Re: How to Make Chicken Cacciatore (was: phonetics by guesswork)

Christian wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Tristan Mc Leay <kesuari@Y...> wrote:
> > Christian Thalmann wrote:
> > > Frankly, the obstinate American opinion that "them
> > > pesky accents can't possibly be important, because
> > > otherwise we'd have them too" strikes me as arrogant.
> >
> > It's not an 'obstinate American opinion'. Frankly, I'm offended that you
> > seem to think all Englishers are American; I thought you were smarter
> > than that
>
> Granted, it's a blanket statement and not very well
> researched.  ;-)  I just get the feeling that Americans
> tend to be less in touch with the rest of the linguistic
> world than, say, the British.  I doubt that the latter
> treat umlauts any differently, though.
So, do you actually *read* many American and British publications
(i.e., not just usenet)?  I ask, because I do read periodicals like the
New York Times and the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald on
a daily basis, and I find them all to be more or less consistently
inconsistent in the use of foreign accents.  I've found if anything,
the NYT is *more* likely to use foreign accents than these other
publications because the NYT takes itself far, far more seriously
than most British and other anglophone publications (not entirely
without reason).

Look, it's not that I object to making stereotypes; sometimes they're
true, or contain some truth.  It's just that stereotypes should be
tested against reality.

> > I would think you're being silly. You have an e on your keyboard, you
> > have an e in your native language's alphabet, why not use it?
>
> You mean that same e that you could use to write Fuehrer
> and Schroeder?  ;o)
I've found anglophone publications are inconsistent about <Fuehrer>
(only rarely using the umlaut), but both almost always write
<Schroeder>.  (Indeed, I've noticed the British publications
are more likely than their American counterparts to write <Schroder>.)

Unless you know what you're talking about, you simply can't make
generalizations like this.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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