"phonetically"

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Mar 6 15:03:24 UTC 2013


It seems to be one thing to sing a language other than one's own
"phonetically."  But it's something else to speak one's own language that
way.

JL

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "phonetically"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I haven't seen this use of "pony" since I was in school, where it meant a
> translation, usually interlinear, of a Greek or Latin work.  I don't recall
> it being used with German texts, though, but it probably was.
>
> Herb
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 2:42 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "phonetically"
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> > > speaks phonetically
> >
> > Interestingly, the Late-Great Redd Foxx, on his album, You Got to Wash
> > Your Ass, says of himself that, back in his days as an altar-boy back
> > at St. Benedict the Moor parish in Saint Louis, he "spoke Latin
> > _phonetically_."
> >
> > Your guess is as good as mine as to what, exactly, he meant by that.
> > We altar-boys weren't taught Latin and didn't speak Latin, sensu
> > stricto. We merely recited fixed formulae -
> >
> > Priest: Introibo ad altare Dei
> > Altar-boy: Ad Deum, qui laetificat juventutem meam
> >
> > - that we already knew - there were "ponies," called "altar cards,"
> > supplied, just in case - from years of reading along with the
> > "celebrant," as we say in Catholic, in our missals, before we achieved
> > stardom.
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> > to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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