Re: CHAT: F.L.O.E.S.

"Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:

[snip]
>What I ordered was ['ha.ke].   Turns out that "hake" is pronounced
>[hejk].  The waiter laughingly corrected me (a no-no in waitiquette,
>but I appreciated it), and probably will continue to get some mileage
>out of my error.
Not exactly on your topic but:
My mom's family name is Hakes, pronounced [hejks].

>So I have diagnosed myself as suffering from F.L.O.E.S.: Foreign
>Language Over-Exposure Syndrome.  I seem to be unable to pronounce novel
>English words with any confidence, for fear that they might be
>borrowings.  In fact, that is my default assumption; I suppose it's the
>peril of a large vocabulary:  "Well, if *I've* never heard the word
>before, it *must* be a loan from another language!"  Getting something
>so simple wrong is a tad deflating, I must say.
>
>So have any of y'all had a similar experience?  Dish, dish!  (No pun
>intended.)
I can't think of any specific examples, but yes, I have had similar experiences.
I think a lot of times it happens with scientific words that I haven't seen
before.

 I don't know how common this FLOES is, but its inverse is all too common:
FLUES, (Under-Exposure), where people pronounce foreign words as if they were
English. Drives me nuts.

James W.

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