Re: USAGE: Language revival

Herman Miller wrote:
> I guess in a few cases like these, written and spoken English are really
> distinct "dialects". Perhaps one reason it's annoying is that properly
> spelled English can be read much faster than speech, but if words that
> sound the same are used wrongly, you have to imagine the words spoken
> before you can understand them.
Right.  I suppose that in the "mental dictionary", one would find two
dictionaries, one for written, and one for spoken English (in as far as
a dictionary analogy holds, of course), the spoken would have

/DIr/ = "1) in/to that place  2) contr. of they are  3) possessive of
they"

The written would have

there = in/to that place
they're = they are
their = possessive of they

When I see "there car", my brain thinks "in/to that place", and then has
to back up when it hits "car" to figure out what other entry it could
mean, while when it hears /DIr kAr/, it already holds all the possible
meanings, and eliminates nonsensical ones.  Or something like that.

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
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