Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

Thomas Wier wrote:
>
>Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:
>
> > En réponse à Padraic Brown <elemtilas@...>:
> > > > since they also have /S/
> > > > they can make an effort and not affricate French
> > > > |ch| :))) .
> > >
> > > Yeah. Well, it ain't spelled that way! :Þ
> > >
> > Yes it is... in French ;))) .
>
>Exactly why should someone be expected to know the values
>of foreign words when they haven't been trained in it?
>
> > Anyway, most Americans wouldn't be able to correctly situate Paris and
> > Prague...
>
>That's true.  And most Europeans would probably have difficulty
>situating St. Louis and Chicago.  (I remember an anecdote on
>sci.lang several years ago to that effect.)
I'm a European, and therefore obviously not entirely neutral in this
discussion, but I can't help feeling that being able to locate Paris and
Prague is rather more basic than being able to locate St. Louis and Chicago.
Mexico City and Guatemala City would be a more comparable North American
pair, IMHO.

(FYI, I can locate all of those six with acceptable accuracy on a World
map.)

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