not mongolia.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 246d
Stop calling me a megalothian!
Tlf@feddit.org · 4 pts · 245d
Megladon?
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 245d
Megatron?
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 245d
Mega Man?
Fedizen@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 245d
When c/lemmyshitpost sees the word "fuck" censored.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 246d
Not to long ago, I was mourning the loss of the Conversatron 3000. It was a forum site that was nothing but comedy writers, using the medium to tell a flavor of joke and observational humor that could only work on that medium. A lot of it had this formula of "dumb question/observation", "dumber retort", "setup", and finally "witty punchline." Sometimes, that would just thread on for multiple rounds. Rarely, threads were open to user comments too.
Now I understand why that hasn't come back. We don't need it anymore.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 246d
Etymology: The word originated from Mr. Rónald Dèus Vu, which the concept is named after. It later simplified to Rón-Dè-Vu
Synonyms: déjà vu, jamais vu
cryptix@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 245d
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler Fuck :::
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 245d
JESUS, warn me before befowling my eyes so!
BigDiction@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 246d
One of the funniest aspects of Detroit is how bastardized all the French street names are pronounced by locals. Gratiot, Dequindre, Livernois come to mind but there are too many examples.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 5 pts · 246d
I like liver noise
greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 245d
We got some fun ones by me too, like Ausable river, that comes from French. But we pronounce it Ah-sable(but sable like a sable hair brush)
Dasus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 245d
Nauroin ääneen.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 3 pts · 245d
Samma här!
Dasus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 245d
Skål!
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 245d
MF somehow can’t deal with this but probably pronounces “lieutenant” the French way.
ObviouslyNotBanana@piefed.world · 2 pts · 245d
Should be spelled left tenant
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 246d
I miss 2019
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 245d
I miss 1919. Just after the great war, not yet into prohibition or the great depression.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 245d
Don't worry, we could get there again 😬
yermaw@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 246d
No i think he called her a slut
robocall@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 246d
Rondayvu
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 246d
I think it's actually Rondy-Boo
Digit@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 245d
Rheighndaeighvough.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 245d
Lol well done