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Post by Pete on Jul 7, 2008 19:26:52 GMT
The Mercedes bloke should be a Lenkradledernähmeister. Obviously Selbstverständlich. Translation, please?
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Post by Dave M on Jul 8, 2008 9:53:09 GMT
> because the speaker seems to have as much trouble saying it (and I have as much trouble reading it) as saying a "aitch" <
I don't get that problem, Geoff; I can easily say and read a hint, a hill, a Hillman, a hysterectomy etc, so my mouth and eyes can cope with a historical novel - are you sure you're not just allowing your preferred pronunciation to gag you?
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 8, 2008 10:01:12 GMT
Selbstverständlich.Translation, please? Of course, of course.
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Post by Geoff on Jul 8, 2008 10:55:56 GMT
I don't get that problem, Geoff; I can easily say and read a hint, a hill, a Hillman, a hysterectomy etc, so my mouth and eyes can cope with a historical novel - are you sure you're not just allowing your preferred pronunciation to gag you? Dave, I can't explain the difference phonetically, but, to me, there is a real difference between the way I say, and what I hear when others say, a hill and a historic. The a and hill run together, but there is a distinct break between the a and historic, just the same as that when one tries to say a event.
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Post by SusanB on Jul 8, 2008 14:35:08 GMT
I'd be interested to know why this is. I have the opposite reaction to Geoff. Like Dave M, I have no trouble with (and use) 'a historic'. If I try to say 'an historic', I find it very difficult to get the 'h' out properly unless I force a break between the two words. Perhaps I'm the anti-Geoff?
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 8, 2008 15:00:19 GMT
It's to do with "h" words that have the stress on the second syllable. A house, a horse, a history, a hospital, but an historic, an hotel, an hospitable.
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Post by SusanB on Jul 8, 2008 15:33:14 GMT
Yes - that came up before. I can see that is where there is a distinction. But I still find it very hard to pronounce 'h' after 'an', and would never use 'an' in this context myself (it sounds completely wrong to me, as much as it must sound completely right to Geoff). Although I'm sure I've heard the others, I can't imagine anyone would say 'an hospital' and still be able to pronounce 'hospital' with an 'h'. But I'm sure someone will put me right on that...
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jul 8, 2008 15:45:50 GMT
Where are you from, Susan, if I may ask, and where did you grow up? I ask only because I'm trying to guess what regional influences might have affected your speech.
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jul 8, 2008 15:47:27 GMT
"Affected your speech" sounds a bit rude, sorry. I possibly should have said "have formed your speech patterns", or somesuch. I'm not suggesting there is a right or a wrong way to speak.
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Post by SusanB on Jul 8, 2008 16:28:22 GMT
Paul,
I didn't interpret 'affected your speech' the 'bit rude' way until I read your second comment!
I grew up exposed to quite 'standard' British English. Not quite RP, but probably not too far off it (a quite neutral, not-posh version). South East and some London influences. From university onwards I've lived in a variety of locations, with a variety of local accents and patterns. My speech (production and acceptance of utterances) has changed to some extent as a result (though this did not start not until late teens), but I think I've always had the same aversion to 'an hotel'. I'm happy with 'an otel' if the speaker is not pronouncing the 'h'. But I really don't like to hear 'an+h...'.
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 8, 2008 16:37:46 GMT
I imagine it depends on the pronunciation that one heard in one's formative years. I tend to use "an +h", but the only "a +h" that sounds discordant to me is "a historic".
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Post by Paul Doherty on Jul 8, 2008 20:43:18 GMT
The Estuary glottal-stopped butter and matter sounds quite awkward to those unused to it. I was wondering whether being exposed to that might make the apparent awkwardness of "a hotel" less obvious. Or, putting it another way, it sounds awkward to Geoff because he doesn't hear equivalent awkwardness very much.
Susan's South-East and London influences offers a tiny bit of support to that ...
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Post by Bertie on Jul 8, 2008 22:02:00 GMT
Paul, I didn't interpret 'affected your speech' the 'bit rude' way until I read your second comment! I grew up exposed to quite 'standard' British English. Not quite RP, but probably not too far off it (a quite neutral, not-posh version). South East and some London influences. From university onwards I've lived in a variety of locations, with a variety of local accents and patterns. My speech (production and acceptance of utterances) has changed to some extent as a result (though this did not start not until late teens), but I think I've always had the same aversion to 'an hotel'. I'm happy with 'an otel' if the speaker is not pronouncing the 'h'. But I really don't like to hear 'an+h...'. The point is that the 'h' sound in these cases is not clearly enunciated. Thus to the listener it sounds as if one is saying "an 'otel": "an 'istoric" etc. Remember when considering this point that 'a' is more usually pronounced more like 'ugh' than 'aaa'.
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Post by Verbivore on Jul 8, 2008 23:07:21 GMT
While we're splashing around the sewers ...
I'm very much in the Geoff/Twod camp with a/an before h.
My sociolinguistic background is Australian agrarian class modified by more middle class1 influences through schooling, university, and adult peers.
Throughout my schooling (mid '50s to late '60s) it was drummed into me and my peers (at a state school) that it was an before an h-word if that h-word carried its emphasis on other than the first syllable (though in primary school we were taught such a word list by rote, and had it explained to us only in secondary school). My adoptive parents certainly never used an before an h-word; however, my birth mother (whom I met when I was 42) does - and always has - said "an historic". Birth mother was plainly working class.1 One of my brothers and one of my sisters drop their aitches; the other two siblings (male and female) do not. None of my siblings say an historic.
I cannot discern a sensible pattern to all this, but neither do I much care. The ways I pronounce h-words are the ways I pronounce h-words - that's all.
For whatever unknown reason/s2, the indoctrination stuck for some of my school peers (observed when I've encountered those in later life) yet not with others (many of whom started from more "middle-class" backgrounds than did I).
In school we were also taught to never drop the h from the beginning of a word.
I am aware that the h on my historic is less strongly aspirate than on, e.g., my hotel.
1 Not sure if these "class" terms are the most appropriate for Oz, but there is some class stratification here - though not as strong as it seems to be in the UK.
2 Use of an before, e.g., historic appears not to be standard Oz speech.
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Post by Twoddle on Jul 9, 2008 7:31:36 GMT
Vv: "Throughout my schooling (mid '50s to late '60s) it was drummed into me and my peers (at a state school) that it was an before an h-word if that h-word carried its emphasis on other than the first syllable ..."
Another variation, perhaps? I do it only where the emphasis is on the second syllable (not a subsequent syllable), so: A hospital; An hospitable; A hospitality.
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