Re: Duke Keenan the Ok guy returns

H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> On Sun, Dec 01, 2002 at 06:28:19PM -0500, Keenan wrote:
> [snip]
> > I guess this isn't very clear. But does it need to be?
>
> Yes. The various idiolects of English are different enough that comparing
> a vowel to an English word gives almost no information about its actual
> value.
Yes I suppose this is true. But it certainly tells them something. At
least they know how to pronounce it in their own ideolect. And that is
good enough for me.  :))

Which is what I meant when I said "But does it need to be?" If somebody
speaks to me in Jugdjei with a French, Dutch, Californian or some other
accent I'm not gonna kick. I might *fall over* but I'm not gonna get on
them for bad pronunciation. Especially since, as you point out, I
haven't given good information.   :)

> > Otherwise I'm not touching the claw thread with a barge pole. Not even
> > to enlighten everyone with the correct pronunciation, which exists in
> > its purest form in Upstate New York......   ;))
>
> That's precisely the problem. Everyone thinks their idiolect of English
> has the "correct", "official" (vowel) pronunciation. But none of these
> "official" vowels are the same. :-)
Hmmmmmmmm. Do you think thats really true of a bunch of linguists and
language hobbyists like this group?

Presently I'm reading 'Language Myths' which is a collection of articles
by linguists, wherein they explode a lot of misconceptions that lay
people have about language.

The over riding theme throughout the book, as it appears to me, is that
variations of a language *are not wrong* just different forms. Often
what happens is one class gets into power or affluence and then their
dialect is foisted on everyone else as the standard. All other dialects
are then looked down on, even dialects and forms that were previously
standard. It is one of the last areas where discrimination has gone
unchallenged. Besides the discrimination against smokers that is. :)

>
> T
-Duke

>
> --
> This is a tpyo.

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