Having said that, I would like to state for the wreck herd that I am knot the first person to use that spelling, nor am I trying to explain away their usage.
And although I hate prescriptivism, I also dislike improper usage... a sort of paradox. So while I acgnawledge that language changes, and that I personally don't think "This is she" is any more grammatical than "This is her", "This be her yo", "This one her", "This her what", or even "In herlike fashion bes this here one", my brain cries every time somebody says "Me and her went to the store".
If, however, somebody is speaking a different variety of English, an English pidgin or creole, or they are speaking English non-natively, it for some reason doesn't sound bad. In fact when talking to people I tend to adapt and switch relatively quickly to the variety (even if they're trying to speak the same variety of English, but non-natively) they're using, which can be quite interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view (my communications with Singaporeans, for example, tend to be in a very basilectal form of Singlish, because it "feels right")
Mark
On 28/05/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The rest of the message, ie that I pronounce the "inform" in "information" as if it were "infirm", or that I don't pronounce the "know" in "acknowledged" the same way I pronounce the "know" in "know" (more like "gnaw" - "acgnawledged"), or for that matter the "know" in "knowledge" the same as "know" when it's by itself...
Often, a morpheme (whether it's a morpheme any longer or a sub-morpheme is debatable) is spelt identically but pronounced differently in different words....... so "reknowned" does not seem at all illogical to me.
Mark
On 28/05/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
if you break it down - "re - known - ed" - it makes perfect sense
Well, you see, it doesn't make sense to me because it's not pronounced like "known".
I'm not as much of a prescriptivist as my previous message might make it seem. I do accept language evolution and I do accept changes in grammar and spelling. My previous message was not meant to belittle those who do not know the contents of dictionaries by heart. I certainly don't.
It's just that I think I have acquired somewhat of a language intuition and even so, I find it difficult to understand the thought process that would lead one to think that there should be a k in that word. Once someone came up with it, I can understand that other people might follow it, thinking it might be the correct spelling. But the thoughts of that first person are beyond me.
Timwi
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