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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] our prez-Nuclayer, nuclear, or just nuke the whole damn thing.
  • Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:11:19 EDT


> >You
> don't like being pointed out as wrong even on the smallest, most
> insiginificant point.

That cuts both ways.

>But, James on this small, most insignificant
> point you are.

Sorry, but I'm not. See below.


>
> Here is an explanation from an article in Slate.com:
> http://www.slate.com/id/2071155/
>
>

I'm afraid your reference hasn't been paying close attention and seems to
know little of comparative linguistics.

At a university here in the South, a professor .... eh ..... not from the
South who taught a course in, of all things, phonetics, said when he came
here he
thought people were laughing at him instead of greeting him. Every time they
saw him they said 'ha!'. Even well versed in phonetics, he found it almost
impossible to hear the difference between the way the Applachian folk said
"Hah" and "Hi". It sounded exactly the same to him.

It's not.

You will find that if you say "Hi" in the usual pronuciation, you are making
two vowel sounds, sort of like "ha:-ee". This diphthong does not occur in
all
dialects of English. Instead in many Southern dialects, the first sound is
repeated to make the syllable long enough. It is like "Ha:a:". The sound
of
'a;', the first part of the diphthong of the words "I" or "eye" or "hi", does
not occur by itself in most dialects of English so the speaker's ear
interprets it as close as he can to what he's used to hearing. So "Hi"
sounds to them
like "Hah". But it isn't.

The point being that our ears are trained from birth to hear language sounds
and put them into pigeon holes. If we hear a language sound that deviates
from what we are used to dealing with, we put it int he nearest pigeon hole
and
swear that indeed is what we heard.

I've heard may times Bush being jibbed for saying nu-cyou-ler, but that's not
what he's saying. That's as close as the Non-Texan ear can come to hearing
what he is saying which is nu-cl'er. 'L' is linguisiclally a semivowel
and
can be heard as another syllable.

I hope, Rob, you can see I have a bowing acquaintance with all this. I have
not given you just a half-baked internet reference, I've discussed the
particulars. You are perfectly welcome label my observations as wrong, I'm
not one
of those who thinks you are reaching through the computer to punch me in the
nose if you disagree. But you do so credibly when you discuss the
particulars
rather than gainsaying with URL. As you know, if one gets into the game of
deuling URL's there's no limit to it and no point either. Pointing to
information is good, but the author of your blurb isn't here to be questioned
so its
just you and me.


James </HTML>




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