velar trill (was: ~Yeshuewu)

Fri Jun 12 18:16:05 UTC 2009

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:06:34 Zulu plus 0000 Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>I'd say that all sounds are not equal in difficulty.  The harder ones
>have been dropped from USA English, like the trilled r (which you can
>still hear in Edison recordings, eg the word great with a multi-trilled
>r ~grqaet).  The most difficult sounds would seem to be those showing
>droppings, like ~th, ~t, ~h, ~r, ~au (awe), ~l (widow wed wabbit).
>There would appear to be more mouth-work in saying them, so folks might
>want to work around them.

I hope you don’t believe your own theory here, as it is more work for English speakers to distinguish /ah/ from /aw/, ergo awe-dropping is inevitable.

As for the velar fricative, it did not get dropped from English because it is harder to pronounce.  The velar fricative, as best we can tell from ancient inscriptions, has been around in Hebrew for at least 3,500 years and is still going strong.

     We never eat cookies because they have yeast
     And one little byte turns a man to a beast
     Oh can you imagine a sadder disgrace
     Than a man in the guttural with crumbs on his face?

Why did it disappear from English?  The answer is that the Anglo-Saxons, a very fricative people indeed, first were invaded by the Danes and had to add the Danish word "Uncle" to their vocabulary so that they could say uncle.  Following this England was invaded by William the Bastard and his army of Ossetians and Normans.  While the Ossetians maintained the velar fricative (as in "Kosta Khetagkhati") the Normans did not and so the Anglo-Saxons (soon to be English) had to drop the fricative from their speech lest the Normans interpret it as a BronX cheer and take appropriate action.

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:18:34 Tom Zurinskas truespel at HOTMAIL.COM, who does not add anything to Zulu, wrote:

>The Oxford English Dictionary records some 600,000 English words.
>http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>Wordnik claims 1.7 million words (perhaps they're not all English)
>http://www.wordnik.com/
>
>One sticky point is the definition of a word.  Is the word "set"
>different from the word "set".  SOme would say so depending on meaning.
>There may be 20 meanings to the word "set".  So that would be 20 words.
>I think this is not what we mean by the word "word".

You only find 20 meanings to "set"?  I get 21 without trying hard:

1. TV set
2. a performance of drum music
3. mind-set
4. concrete setting
5. a concrete (as opposed to abstract) setting
6. dialectal variation on “to sit”
7. set theory (math)
8. ordered set (math)
9. set up (verb)
10. set-up (noun)
11. set down on paper
12. dead-set against
13. set screw
14. deep-set
15. rinse and set
16. ready set go
17. to set a parameter
18. set and reset (computer hardware)
19. reset
20. Truspel for the French word “sept” (“seven”)
21. what an Irish setter does

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009 17:01:41 -0400 "Joel S. Berson" Berson at ATT.NET, who subtracts 0400 from Zulu, wrote:

>What is the meaning of "Callicoes" in the following two items?
>
>1)  From the Boston News-letter, 1743 July 14, 2/2.
>
>This is to inform the most worthy and Hospital [sic]
>Society of CALICO'S so re[m]arkable for their good
>OEconomy and decent Behavior; &c. that there will be
>a Meeting of said Society at the Bunch of Grapes Tavarn
>on Tuesday the 19th Instant at 6 of the Clock in the Afternoon,
>then and there to do no Business at all.
>      By order of the G. M.                               CALICO
>         Whip Whip Whip
>N. B. It is expected that all
>      Members of that Society
>      give due Attendance.
>
>
>2)  From the Boston Post-Boy, 1743 Oct. 17, 3/2.
>
>Last Thursday being the Day appointed, by Order of Government, for a
>general Thanksgiving ... for the Preservation of His Majesty, and his
>Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, at the glorious Battle of
>Dettingen, over the French Army, with all their Jen d'armes, &c. was
>celebrated, with the greatest Solemnity; and particularly by the
>ancient, loyal and hospitable Society of Callicoes, who in the
>Evening met at the Bunch of Grapes, the House of Mr. Samuel Wethered,
>in King Street, which was very beautifully illuminated; where the
>following Healths were drank, viz. ..."
>
>[The toasts are to:
>King George, and success to his arms. Prince and Princess of Wales.
>Duke of Cumberland. The glorious Queen of Hungary. Success to the Allies
>Prince Charles of Lorrain. The Earl of Stair. Prince Lobkowitz. Count
>Knevenhuller. British Navy.
>Success to the Province. His Excellency our Governor. Success to the
>ancient, loyal and hospitable Society of Callicoes.]

"there to do no Business at all" certainly implies that Calico’s was the gag name for a drinking club or similar non-serious organization.  The name Calico (however it was spelled) very likely was some in-joke, indecipherable to anyone outside the club.

Note other oddities of spelling: the ligatured OE for Economy and Jen d’armes which looks as if it were the name of someone’s girlfriend.  By the way, Stair, Lobkowitz, and Knevenhuller were real people.

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           Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
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