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randall 
"I like to watch."
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 Posted - 02/12/2007 : 21:20:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
Self-satisfied  (I think this is mean to indicate approval, but dontcha reckon the critter looks a little smug?)
So Randall slips past the body of your wonderfully erudite and thoughtful message to comment on a frickin smilie.
Yep, this one has always suggested Pride to me; even though the guy's green, he's too smug to be afflicted by Envy. |
Edited by - randall on 02/12/2007 21:25:35 |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 00:24:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
Self-satisfied (I think this is mean to indicate approval, but dontcha reckon the critter looks a little smug?)
So Randall slips past the body of your wonderfully erudite and thoughtful message to comment on a frickin smilie.
Yep, this one has always suggested Pride to me; even though the guy's green, he's too smug to be afflicted by Envy.
We need a 'thumbs up' emoticon. |
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Shiv 
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 00:42:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Randall
quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
Self-satisfied (I think this is mean to indicate approval, but dontcha reckon the critter looks a little smug?)
So Randall slips past the body of your wonderfully erudite and thoughtful message to comment on a frickin smilie.
Yep, this one has always suggested Pride to me; even though the guy's green, he's too smug to be afflicted by Envy.
Better than being ignored |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 02:18:47
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quote:
Originally posted by lemmycaution
We need a 'thumbs up' emoticon.
Like this?
........................./��/)
......................,/�..//
...................../..../ /
............./��/'...'/���`��
........../'/.../..../......./��\
........('(...�(..�......,~/'...')
.........\.................\/..../
..........''...\.......... _.��
............\..............(
..............\.............
Oh, you said "thumb"... |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 03:10:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by lemmycaution
We need a 'thumbs up' emoticon.
Like this?
........................./��/)
......................,/�..//
...................../..../ /
............./��/'...'/���`��
........../'/.../..../......./��\
........('(...�(..�......,~/'...')
.........\.................\/..../
..........''...\.......... _.��
............\..............(
..............\.............
Oh, you said "thumb"...
Digitally enhanced link. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 06:27:07
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Already voted, as per usual.  |
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Sal[Au]pian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 20:49:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Ali
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by Ali
Your tone, Salopian, is abrasive and antipathetic.
Replay to yourself the introduction that you attempted to make to me the other day.
Huh?
Pot, kettle, black.  |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/13/2007 21:16:43 |
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 20:51:27
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quote:
Originally posted by george_kaplan
a really stupid phrase like "I could care less."
What's wrong with that? Or do you mean when people say it but mean "I couldn't care less"? |
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 20:59:14
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quote:
Originally posted by george_kaplan
This whole "Till/'til" debate boils down to one over prescriptive or descriptive theories of language.
This relates to the title of this thread - sorry C.L. My point was not about language in general - just writing. I fully subscribe to the philosophy that spoken language evolves naturally and that dictionaries should reflect, not determine that. However, all dictionaries also subscribe to this idea, so that is not an issue. Writing, though, is an invention and understanding of it is not driven by young children's minds as is the case for speech. When misspellings become common, they usually do so in an idiosyncratic way. For example, millenium is common, but bienial is not - so if this misspelling gained precedence, it would make spelling harder for people, because it would be more inconsistent. (People like to say English contains a lot of irregular spellings, but the reality is just that its regular system is very complicated.) Similarly, if people think till is 'til, since the apostrophe cannot indicate omission (however people spell, they cannot change history and decide that until came first when it did not), it can then only be bizarre decoration, which means that it is harder for learners to learn how to use apostrophes in the regular way that they do function. |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/13/2007 21:18:25 |
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 21:16:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
It is almost like a creole language.
It's exactly a creole - there's no doubt about that.
quote:
The Englishes of America and Australia are different again, and the Englishes of the Asian and African countries even more varied. These Englishes were also influenced by the aboriginal languages in those countries, as well as immigrant languages or the languages of colonisers. Some of the American English dialects have remanants of Middle English in their usage - forms which have long since disappeared from the British English dialects from which the originated.
True, but aside from accent issues, all these Englishes are mutually intelligible. Scots is probably the strongest English dialect apart from patois.
quote:
The American English spelling of nite is the most phonemically appropriate way of spelling the word, but language 'purists' (or snobs if you want) will berate the American spelling - despite the fact it now represents the way people say the word.
Even in America, this is not the standard spelling, though, as I understand it. It is mainly used in promotional/informal contexts. This is also an example of what I meant by English's complex regularity. -ight is actually very regular in that it is always pronounced the same way. -ite is not intrinsically more sensible, as it 'ought' to be pronounced something like "it-eh". The pronunciation has similarly moved on since these spellings developed, as it used to be something like that (more like "it-uh") before the Great Vowel Shift. The most 'phonetic' spelling would actually be -ait, but people like to think that -ite is better than -ight just because -i-e is quite common. But children have to be taught about 'magic e': the relationship of -at to -ate, -it to -ite, -ot to -ote etc. is far from intuitive for them. (Alternatively, they just pick it up over time like they do with -ight.) Further, unlike ight, ite does have different pronunciations, such as in iterate, definite etc. etc.
quote:
And just to add one of my pet hates, the phallacy of the 'split infinitive'. This came from Latin purists centuries ago who stated that because Latin didn't split the infinitive, then English shouldn't. However, it is not often pointed out that the Latin infinitives are not separate lexemes eg 'amare' = to love.
Yep, quite right. This is a key example of prescriptive (i.e. misunderstood) grammar.
quote:
A lot of English spelling has to be learned, rather than being intuitive.
In a sense, but on what I meant by complex regularity, it is actually relatively rare that one cannot pronounce an unfamiliar word. The spellings just rely on quite a few factors in the word; people still subconsciously understand these factors. |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/13/2007 21:20:55 |
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turrell
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 22:47:49
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| No one (save for late Nite Dj's and all nite convenience stores) uses nite in America. It isn't at all commonplace outside of such cheezy (same rule applies to that one btw) promotions. |
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Shiv
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 23:25:57
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The Englishes of the world vary much more than in accent - grammar and lexicon are different and they are not mutually intelligble in many cases. I am sometimes found incomprehensible in Australia - mostly for the use of words, but even between two apparently similar dialects, grammatical structuring and intonation (which is different to accent) cause many a misunderstanding - sometimes amusing, sometimes not. Eventually the Englishes of the world will become as varied as the Abrabic language 'dialects', some of which are no longer mutually intelligble.
Re spelling
Children are taught that /i/ is i and /ai/ is i-e
Mit-mite, Sit-site, kit-kite, bit-bite,
Therefore they spell
fight-fite (assuming fit-fite), night-nite (assuming nit-nite) and so on.
A poor teacher won't at some point pick up on the need to inform learners of the -ight patterning group. It cannot be surmised from how the alphabet represents sound-symbol.
'Whole-word' techniques also need to be used in English literacy teaching therefore. The most common worldwide approach to literacy is the phonemic approach (with languages with alphabets, of course), which provides tools for breaking a word down phonemically to assist with reading or writing new words. In English those tools fail with 'right' which is why that patterned set is learned and 'right' recognised as a whole as the symbol for the meaning (like Chinese character recognition). Other languages in the world, like Spanish, can predict spellings phonemically with consistency.
You also cannot predict 'fight' as being part of the 'right' pattern without being told it. There is nothing about the English alphabet and the sound-symbol match that can generate the 'correct' spelling of 'right' and its companion words - for a learner of any age. You need to learn the words as a 'whole'.
Many children never learn to break down language phonemically because of their cognitive learning style. They therefore do not automatically use phonemic tools as a natural process and use sight recognition for all words - into adulthood. This means encountering a new word can sometimes be impossible to decipher and you need to ask someone 'how do you say that'.
If you think about your own spelling and reading practices, especially in generating errors or dealing with new words, you can identify on the surface what kind of a writer-reader you are. I'm a phonemic speller-writer - hence my spelling mistakes, particularly when typing fast, often represent 'how the word is said' (although I make all sorts of other mistakes too, of course). I also sound words out when meeting new words. |
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Shiv
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 23:31:22
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quote:
Originally posted by turrell
No one (save for late Nite Dj's and all nite convenience stores) uses nite in America. It isn't at all commonplace outside of such cheezy (same rule applies to that one btw) promotions.
Yeah, point taken guys. That spelling did originate in America though.
Other examples which I know are used are the single 'l' in words like travel(l)ing. There's no reason at all for insisting on a 'll' in those words. |
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Shiv
"What a Wonderful World"
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Posted - 02/13/2007 : 23:38:03
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quote:
Many children never learn to break down language phonemically because of their cognitive learning style. They therefore do not automatically use phonemic tools as a natural process and use sight recognition for all words - into adulthood. This means encountering a new word can sometimes be impossible to decipher and you need to ask someone 'how do you say that'.
Before anyone jumps on me, reading this back it sounds like I'm saying one learning style is better than another. It's not. There are advantages to learning 'whole words' too - such as being able to better predict that pronunication of a word that a phonemic speller will get wrong. Cognitive learning styles don't just relate to literacy of course.
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 02/14/2007 : 09:10:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Shiv
The Englishes of the world vary much more than in accent - grammar and lexicon are different and they are not mutually intelligble in many cases. I am sometimes found incomprehensible in Australia - mostly for the use of words, but even between two apparently similar dialects, grammatical structuring and intonation (which is different to accent) cause many a misunderstanding - sometimes amusing, sometimes not. Eventually the Englishes of the world will become as varied as the Abrabic language 'dialects', some of which are no longer mutually intelligble.
Grammar barely varies between Englishes, and never to the extent of blocking intelligibility that I can think of, with the exception of Scots and patois dialects. Even in the latter cases, it is the accent and, you are right, some vocabulary that really causes problems in understanding. When written down, all Englishes but these that I have ever come across are readily understandable. I don't agree that English is differentiating further, though. International communications are causing it to become more similar again (and Arabic too, for that matter). Even emerging youth dialects are mainly multinational now.
quote:
Re spelling
Children are taught that /i/ is i and /ai/ is i-e
Mit-mite, Sit-site, kit-kite, bit-bite,
Therefore they spell
fight-fite (assuming fit-fite), night-nite (assuming nit-nite) and so on.
Yes, if they are taught that way. This does not make -ite intrinsically better, though.
quote:
A poor teacher won't at some point pick up on the need to inform learners of the -ight patterning group. It cannot be surmised from how the alphabet represents sound-symbol.
I think the vast majority of teachers would teach this, though, and even if not, since -igh- is always pronounced the same it does not (in reading terms) seem to really cause long-term problems.
quote:
'Whole-word' techniques also need to be used in English literacy teaching therefore. The most common worldwide approach to literacy is the phonemic approach (with languages with alphabets, of course), which provides tools for breaking a word down phonemically to assist with reading or writing new words. In English those tools fail with 'right' which is why that patterned set is learned and 'right' recognised as a whole as the symbol for the meaning (like Chinese character recognition). Other languages in the world, like Spanish, can predict spellings phonemically with consistency.
I agree that there are different methods of reading and a multi-faceted approach is best.
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You also cannot predict 'fight' as being part of the 'right' pattern without being told it. There is nothing about the English alphabet and the sound-symbol match that can generate the 'correct' spelling of 'right' and its companion words - for a learner of any age. You need to learn the words as a 'whole'.
No, I don't agree. Yes, you need to learn -igh- as a whole, but this is no different from learning -i-e- as a whole (except that the former is completely consistent). For example, I really doubt that there would be many people who by the time they are fluent readers could not pronounce a made-up word such as zight. In contrast, some might pronounce zite as "zeet", because they might think it were from French or something.
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Many children never learn to break down language phonemically because of their cognitive learning style. They therefore do not automatically use phonemic tools as a natural process and use sight recognition for all words - into adulthood. This means encountering a new word can sometimes be impossible to decipher and you need to ask someone 'how do you say that'.
Yes, O.K., there are problem more cases of this than I thought.
quote:
If you think about your own spelling and reading practices, especially in generating errors or dealing with new words, you can identify on the surface what kind of a writer-reader you are. I'm a phonemic speller-writer - hence my spelling mistakes, particularly when typing fast, often represent 'how the word is said' (although I make all sorts of other mistakes too, of course).
I did not think I was massively like this, but have noticed myself doing it a lot lately. |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/14/2007 09:11:05 |
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The Nature of Language
