Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Caio Rossi" <caioross@z...>
"Caio Rossi" <caioross@z...>
Date:  Sat Nov 11, 2000  10:11 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] Re: Rhyme nor Reason


REg wrote:

> For me a rhyme of 'thorough' with 'burrow'
> or 'furrow' highlights the problem. I base my observations on
> CNN, Fox as well as Discovery and National Geographic.
> Australian English and I think "Standard" English would rhyme
> more with "burra" and 'furra".

But not many would rhyme 'die' and 'day'! :-)

> My feeling is that in attempting
> to do justice to the spelling of the word, some users, news
> readers in particular, create verbal nightmares.

I've read and noticed it's a tendency of 'educated' speakers in the US. Once
I was watching an interview with an American scientist and she said things
like '...shIUn', for 'information', for instance, and it's very frequent to
hear 'OL', as in 'all' for ending "-ALs", instead of the schwa, as in
POTENTIAL.

> A rhyme with 'burrow' strikes me as an attempt to
> feel good about having accommodated the spelling of the
> 'ough' part of 'thorough', in which case I'd have to ask you
> how you pronounce 'rough'. : ) "Ruff", I hope?

But you shouldn't forget that there is a tendency of all colonized countries
to keep older forms of the language, both in pronunciation and grammar, and
also spelling, and to have an independent evolution from the same basis.
Many things we say in Brazil are exactly the way the Portuguese spoke in the
1500's, when our colonization started. When it comes to the US, you hear
things like 'gotten' and regular forms of verbs ( burned, etc ) that are
older forms of the language. The British dropped 'gotten' and exchanged
'burnt' for 'burned' because their people had 'bad English' ( which became
standard because educated people were 'contaminated' ). Americans didn't
create that. The British corrupted the language, and still do it much more
than Americans ( not pronouncing the ending Rs is another 'mistake' that
became standard, as well as the unpronounced ending vowels in French. Had
the French been literate in the past and they'd probably distinguish plurals
when speaking ).

Sociolinguists have long abandoned the belief of ONE standard LANGUAGE and
many dialects. Now they know it's many different dialects and a standard
one. If that's true within one society, why to expect ONE LANGUAGE from
different societies.

Bye,

Caio Rossi



  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
6354 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Lloyd W. Hanson   Sat  11/11/2000   6 KB
6356 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Mezzoid@a...   Sat  11/11/2000   3 KB
6358 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Jennifer   Sat  11/11/2000   4 KB
6372 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Reg Boyle   Sun  11/12/2000   3 KB
6360 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Caio Rossi   Sat  11/11/2000   2 KB
6362 Re: Rhyme nor Reason MFoxy9795@a...   Sat  11/11/2000   2 KB
6371 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Reg Boyle   Sun  11/12/2000   6 KB
6388 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Lloyd W. Hanson   Sun  11/12/2000   5 KB
6400 Re: Rhyme nor Reason Reg Boyle   Mon  11/13/2000   6 KB

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