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Post by SusanB on Jul 11, 2010 12:34:56 GMT
Geoff, I think it's great that you went to some supermarkets just to see how they've spellt mandarins! That idea will keep me entertained for several days. (I don't use the 'e'.)
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Post by Geoff on Jul 11, 2010 21:59:55 GMT
Geoff, I think it's great that you went to some supermarkets just to see how they've spellt mandarins! That idea will keep me entertained for several days. (I don't use the 'e'.) Please don't think I was going out of my way driving from place to place. No, the two supermarkets and the greengrocers I visited are all on my usual shopping beat. In fact, there are two more I could have visited, but I overlooked them.
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Post by Cynthia on Jun 30, 2013 2:02:24 GMT
I've always known the fruit as mandarine and can't understand apparently recent adaptations to mandarin. Mandarin is a language. Tangerines have not been around all my life but mandarines have. It's all a bit weird to me, and I have wondered whether it's a local thing.
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 30, 2013 2:54:54 GMT
This very matter came up for discussion at my work recently, so, after due research, I made this entry in the house style guide:
mandarin / mandarine – Mandarin is a northern Chinese language; it is also a public-service official / bureaucrat; mandarine is the citrus fruit; AOD (Oz Oxford) makes no mention of the common / popular usage mandarin for the fruit; Macquarie does, but then defines the fruit 'mandarin' as 'a mandarine orange'; statistical usage (Google, FWIW) appears to favour the e-less, US-English style (à la Merriam-Webster's dictionary), but The Echo uses the AOD, so mandarine for the fruit.
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Post by hubertus on Jun 30, 2013 9:06:45 GMT
I favour phonetic consistency - an eccentric idea in English. Therefore, if they are pronounced the same, I would like to see a common spelling. I am no means certain, though, that all speakers in the English diaspora are pronouncing the two words the same.
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Post by Verbivore on Jun 30, 2013 10:17:25 GMT
I've never heard anyone speak of a top bureaucrat as a mandar-EEN, or of the Mandar-EEN language, but I hear people referring to the citrus fruit as variously a mandar-EEN, a mandar-IN, and a MAN-darin. I fear the desired consistency is nigh impossible.
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Post by Alan Palmer on Jul 1, 2013 5:42:31 GMT
As I say earlier in the thread, I've never come across the mandarine spelling before now. I've only ever heard it pronounced as " MAN-darin".
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Post by Dave Miller on Jul 1, 2013 7:54:35 GMT
> I favour phonetic consistency - an eccentric idea in English. Therefore, if they are pronounced the same, I would like to see a common spelling. < Mmmm ... good luck with that, hub The ~ine ending has several normal pronunciations: "eye-n" (BOVine, divINE); "in" (URine, ENgine); "een" (ravINE) and even just "nn" (MAIne, SEine)!
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 1, 2013 9:27:08 GMT
> I favour phonetic consistency - an eccentric idea in English. Therefore, if they are pronounced the same, I would like to see a common spelling. < Mmmm ... good luck with that, hub The ~ine ending has several normal pronunciations: "eye-n" (BOVine, divINE); "in" (URine, ENgine); "een" (ravINE) and even just "nn" (MAIne, SEine)! In the Maine it could drive one inSeine!
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Post by Salty on Jul 2, 2013 12:18:15 GMT
I was making a shopping list recently and wanted to buy some fruit. I hesitated as I added mandarines to the list. What was the correct spelling, mandarin or mandarine? I wrote mandarines on the list and was satisfied that it was correct when I saw the same spelling used at the supermarket. Out of curiosity just now I went to Dictionary.com to, hopefully, get further confirmation of the spelling; but no, Dictionary.com has the spelling as mandarin and no listing for mandarine. I checked in the Macquarie dictionary and there, in the listing for mandarin, as though it's a derivative of mandarin, is the definition for mandarine, the fruit. I'm still curious. Is this a regional thing? Do you know the fruit as mandarin or mandarine, and how do you pronounce it? Obviously, mandarine is man-dah-reen; but is mandarin (if that's how you know the fruit) pronounced the same way, also?
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Post by Salty on Jul 2, 2013 12:34:28 GMT
Mandarin ,as in the Chinese dialect. Mandarine is a vulgar misspelling and is a confusion with tangerine. Mandarine oranges are traditionally smaller by the way. The pronunciation: man-da-reen is peculiar to Australia in my experience
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Post by Salty on Jul 2, 2013 12:35:00 GMT
Mandarin ,as in the Chinese dialect. Mandarine is a vulgar misspelling and is a confusion with tangerine. Mandarine oranges are traditionally smaller by the way. The pronunciation: man-da-reen is peculiar to Australia in my experience
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Post by Salty on Jul 2, 2013 12:36:47 GMT
Oops mandarin oranges I ment.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 2, 2013 13:42:58 GMT
[...] Mandarine is a vulgar misspelling and is a confusion with tangerine. Salty: What is your source or support for that statement? The nearest such statements I can find in any of 67 dictionaries are these: "mandarin / mandarine: a small, flattish citrus fruit of which the tangerine is one variety" -- Macquarie Dictionary, rev 3rd edn) and "mandarin: a small citrus fruit, similar to a tangerine" -- Macquarie International Dictionary, 2nd edn, a.k.a Encarta Dictionary. No suggestion there of confusion, or of misspellings vulgar or otherwise. In my experience, my Cockney brother-in-law has always pronounced it man-da-reen: is that a sound basis for my asserting that man-da-reen is a Cockney pronunciation? Your reported experience is contrary to that of the Australian Oxford Dictionary, the Oxford Dictionary (complete, 2nd edn), and the Chambers Dictionary, new 9th edn. On what statistical or research basis do you make your observation? Just curious to sort facts from factoids.
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Post by Tone on Jul 2, 2013 19:56:35 GMT
So far as I recall (from many a year ago), mandarin (-rin not -reen) was the original when they appeared on the market (in tins). And tangerines (-reens) were already about. I think I preferred mandarins, but nowaday they are far too acidic for me. (And too, sadly, are the sharper varieties of apples. And that is a great loss.)
Tone
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