Re: utf8conv (Re: CStdioFile is broken in about 6 ways)

THere's a Dr. Seuss book titled "The tough coughs as he ploughs through the dough" or
something like that. If written as the words sound, it would be "the tuff coffs as he
plows thru the doh"; the -ough construct is one of the serious *** constructs in
English. There are also odd worlds like "colonel", the military rank, which is not
pronounced koll-o-nell, but "kernel", and is a throwback to what was called the "great
vowel shift" of about the 13th century or so; it is a word pronounced in the
pre-vowel-shift style.

A Londoner will schedule something by sheduling it, whereas an American skedules it. ("Two
countries separated by a common language" - George Bernard Shaw)

Someone from Berlin might say "Ich bin von Berlin" and say it approximately as "ick bin
fon Berlin" (ordinary fonts cannot capture the details of German pronounciation, or any
pronounciation) but someone from Munich might say "Ich bin von Bayerisch" and say it as
"Ish bin fon buyerish" (these are accents broad enough that even a naive foreigner such as
myself can hear them...)

A "broad" accent is one that is very distinctive, and which distorts words from the "norm"
for the language. In the U.S., "down East" (which actually means Maine, the northenmost
of our 48 contiguous states), Deep South, Texas, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts (mostly Boston and nearby communities), and parts of New York
(such as The Bronx and Brooklyn) have such distinct accents and vocabularies that if
forced to live together on a Desert Island, they would spend months simply learning to be
intelligible to each other. There are "pocket communities" that also have distinctive and
difficult-for-outsiders-to-understand variants of the language. And certain racial,
socioeconomic, and/or ethnic groups in American cities have languages that are nearly
unintelligible to other ethnic, socioeconomic, or racial groups in the same city

American joke: the Chicago real estate salesman is showing a house to a woman from
Alabama. He says "Here, madam, is a house without a flaw". She looks at him and says
"then what d'y'all walk on?" Someone from the deep south will put a carpet on a "flaw"
(floor).

We were in an aquarium in Boston when a young child shouted, "look, ma, sharks!" except
that he actually said something that resembled "look, ma, shaaacks!"

Pittsburgh has a campaign to "redd up the city"; "redd up" is local dialect for "clean
up". Pittsburgh has regional dialects from Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Slovakia,
Greece, Ireland, and so on, who brought their own words, mangled words of the other
countries, adapted, adopted, and invented words, as they intermingled here in waves of
immigration from the early 18th through the mid-20th century, because of the high-paying
industry that was here. Some words, we have no idea where they came from. It is not
uncommon to have a waitroid in a restaurant ask "how can I help yinz?" [a new word for the
second person plural that you wouldn't find in a textbook!] I've even had a waiter in a
very-high-class, very-expensive, restaurant ask this question.

The lingua franca joke is based on the history that in the 16th through 19th century,
royalty in Europe spoke French, which was the "modern" version of a language that replaced
Latin as the universal language of communication. So if royalty wished to communicate
with other royalty, typically they were bilingual: their own language, and French.
Ultimately, all international governmental communications (read "diplomatic
communications") were done in French.

However, Latin was still the universal language of the clergy, and by extension, the
universal language of academics, and intellectuals. Those intellectuals who also
interacted with royalty or royalties minions were therefore trilingual, with French,
Latin, and their own native language. So they referred to French, and its pervasive use,
by its Latin term, "lingua franca". Thus, initially, "lingua franca" referred to the
universal usage of French by anyone who needed a universal language, which meant royalty,
and of course, all their minions, toadies, sycophants, and wannabes. Those with
pretensions to high society would learn it. The joke is that I'm using a Latin term that
means "the French Language" to describe English. This illustrates the ability of English
to adopt phrases from any language, even if the phrases themselves have lost their
meaning.
joe

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:07:39 +0100, "Giovanni Dicanio" <giovanni.dicanio@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer@xxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:0v66j3d7rb6umqtps9uu51ionlars8v0g4@xxxxxxxxxx

Many European languages have roots in Latin, which have tense and case
rules similar to
Italian, French, and even German. (Hungarian and Finnish are their own
worlds). English
was a bastardized language which was the offshoot of German, French,
Norwegian, Celtic,
and so on, and was largely a language of the illiterate peasants (the
royalty spoke Latin,
French and/or German, for typical examples), who didn't want to be
bothered with all those
complicated rules. The problem was that the illiterate peasantry shortly
became the
wealthy middle class merchants, and they brought their language with them.

Joe: interesting historical perspective, thanks.


The U.S. is a huge country, and regional accents abound.
[...] Some accents are so far from the
norm that even native speakers who are non-local to a region have trouble
understanding
someone local to the region.

Wow... that's fascinating.


pairwise). Scotland and Ireland have accents so far from English that
while you think you
might have understood the words, you have no idea what they actually
meant.

Also about Scotland accent:

Some years ago, on Easter, the husband of a lady who is a relative of mine
(far from me in the genealogical tree) went from England to visit some art
and enjoy the bright sun, good fish and food, and the sea, here in the South
Italy, where I live.
The lady is Italian, but the husband is English, and they live nearby
London.
The husband speaks only English, and so, when we spended time together
during one week, I spoke English (I tried :)
Only a cousin of mine, the lady and I spoke English (the others spoke only
Italian, I sometimes translated English <--> Italian for them, too :).
I was excited to speak with him, because it was a test for my spoken
English!
And, despite we spended only about six days together and the fact that he is
old (about 70 years old, I think - but he was young in spirit!), we became
good friends!

In that week I had the opportunity to speak English, and I enjoyed that a
lot.

I recall that sometimes we could not understand, it was my fault of course.
So in that few cases, we used the paper and pencil to write.
For example, I know what "though" means, but I did not know how it was
pronounced. So when he pronounced "though", I could not understand. But
after he wrote that on paper, I immediately understood :)

I recall very well that he told me about the Scotland accent. He said that
this accent is very particular, he defined that accent as "broad", IIRC.
I don't know what "broad" really means in this context, and I've never
listened to the Scotland accent, but now after both him and now you cited
that, I'm very curious to listen to it.
I may be wrong, but my idea of Scotland people is that of people having
roots in proud brave warriors. So they must have these ideals of
independence, very well rooted into their culture, and so maybe also in
their accent they want to point out that they are from Scotland.


English is the lingua franca of Computer Science.

..."lingua franca": seems familar ;)

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca )


Giovanni

Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
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