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Re: CHAT behove etc (was: Natlag: Middle English impersonal verbs)

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Monday, March 13, 2006, 21:33
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Vertical" <johnvertical@...>

>>many of my students are writing (...) >>"theatre" instead of "theater." I always joke about it, with little pinky >>raised in the air: "You are geawing to the THEE-uh-TREH, ah you?" > > But "theatre" is the more regular one. Since this is a "broken" <ea> - ie. > two vowels, not an /i/ deriving from pre-GWS */E:/ - the spelling > "theater" would suggest that the <a> is /ei/.
And so it is pronounced in certain non-standard varieties of American English. /Ti'etr/ to rhyme with "gaiter." Witness the song in Oklahoma: "I went to the theATEr, to see a picture show." No doubt to get the cadence of the song, but also to poke gentle fun at midwestern "cowboy" talk.
> And there's many, many more words for which the standard spelling is > irregular for 99% of English speakers, like "often", "heart", "hour" or > "laugh". I'm actually surprized how little resistance there is against > those. Isn't anyone really aware enuff of the rules of English spelling to > see what exactly is irregular and what isn't?
American snobs. My general answer to all of this. :)
>>>way back in PIE times the 'proto-subjunctiv' (...) >> >>Okay, Ray, perfect! If you keep this up, people like Mark and myself will >>eventually copy you, and write "subjunctiv." What other more visible >>listservs are you on? How many other fellow writers write it this way? >>In the meantime, we should consider taking the "e"s off of "claus," "serv" >>(as it is used in daily speech) and maybe even "subordinat." "Language" >>and "usage", though, need it, in order to get the palatal "g." Similarly >>with "Romance." >> >>I'm not being aggressiv, I'm correcting what I felt was a too emphatic >>statement on my part last post that American spelling was monolithically >>resistant. >> >>Cheers, >>Sally > > Whoa! You have a point there - this list could indeed hav potential to > spred a change of "-ive" to "-iv". Converted!
:) If only non-conlangers would read it. Do you think the averidge educated Mercan looks in on us? Gotta watch my quota. I'm about ninety messages behind. Again. Sally

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John Vertical <johnvertical@...>