CHAT bodmas etc (Was: Re: affixes)

Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 21 Feb 2005, at 12.43 am, Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> Well my first reaction to his claim was that we learn bodmas & such in
> Maths, not English---well, maybe briefly to establish the meaning of
> the word 'mnemonic', but they expect you to already know it, so it's
> not really being taught... ;)
I think you can learn the mnemonic without know the word "mnemonic" :)

> Well, who knows, maybe we copied it from Ireland or something (we
> copied our pronunciation of the letter H from you guys, apparently (you
> used to be able to distinguish Catholics by their pronunciation of the
> letter,
Still happens up north, I belive. At least a northern girl I know once
commented on a drunk guy, also from the north, who had been trying to
make conversation with her, at a party or something; one of her
complaints was that he first of all tried to get her to say her surname
(though some trick), and when her surname gave no clue as to her tribal
affiliation, tried to get her to spell something with 'h' in it, to hear
if she said /h&itS/ or /&itS/. I guess it's a kind of reflex for some
people... (a bit like people online wanting to know what gender people
are, maybe?)

 >  I hear, but nowadays I expect the division is by region, with
> /h&itS/ being the more common amongst the people I talk to),
I guess saying /h&itS/ makes up a little bit for arhoticity. ;-)

 > and
> 'youse', and phrase-final 'but', and the Irish English distinction
> between Irish and (Scottish) Gaelic has always been the one I've
> used/known/heard.
Really? That suggest that it is more widely conventional outside of
these isles. I had never heard it until John mentioned it....!

> (with the Irish English pronunciation of 'Gaelic',

I think that's common everywhere(?) outside of Scotland.

 > no less, tho changed in line with the Aussie accent).
 > But I doubt it :)


Well, I don't know. A lot of Irish ended up in all the former colonies
of the UK... (including Ireland, trivially).


> PS: You seem to be confusing mnemonic and pneumonic.
Yes, I noticed. Thanks. My ability to spell has been declining ever since
my teenage years. Strange... However, I do pronounce "mnemonic" as if it
were "mneumonic". And as much as it's pronounced in my environment, it
seems to be done that way too. Not that I advocate spelling according to
pronunciation....

> Tristan.
s.
--
Stiofán Ó Maoilbreanainn  ataltane@ataltane.net
C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique
                    -- Bosquet, on seeing the IBM 4341