english language quickie

[Mariner]

There's no equivalent organisation to the Academie Francaise in the UK that I am aware of. At least, no organisation which is officially sanctioned. I didn't know there was a similar group in Italy.

I've read that spoken English has changed drastically enough that I'd have trouble conversing with an Englishman from, say 300 years ago. A Frenchman would have fewer problems as the Academie Francaise has ensured that usage hasn't changed as much. The biggest problem of course would be finding an English or French speaker who was over 300 years old!

 

[Simon F]

I've read that spoken English has changed drastically enough that I'd have trouble conversing with an Englishman from, say 300 years ago.

Except, apparently, you'd be understood if you stuck to swear words.

 

[Mariner]

Fucking right!

 

[Humus]

So in UK (and USA and any other anglophone country) there's no Organization dedicated to taking care of the national language (and phonetics)...in Italy we have the so-called "Accademia della Crusca", but in all other neo-latin countries there are such organizations too AFAIK.

What does "taking care of the national language" mean? There's a Swedish Academy for instance, which "takes care" of the language in some sense. They don't try to preserve the language or dictate what's "correct" or not, instead they study and pick up the changes the language goes through and document it. You can get spelling suggestions on new words (such as "mejl" which is obviously Swenglish for "mail"). IMHO trying to preserve a language is quite counter-productive and isolationist.

 

[Crisidelm]

What does "taking care of the national language" mean? There's a Swedish Academy for instance, which "takes care" of the language in some sense. They don't try to preserve the language or dictate what's "correct" or not, instead they study and pick up the changes the language goes through and document it. You can get spelling suggestions on new words (such as "mejl" which is obviously Swenglish for "mail"). IMHO trying to preserve a language is quite counter-productive and isolationist.

And that's why I used "taking care of", not "preserving". And taking care of a language is exactly what you described.
I hope we all agree that there must be something (hopefully more than just "something") in common in the language spoken by each citizen of the same country.
I wonder: who decides how to teach English in UK and USA (or any other anglophone country) in schools? Or does every teacher teach his/her own English (with his/her spelling, pronounciation etc)?

 

[Mariner]

I wonder: who decides how to teach English in UK and USA (or any other anglophone country) in schools? Or does every teacher teach his/her own English (with his/her spelling, pronounciation etc)?

To be fair, as far as spelling goes, there is only the English method or the American method. There's little to choose between them really with Americans using the letter Z in some words in which traditional English uses S and Americans also drop some U's.

As for pronunciation, that's a good question. We always used to be amused here in the UK by Jan Molby the former Danish international footballer. He played most of his career for Liverpool and developed a pronounced Scouse accent ("Scouse" being the name of the Liverpool dialect). I'd imagine anyone he taught English would also have a similar accent so it's a good job he sticks to football!

 

[Rolf N]

I have extreme difficulty pronouncing "anti-aliasing" in whatever language I try. It just never sounds right.
Actually I must have written the word hundreds of times, but I hadn't realized I never spoke it out (and actually couldn't speak it out) until I was on the phone with a journo who was preparing for the NV40 launch. He was saying it more like "anti-aleysing", so he had some trouble with the word, too. I think I ended up just saying "AA" to cover up for myself.

Anyone got an MP3 of that word?
English and German versions welcome.

 

[RussSchultz]

anti- a-lee-ess-ing.

Long a. rhymes with hay.

lee as in The General Lee. rhymes with geek and leak.

ess, as in the letter 's'.

 

[Humus]

I have never heard anyone pronounce it that way. The most common versions I've heard are

ant-ee al-ee-icing
ant-ee al-eye-icing
ant-eye al-ee-icing
ant-eye al-eye-icing

I used to say it the first way, but I'm now using the third most of the time, sometimes the fourth.

 

[RussSchultz]

Umm, how do you pronounce 'Alias'?

al-eye-ice?

Watch the show, its pronounce aye-lee-ess. Add an 'ing' to the end and you're done.

Or, listen to this:

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/alias.html

Again, add an ing and you're done.

 

[Humus]

I pronounce it al-ee-ice. I have never heard any j-sound after the A, but it's a bit subtle I guess so I may just have missed it. The ess in the end though, that's pretty distinct to so I should have heard it.

 

[PenguinJim]

anti- a-lee-ess-ing.

Long a. rhymes with hay.

lee as in The General Lee. rhymes with geek and leak.

ess, as in the letter 's'.

Seems practically right!

Antisotropic Filtering caused some initial trouble for me, but generally, I find if I'm in doubt, I pronounce inoffensively (i.e., taking the least verbal pronounciations possible for each syllable). While with established English, this can obviously be wrong (once we get through the cloud), rarer terms seem to like this method . So while Ant-eee-ay-lee-ess-ing (would be ay-lee-ass-ing, except for the contextive syllable sounds) is right, wouldn't Ant-iss-o-tropp-ick Filtering be right?

Up until now I've been assuming, so today I'm asking.

(And I haven't been to Cambridge in almost three months, so I'm a bit out of practise! )

 

[RussSchultz]

Except anisotropic doesn't have a 't' in it at the begining.

an-isotropic.

an-ice-oh-trah-pick.

Though some people might say "trope-ick" and have trope rhyme with throw.

And some might have the 'oh' sound like 'uh'

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/anisotropic.html

Quite honestly, since i've never heard the word spoken, I'd trust encarta.

 

[PenguinJim]

Except anisotropic doesn't have a 't' in it at the begining.

Hehehe, that was so my drunken bad . I was trying to spell anti-aliasing with the word-sounds of anisotropic filtering for a few minutes!

Looks like I made a stupid cumulative error when typing it out, though. I went through the ann-ice-oh-tropp-ick motions for a few weeks once, but it never settled, so I'm back on anniss-oh-tropp-ick.

Rarely comes up in everyday conversation, though.

 

[Simon F]

:
I used to say it the first way, but I'm now using the third most of the time, sometimes the fourth.

Those North Americans are corrupting you.

Next they'll be brainwashing you to say "Zee buffer" instead of "Zed buffer"

 

[Rolf N]

Seeing that there are at least three pronounciations of "aliasing" in use makes me feel a lot less stupid about that word. Thanks

 

[Humus]

Those North Americans are corrupting you.

Next they'll be brainwashing you to say "Zee buffer" instead of "Zed buffer"

I already do that. But I prefer to call it depth buffer though.

 

[mito]

another one...

How strong do you pronounce the H sound in Where, When, Why?

Is it a very subtle H?


I remember a Family Guy episode in which Stewie would insist in saying "Whip cream" with a very strong H sound... Any particular reason for that joke?

 

[AlNom]

Silent H for me.

The joke in Family Guy is that Stewie is pronouncing an otherwise silent h with "Cool Whip", as though the h came before the word, when he doesn't pronounce it with the h when it's just "Whip" by itself.

Here's the scene: http://www.tv.com/uservideos/?action=video_player&id=cHNgkzX-5b8PvDbY

 

[mito]

Silent H for me.

The joke in Family Guy is that Stewie is pronouncing an otherwise silent h with "Cool Whip", as though the h came before the word, when he doesn't pronounce it with the h when it's just "Whip" by itself.

I thought they were making fun of some actor/character, because I once heard a black actor say the word "White" pronouncing the strong H.

So both forms are right, silent and strong H...