[Wikipedia-l] Re: An idea

Mark Williamson node.ue at gmail.com
Sun May 29 00:18:05 UTC 2005


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 at 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 at 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> 
> --
> SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
> QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
> POSSIT MATERIARI
> ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE
> 


-- 
SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES
QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM
POSSIT MATERIARI
ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE



More information about the Wikipedia-l mailing list