online accent quiz

Paul Johnston paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU
Mon Dec 4 03:44:02 UTC 2006 

Tom,
You lost your battle in 1385.  Give it up for God's sake.  You are
not King Canute and the tide's just going to come on in, like it has
done every day.  Take consolation in the fact that the French lost
their battle with the alphabetic principle a century before the
English did, and even Esperanto speakers are fated to lose it.
Whether it's a shame or not, it's just another case of someone trying
to do pushups with a Mack Truck on their back.

Paul
On Dec 3, 2006, at 7:35 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: online accent quiz
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Then if linguists don't prescribe pronunciation, who does?  Every
> dictionary
> writer says they are descriptive pronunciation.  I have written a
> dictionary
> pronunciation.  I say what I'm writing is descriptive.  But then it
> becomes
> prescriptive for those reading it.
>
> What's bad about a dialect is that it subverts the alpabetic
> principle, that
> letters stand for sounds.  It makes English less consistent, it
> creates
> homonyms that cause confusion of meaning.
>
> If you have no criterion for dialects being good or bad, than you
> can have
> no opinion.  But if you value the alphabetic principle and would
> like to
> keep English pronunciation as consistent with it as possible, it means
> saying "pin" for the word "pen" is not good.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
> See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: online accent quiz
>> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 14:39:23 -0600
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: online accent quiz
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> What you call mispronunciation is a large part of what makes a
>> dialect a
>> dialect. If you say the speakers of certain dialects are
>> mispronouncing
>> their words, then you are saying that their dialect is wrong.
>> Personally, I
>> won't say that someone's natural language is wrong just because they
>> pronounce "pen" and "pin" the same. Someone might tell me that my
>> dialect
>> is
>> wrong too for extending the length of the "o" in Minnesota, but I
>> don't
>> think it is. It's just different. I personally think we, as
>> linguists,
>> should be just describing the way people speak instead of telling
>> them they
>> are wrong and trying to prescribe.
>>
>> Scot LaFaive
>>
>>
>>> From: Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: online accent quiz
>>> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 19:52:19 +0000
>>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: online accent quiz
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -----------
>>>
>>> Why defend mispronunciations.  Sure folks in some areas say  pin
>>> for pen.
>>> So when they say "I've got a pin for you" you don't know what
>>> they mean.
>>> Is
>>> it pin or pen?
>>>
>>> My friend was working with a speach recognition program.  He said
>>> the
>>> stupid
>>> program recognized "bed" for "bad".  I said let me hear you say
>>> it.  Then
>> I
>>> said "You are saying "bed" instead of "bad".
>>>
>>> If that's "knot" a "bed" homonym "eye" don't "no" "watt"t is.  :-)
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
>>> See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
>>>> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>>> Subject: Re: online accent quiz
>>>> Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 01:37:51 -0500
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster:       Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
>>>> Subject:      Re: online accent quiz
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> -----------
>>>>
>>>> Quoting Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>:
>>>>
>>>>> The caught/cot distinction
>>>>> won't go because it shouldn't.
>>>>
>>>> This must mean that English lost the [a:]/[a] distinction
>>>> because it
>>> should
>>>> have.  Was there also a requirement that led to the vowel shift?
>>>>
>>>>> You may not care, but there are those
>>>>> that do.  Awe-droppers do the language
>>>>> a disservice, create unnecessary homonyms,
>>>>> thereby lessening intelligibility and ease
>>>>> of learning English.
>>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> I doubt I could make a reasonable distinction between necessary and
>>>> unnecessary
>>>> homonyms.
>>>>
>>>>> I have no clue what dInIs is.
>>>>> SAMPA for Dennis?  Both vowels are
>>>>> short i? This does not happen in USA.
>>>>> You must be a Brit?
>>>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
>>>>
>>>> Despite your apparent view of the supremacy of your dialect/
>>>> idiolect
>> the
>>>> [I]
>>>> does indeed occur as a surface form for many speakers of American
>>> English.
>>>> Have you never heard someone pronounce "pen" [pIn]?  It's not a
>>>> secret.
>>>> It's
>>>> not rare.  It's not wrong it's not evil and it won't ruin the
>>>> language.
>>>>
>>>> Michael Covarrubias
>>>>
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>>
>>>>    English Language & Linguistics
>>>>    Purdue University
>>>>    mcovarru at purdue.edu
>>>>
>>>>    web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
>>>>   <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>
>>>>
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
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