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conuly
This isn't stuff I've seen anybody here say, just stuff I've read in books that made me scream:
1. Such-and-such an alphabet used only ONE letter for compound sounds like "sh" and "th".
In reality, sh is a separate phoneme1, and th is TWO phonemes, either eth (unvoiced2) or edh (voiced). There certainly IS a "compound sound" that is spelled with one letter, and that sound is J (which is an affricated stop3 formed by making a d and a zh at the same time). We're the freaks for using two letters!
2. English really needs a phonetic alphabet.
No, we don't. We need a phonemic alphabet. A phonetic alphabet would require us to add all sorts of characters for reasons that most people wouldn't understand. For example, say lit. Now say till. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the t in till has a puff of air when you say it (or it does for most people). In some languages, saying till with the puff of air (aspirated, that's called) and saying till without it would mean you've said two different words. A phonetic language would ask people to write down all the little things people say that they don't know they've said. Well, okay, it wouldn't, not really, since we all know that stops are aspirated at the beginning BUT NOT THE END of a word... but that's not the point. The point is that it's not necessary. And we HAVE a phonetic alphabet, it's called the IPA4
3. Person speaks standard english, instead of just street slang
*screams* This is a specific instance, where they went on to equate AAVE5 with "street slang". Aside from the fact that Standard English6 doesn't exist, afaik, AAVE is NOT merely "street slang".
4. People today are totally ignorant of the "rules of grammar", such as *pointless prescriptivist rule* and can't speak English
Well, I agree with the fact that most people are ignorant of basic linguistics, but so are the people who say things like that. And trust me, we all do speak English. Eventually, nobody will, but that won't be for a long time. Depending on how high your standards are, it won't be for up to a thousand years or so. I'd say half that, but I have high standards of intelligibilityI forget
1 A phoneme is a sound, basically. Well, no, it's more complicated than that, but I don't want to drive everybody crazy.
2 The difference between a voiced and an unvoiced th is like the difference between v and f, or z and s. If you say thigh and then thy, you'll hear the difference, the first word has an eth and the second has an edh.
3 A stop is a sound that stops the airflow completely, like t, d, p, b, k, and g. A fricative is a sound that hardly impedes airflow, like f, v, s, th... well, it goes on. An affricated stop is one where the stop and the fricative are made at the same point of articulation (part of the mouth) and at the same time... pf, ts, ch (tsh).
4 International Phonetic Alphabet
5 African American Vernacular English
6 The author no doubt meant "Standard American English. America is not the only place to speak English.
Oh, I guess it was seven Yes, by my standards, we don't speak the same language as Shakespeare. My standards are laughably high, but his English isn't very intelligible to most people today
Oh, and don't forget. The Inuit do NOT have 100+ words for snow. Instead, they have a complex grammatical structure (is it called polysynthetic? I forget) where each "word" can contain a sentence's worth of information. They don't have many more roots that mean snow than we have words that mean snow.
1. Such-and-such an alphabet used only ONE letter for compound sounds like "sh" and "th".
In reality, sh is a separate phoneme1, and th is TWO phonemes, either eth (unvoiced2) or edh (voiced). There certainly IS a "compound sound" that is spelled with one letter, and that sound is J (which is an affricated stop3 formed by making a d and a zh at the same time). We're the freaks for using two letters!
2. English really needs a phonetic alphabet.
No, we don't. We need a phonemic alphabet. A phonetic alphabet would require us to add all sorts of characters for reasons that most people wouldn't understand. For example, say lit. Now say till. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that the t in till has a puff of air when you say it (or it does for most people). In some languages, saying till with the puff of air (aspirated, that's called) and saying till without it would mean you've said two different words. A phonetic language would ask people to write down all the little things people say that they don't know they've said. Well, okay, it wouldn't, not really, since we all know that stops are aspirated at the beginning BUT NOT THE END of a word... but that's not the point. The point is that it's not necessary. And we HAVE a phonetic alphabet, it's called the IPA4
3. Person speaks standard english, instead of just street slang
*screams* This is a specific instance, where they went on to equate AAVE5 with "street slang". Aside from the fact that Standard English6 doesn't exist, afaik, AAVE is NOT merely "street slang".
4. People today are totally ignorant of the "rules of grammar", such as *pointless prescriptivist rule* and can't speak English
Well, I agree with the fact that most people are ignorant of basic linguistics, but so are the people who say things like that. And trust me, we all do speak English. Eventually, nobody will, but that won't be for a long time. Depending on how high your standards are, it won't be for up to a thousand years or so. I'd say half that, but I have high standards of intelligibilityI forget
1 A phoneme is a sound, basically. Well, no, it's more complicated than that, but I don't want to drive everybody crazy.
2 The difference between a voiced and an unvoiced th is like the difference between v and f, or z and s. If you say thigh and then thy, you'll hear the difference, the first word has an eth and the second has an edh.
3 A stop is a sound that stops the airflow completely, like t, d, p, b, k, and g. A fricative is a sound that hardly impedes airflow, like f, v, s, th... well, it goes on. An affricated stop is one where the stop and the fricative are made at the same point of articulation (part of the mouth) and at the same time... pf, ts, ch (tsh).
4 International Phonetic Alphabet
5 African American Vernacular English
6 The author no doubt meant "Standard American English. America is not the only place to speak English.
Oh, I guess it was seven Yes, by my standards, we don't speak the same language as Shakespeare. My standards are laughably high, but his English isn't very intelligible to most people today
Oh, and don't forget. The Inuit do NOT have 100+ words for snow. Instead, they have a complex grammatical structure (is it called polysynthetic? I forget) where each "word" can contain a sentence's worth of information. They don't have many more roots that mean snow than we have words that mean snow.
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Heh.
Date: 2004-06-03 08:16 am (UTC)After some thought and experimentation, I found that I aspirate the 't' in 'lit' unless it's at the end of a sentence or other full stop which I wish to emphasize.
Also, you allege that 'Standard English doesn't exist.' Didn't you earlier rant about how slang and dialect are just "nonstandard forms", and thus not "wrong"? You cannot classify one thing by its relation to thing #2, and then deny the existence of thing #2.
Re: Heh.
Date: 2004-06-03 11:09 am (UTC)