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Post by Verbivore on May 28, 2008 13:35:24 GMT
Perhaps it represents a, um, fundamental sound.
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Post by Sue M-V on May 28, 2008 21:35:13 GMT
Surely that's a bottom, Sue!! It's funny, I was expecting Tone to make some such comment, but you got in first, Paul. It's interesting to see what associations leap to people's minds. You might have said that it looked a bit like an upside-down heart, or some other fanciful thing, but no ... Sue Bottom, indeed!
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Post by SusanB on May 28, 2008 21:43:14 GMT
I just see a square. Obviously I am missing out on something!
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Post by Bertie on May 28, 2008 21:45:06 GMT
Collapsed smiley?
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Post by Pete on May 28, 2008 23:27:04 GMT
I just see a square. Obviously I am missing out on something! Possibly your browser doesn't support the font Sue used?
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Post by SusanB on May 29, 2008 0:29:44 GMT
Yes. But given the descriptions, I probably wouldn't have much cause to use it! So I think I'll retain my sparsely fonted browser.
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Post by goofy on May 29, 2008 3:52:56 GMT
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Post by Barry on May 29, 2008 10:09:09 GMT
Sue's upside-down heart (or bottom, if you prefer) is, indeed, an obsolete sound. Phoneticians used to argue that there was a difference between this vowel sound and the upside-down omega; they finally decided that there was no difference, and the 'bottom' was lost. It's the 'u' vowel sound a Yorkshireman makes when he says the word 'bugger'.
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Post by Dave M on May 29, 2008 10:31:50 GMT
You did that on purpose!
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Post by Tone on May 29, 2008 19:59:51 GMT
>Possibly your browser doesn't support the font Sue used?<Ah. Font trouble again. Send for John the baptist! (Just to labour a point. Some people just don't give up, do they?) Tone
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Post by Trevor on May 29, 2008 20:04:28 GMT
Did someone call for a Baptist?
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Post by Tone on May 29, 2008 20:57:29 GMT
OK, O knowledgeable one, should it be "John the baptist" or "John the Baptist"?
(Was there a "John the Methodist"?)
Tone
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Post by Trevor on May 29, 2008 21:09:34 GMT
OK, O knowledgeable one, should it be "John the baptist" or "John the Baptist"? (Was there a "John the Methodist"?) Tone No idea.
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Post by Verbivore on May 30, 2008 11:21:18 GMT
Bottom - in the sense of buttocky bits - is a term I always associate with English "quaintness". In Oz it was a term used by my grandparents' and, to a lesser degree my parents', generations. Perhaps it's still used between carers and young children (?), but it's otherwise not terribly Australian any more.
Perhaps our convict stock, affected by our more recent multiculturalism, has bred the gentility out of our linguistic culture.
Here (Oz) it would more likely be buttocks, bum, or arse.
But that's not how I first interpreted that glyph, Sue: "upside-down heart" was first, and "something Greek-y-cum-IPA-ish" was second.
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Post by Dave M on May 30, 2008 13:00:11 GMT
> Here (Oz) it would more likely be buttocks, bum, or arse. <
In Britain, "bottom" is the neutral term: it'd be quite normal to say to a child "stop wriggling your bottom", or to say to a friend that you'd been sitting on the grass and have "got a wet bottom".
To say "bum" adds a "friendly" layer of meaning: "he's off with bum-trouble", "She smiled at me and pinched my bum!", "he says he needs to shave, but all he has on his cheeks is bum-fluff".
"Arse" is ruder, and can refer to the anus alone, as well as the ensemble of anus and buttocks.
"Buttocks" is distinctly medical, and refers in the plural to the two muscle/fatty lumps on which you sit: "he sustained a stab wound in the left buttock", "becuawe ofpolio in his early years, one buttock waas approximately three times as big as the other, giving him a distinct lean when sitting".
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