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Post by Dave on Mar 15, 2023 1:32:54 GMT
Sometimes, it’s difficult to hear quite what how one is pronouncing something, as the mental process locks onto the spelling, ... I recall Twoddle writing quite some time ago that when we pronounce the word train, we're actually saying CHRAIN.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 15, 2023 9:37:07 GMT
Sometimes, it’s difficult to hear quite what how one is pronouncing something, as the mental process locks onto the spelling, ... I recall Twoddle writing quite some time ago that when we pronounce the word train, we're actually saying CHRAIN. A splendid example. I also think that when I speak freely, I may pronounce something one way, but when I think about how to pronounce it, I take into account the spelling and carefully enunciate the letters involved. I probably do rattle off “libry”, but when concentrating say “library”.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 16, 2023 9:53:02 GMT
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Post by Trevor on Mar 16, 2023 14:06:24 GMT
Sometimes, it’s difficult to hear quite what how one is pronouncing something, as the mental process locks onto the spelling, ... I recall Twoddle writing quite some time ago that when we pronounce the word train, we're actually saying CHRAIN. Geoff Lindsay has some excellent videos on YouTube about this sort of thing.
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Post by Trevor on Mar 16, 2023 14:07:52 GMT
Oop, you beat me to it there sir. And provided specific links.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 17, 2023 22:59:04 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 18, 2023 18:10:50 GMT
I had never heard of a shiver of sharks but, on going online, I see that it is well known. But as I have said before, I am very conflicted about many of these collective nouns. Before I am prepared to acknowledge the existence of some of them, I want to know when it originated and how often it has been use in anything other than in a collection of collective nouns. I do not believe that many of them have ever been used in real life except to demonstrate that the writer knows the word. And I doubt even more that many of them have ever been spoken.
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Post by Twoddle on Mar 19, 2023 11:03:25 GMT
I had never heard of a shiver of sharks but, on going online, I see that it is well known. But as I have said before, I am very conflicted about many of these collective nouns. Before I am prepared to acknowledge the existence of some of them, I want to know when it originated and how often it has been use in anything other than in a collection of collective nouns. I do not believe that many of them have ever been used in real life except to demonstrate that the writer knows the word. And I doubt even more that many of them have ever been spoken.
I wonder whether there's a collective noun for people who are unsure of the actuality of collective nouns.
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Post by Dave Miller on Mar 19, 2023 15:40:25 GMT
Twod - a “sanity” of such people?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 19, 2023 16:21:10 GMT
One could have a scepticism of people who are unsure of the actuality of collective nouns. This website gives a list of 200 collective nouns: englishstudyhere.com/nouns/200-examples-of-collective-nouns/ I think many of them are entirely spurious or only apply in very particular circumstances. See, for example, a line of kings, a range of mountains, a ream of paper, a pair of shoes, a shower of rain, and a zoo of wild animals. I often mention a leap/lepe of leopards, but I wonder if anybody, particularly in mediaeval England, has ever seen such a thing. Leopards are famously solitary creatures, and to see together more than a mother, two cubs and a threatening male would be rare. I think the threatening male can be excluded because it does not part of the group, at least not in my sense of the word. I believe the term is attested at least to the 16th century in the Book of St Albans but the book certainly includes a number of examples which were clearly intended to be humorous rather than useful. See the wikipedia entry for collective nouns — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun I am always happy to join with others in inventing new comedic terms but, having invented one, I am not prepared to claim it as a real word. Let’s not debate what is a real word.
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 22, 2023 21:16:45 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Mar 30, 2023 6:43:23 GMT
Contrary plurals?
The plurals of platypus are platypuses and platypodes (etymology given as "modern Latin, from Greek …"). Not platypi
But the plurals of hippopotamus are hippopotamuses or hippopotami (etymology given as "via Latin from Greek …").
Methinks it safer to stick to the anglicised plurals to avoid confusion.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Mar 30, 2023 10:53:49 GMT
>Methinks it safer to stick to the anglicised plurals to avoid confusion< I agree. I have never heard of platypodes and I hope that I will never hear of them again. I have always thought that hippopotami is, at the least, pretentious and the use of octopodes just sounds silly (and my spellchecker doesn’t recognise it). I also have a problem with forum/fora and aquarium/aquaria. If we can have those, why not omnibus/omniba or even bus/ba? Or plum/pla? It is all very silly but, on a (more serious?) note, platypus is an English language creation because I don’t think the original speakers of Latin and Greek would have encountered the animal.
The Jerusalem Post seems to think that the plural of platypus is platypus. It reports that Asteroid 2023 FH7, the diameter of which “is the size of 18 male platypus lined up bill-to-tail” is due to pass close to Earth today. At least it is a splendid variation on the usual comparisons with the London buses and Olympic swimming pools. www.jpost.com/science/article-735881
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