Re: Grammar in HS (Was: Re: Argument Structures)

On Wed, Aug 23, 2000 at 04:37:01PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> Well, I have a very good vocabulary, but there are a number of words I
> pronounce awkwardly because I primarily encountered that vocabulary
> through reading.  I could spell it right (...better than your average
> American, anyway), use it right, and tell you what it meant, but if it
> wasn't used at home (a lot of words, especially all the archaic ones I
> picked up from reading fantasy) I'd mispronounce it.  I got laughed at in
> middle school--6th grade GT, I think--when I said poLItics instead of
> POlitics, among other embarrassing examples.  :-p  As long as I'm on
> email, though, y'all will never notice!...I hope.
Good thing written English doesn't have accent marks, else it'd be very
revealing :-) But then if it did, you'd probably have learnt the "right"
pronunciation from the start.

I used to accent words in the wrong places too, but my main problem is
knowing when a consonant is "hard" or "soft". Embarrasingly to say, just a
few days ago I got laughed at for pronouncing "chameleon" with a soft
"ch"... I mean, it's not like every day that you hear people going around
saying "chameleon", so I'd never realized the first syllable has a "k"
sound not a "sh" sound. :-)


T