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

----- 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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