Zompist Bboard Again

In New York, of course, the traditional dialect had a distinct and non-rhotic realisation of NURSE, the [ɜɪ] diphthong with a tendency to merge with CHOICE. (Is that completely extinct?) Well, it's hard to say when a feature is completely extinct (there's always a 90-year-old person somewhere), but...

Space60 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 21, 2022 6:25 pm How do you pronounce "comfortable"?

[ˈkʰɐmftəbɫ̩]

I understood them as "using the word for with the meaning as", and "using the word upon with the meaning on".

I have never seen a sarsaparilla drink in real life. The word makes me think of the Smurfs, who enjoy eating it: I think raw sarsaparilla leaves are toxic to humans, but we can assume that Smurfs have a different physiology.

Inspired by the discussion about nephew: I originally pronounced Stephen as [ˈstɛfən], instead of [ˈstiːvən] (homophone of Steven). My mother really likes Stephen King, and always says [stɛfœn].

I played "God Save the Queen" by the Sex Pistols, for the same reason.

Also, this:

https://twitter.com/papasombra/status/1 ... 9478414341
I’m no fan of The Queen but meeting Liz Truss and then immediately dying is a move I respect.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:35 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:11 am
What do you guys think of 'mainstream fiction?'

Not sure. Isn't that term specific to what is usually called "literary fiction" or "serious literature"?

Thank you guys for the discussion. I'm afraid there is no single phrase to express what I wanted to say.

I've just read a handful of New Testament apocrypha: the Protoevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Acts of Pilate. What's funny is that they triggered a very specific neuron in my brain: this is Gospel fanfiction . These apocryphal texts read exactly like bad fanfics: some peop...

Yeah, I seem to find several good heroic fantasy movies from the Eighties: Conan, Legend, Ladyhawke, Neverending Story, Princess Bride, Willow... But then the well seems to dry up in the Nineties, until LOTR which made the genre mainstream again. My remark is really specific to movies: I can find to...

I'm looking for a word, or a phrase, in English. How would you call a work of fiction that has no fantasy or supernatural element, and no sci-fi technology? The first word that comes to mind is realistic , but it doesn't fit what I want to say: the average action movie doesn't have magic or androids...

After unpacking some of my stuff, I had a thought: what got me into fantasy? It wasn't films[*]. It wasn't video games: I played The Legend of Zelda , but as far as fantasy goes, it's fairly lightweight. I wasn't tabletop RPGs, thought I did play some Dungeons & Dragons later. It wasn't even nov...

Wait, it's actually unrequiTed love?? For years I have been reading it as unrequiRed love!

The Spanish dub did exactly that, so R2-D2 is /eɾe dos ˈde dos/. So did most dubs.

I was surprised when I saw some English-language Star Wars media write R2-D2 as Artoo and C-3PO as Threepio. The French novels I read always use the letters and numbers.

Especially since Spanish /d/ would be a fricative or approximant [ð ~ ð̞] in this context.

Apparently, the droid R2-D2 from Star Wars is know in Latin America as "Arturito". A mishearing of the English pronunciation? In the soundtrack to the 1995 film La Haine , there is a mix by Cut Killer. Lots of people heard the chorus as "Assassin de la police" (which would mean e...

The sort of misunderstanding Ryusenshi mentions makes me think of this classic skit: When I was a student, our English teacher said the word serial killer . All students knew this film, so we went "un quoi??". The teacher didn't get it. Related: I once said something in English to my sist...

So you think that few of us have native pronunciations of hydrogen , yet you're asking about native pronunciations of an obscure Welsh village (that I highly doubt that any of us whom have grown up outside of Wales have)? I think he meant that few of us have a native pronunciation of Acrefair , whi...

For [dʒeˈzi], the problem was that I didn't register it as an English-language name. What part of the world did you think it came from? I dunno. Could've been anything. It could come from Arabic or an African language, or be completely invented. We are talking about a musician's name: many musician...

Well, if French speakers could consistently pronounce DRESS as [ɛ] and FACE as [e], it would work. But it's not natural: with a Parisian accent at least, /e/ and /ɛ/ can only contrast in final unchecked syllables... which is precisely the position where they can't contrast in English. By comparison,...

Something weird is happening to me. I sometimes misunderstand French speakers when they use English words. The English FACE vowel is usually pronounced [ɛj] by French speakers, which I consider an acceptable realization. But they sometimes simplify it to [e] or [ɛ]. And this is where the misundersta...