Random opposites

[malloc]

‘Filthy’ too (filthy rich, filthy bassline).

Funny you should mention that. I have always found the expression "stinking rich" conceptually odd and intended to ask about its origins.

[Man in Space]

‘Awful(ly)’ is similarly used with intensive force.

[Richard W]

If someone is said to favour his left arm, would you expect him to prefer to use his left arm or his right arm? I've recently encountered the meaning 'to treat gently', which is the opposite to how I would understand the word.

[Raphael]

If someone is said to favour his left arm, would you expect him to prefer to use his left arm or his right arm? I've recently encountered the meaning 'to treat gently', which is the opposite to how I would understand the word.

I think I'd agree with you.

[bradrn]

If someone is said to favour his left arm, would you expect him to prefer to use his left arm or his right arm? I've recently encountered the meaning 'to treat gently', which is the opposite to how I would understand the word.

I think that latter meaning might make more sense in some other contexts, e.g.: ‘the harsh headmaster favoured John over Bob’. Basically, the same sort of situation where you would talk about someone having a ‘favourite’.

[Richard W]

I think that latter meaning might make more sense in some other contexts, e.g.: ‘the harsh headmaster favoured John over Bob’. Basically, the same sort of situation where you would talk about someone having a ‘favourite’.

I've been encountering the sense of 'treat gently' in regard to injured limbs, especially with the 'favouring' being an indication of the injury. This initially confused me, so I looked the verb up.

[bradrn]

I think that latter meaning might make more sense in some other contexts, e.g.: ‘the harsh headmaster favoured John over Bob’. Basically, the same sort of situation where you would talk about someone having a ‘favourite’.

I've been encountering the sense of 'treat gently' in regard to injured limbs, especially with the 'favouring' being an indication of the injury. This initially confused me, so I looked the verb up.

I’m going to go ahead and ask whether this is connected to those AI-generated videos you’ve been mentioning so often recently. If so, then it would make sense that they use words in weird ways.

[/ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/]

I've been encountering the sense of 'treat gently' in regard to injured limbs, especially with the 'favouring' being an indication of the injury. This initially confused me, so I looked the verb up.

I’m going to go ahead and ask whether this is connected to those AI-generated videos you’ve been mentioning so often recently. If so, then it would make sense that they use words in weird ways.

no, I've heard 'favor' used in this context before too, "favoring¹ my injured leg" meaning to use it less. I haven't heard of this meaning of the word used outside of referring to an injury, though.

¹don't mind my american spelling.

[Richard W]

I’m going to go ahead and ask whether this is connected to those AI-generated videos you’ve been mentioning so often recently. If so, then it would make sense that they use words in weird ways.

Well, they are riddled with Americanisms, but I can't place the accent of the narration. It often favours specifically American pronunciations. But the meaning is listed on Wiktionary, and /ˌnɐˈɾɛndɚduːd/ has just reported acquaintance with the usage. The documentation of the sense is far short of Wiktionary's aspirations - as is a lot of Wiktionary. I just checked with my old (1971) Chambers dictionary, and while the 'treating gently' sense is not there, nor is the sense of preferring for use.

[Richard W]

I’m going to go ahead and ask whether this is connected to those AI-generated videos you’ve been mentioning so often recently. If so, then it would make sense that they use words in weird ways.

Well, they are riddled with Americanisms, but I can't place the accent of the narration. It often favours specifically American pronunciations.

On further examination, I have concluded that they are being voiced with an American 'semi-rhotic' accent. I had wondered if I had simply optimised my hearing to ignore rhoticity as just a confusing variable, but I think not. I can see conditioning factors for the dropping of rhoticity, though they could just be perception failures, like my difficulty in distinguish lightly nasalised [ɲ] from [j]. (I could tell the phonemes apart in my brother-in-law's Northern Thai, but generally not in my wife's. Either my perception has improved, or my wife's pronunciation has shifted.)

[Travis B.]

I’m going to go ahead and ask whether this is connected to those AI-generated videos you’ve been mentioning so often recently. If so, then it would make sense that they use words in weird ways.

Well, they are riddled with Americanisms, but I can't place the accent of the narration. It often favours specifically American pronunciations.

On further examination, I have concluded that they are being voiced with an American 'semi-rhotic' accent. I had wondered if I had simply optimised my hearing to ignore rhoticity as just a confusing variable, but I think not. I can see conditioning factors for the dropping of rhoticity, though they could just be perception failures, like my difficulty in distinguish lightly nasalised [ɲ] from [j]. (I could tell the phonemes apart in my brother-in-law's Northern Thai, but generally not in my wife's. Either my perception has improved, or my wife's pronunciation has shifted.)

The artificial American 'Mid-Atlantic' accent is extremely dated by this point, so I doubt an AI text-to-speech generator would 'deliberately' (if you can call anything they do 'deliberate') use it.

However, if by "semi-rhotic" you mean things like dropping the first /r/ in caterpillar, that's actually standard American English.

[Richard W]

However, if by "semi-rhotic" you mean things like dropping the first /r/ in caterpillar, that's actually standard American English.

The most notable feature is that word-final /r/ is silent (though leaving its mark on the first two formants of the vowel) except as linking-r; possibly silent morpheme-finally as well, though morpheme analysis is very idiosyncratic. Rhoticity seems to be missing from NURSE, and I think it's missing in NORTH, though the chief example, horse, may have other things going on. I can't hear rhoticity in the Wiktionary sound clips for horse and hoarse, though as I replay and replay I sometimes hear a schwa-like element in the vowels, like the pre-merger RP hoarse. Its absence from NORTH would explain the variations like auk that sometimes turn up for orc. I can conceive that the rhoticity is actually optional.

[Travis B.]

However, if by "semi-rhotic" you mean things like dropping the first /r/ in caterpillar, that's actually standard American English.

The most notable feature is that word-final /r/ is silent (though leaving its mark on the first two formants of the vowel) except as linking-r; possibly silent morpheme-finally as well, though morpheme analysis is very idiosyncratic. Rhoticity seems to be missing from NURSE, and I think it's missing in NORTH, though the chief example, horse, may have other things going on. I can't hear rhoticity in the Wiktionary sound clips for horse and hoarse, though as I replay and replay I sometimes hear a schwa-like element in the vowels, like the pre-merger RP hoarse. Its absence from NORTH would explain the variations like auk that sometimes turn up for orc. I can conceive that the rhoticity is actually optional.

A key feature of non-rhotic NAE is that NURSE is typically still rhotic or, in older non-rhotic NAE, undergoes diphthongization even though commA and lettER merge, I should note, so this is definitely not non-rhotic NAE.

[Richard W]

A key feature of non-rhotic NAE is that NURSE is typically still rhotic or, in older non-rhotic NAE, undergoes diphthongization even though commA and lettER merge, I should note, so this is definitely not non-rhotic NAE.

Well, can you tell me what is going on? Here is an example. The spoken text is a bit soporific. The rhoticity there sounds almost random to me, and linking-r and a/an selection seem irregular, Random liaison is a human feature. The random rhoticity could just be my perceptual error. When I do register rhoticity, I'm already hearing the next word. The processing of proper names for the videos is often inconsistent, and I'm hearing sometimes /s/ and sometimes /z/ in Isaac, and Varga seems to have variable rhoticity. There are three parallel transcriptions, which do not quite agree:

• Text embedded in the visual channel.
• Youtube's automatic transliteration, which has an on/off toggle that appears when the mouse hovers over the bottom right of the image in the Ubuntu desktop version of Firefox.
• A time-stamped transcript that can be enabled by clicking on the emboldened 'more' in the description and then clicking on 'Show transcript'. This would be useful for citation in any discussion.