Re: USAGE: turquoise badminton waistcoat (was: Re: USAGE Re:Language revival)

And Rosta wrote:

> So it seems as though I've stumbled on a widespread variant not
> documented by any of the dictionaries I've consulted.
AFAIK dictionaries' recording of pronunciations is haphazard, idiosyncratic,
and unreliable.  Considering that dictionaries are & always have been
founded essentially on written quotations, this is no real surprise.

With half a million words in the language it is hardly surprising that
some of them have no settled pronunciation:  Jones and Kenyon&Knott
between them record no less than four for "quaff".

> This is a new one on me; I've never noticed anything other than /b&dmIntn/.
> I wonder whether it is a reanalysis resulting from certain realization
> rules of /ntn/ in American accents, illustrable rather strikingly with
> the following example (~ = nasalization; _ = creak)
I think you are clearly correct.

> What do you call them, then? "Vest"? Or does "vest" mean "jacket"? I
> forget. (As you know, "singlet" = "vest" (or is that only in Australian?).)
Umm.  Here is American men's wear terminology, from the inside out:

        undershirt: the garment nearest the skin, sometimes in the form
        of a T-shirt, sometimes in the form with two shoulder straps
        ("tank tops", though that term is also applied to shirts in this form).

        shirt: no problem here, I hope.

        vest: the armless garment now normally worn only in formal circumstances
        as part of a "three-piece suit" (jacket, vest, trousers)

        jacket: the outermost garment.  If not part of a suit, it may be
        called a "sports jacket".  This word is also applied to cold-weather
        gear that does not extend below the waist; if it extends below the
        waist, it is a "coat".

        underpants: the inner garment for the lower half.

        pants: the outer garment for the lower half.

> As so often happens when I seek to have a clue about what you were on
> about, my meagre erudition let me down still clueless & I had to ask my
> spouse.
The purpose of spice (pl. of "spouse"), verdad?

> From her explanation it sounded like you skewered him on half
> a dozen levels; but had I been the skeweree, the pertransition of the
> skewerings would have been too subtle for me to be sensible of them.
I fear that he also was insensible.  Ah well: one of the few times in
my life where I come up with le mot juste at once, rather than as
l'esprit de l'escalier (taken after leaving the scene, I suppose), and
my interlocutor doesn't get it!

--

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,  || http://www.reutershealth.com
Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau,            || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.            -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)