herring

[Wilson Gray]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Michael Quinion
<wordseditor at worldwidewords.org> wrote:

> "long hundred"

This measure was still being taught when I was in grade school during
WWII, along with the "long ton," (2200 lbs?) the "short ton" (the
"regular" ton?), and the pronunciation of _arctic_ as [artIk].

I've come across measures spelled "long _tonne_, "metric _tonne_" in
literature, without feeling any need to look them up to see what they
are. OTOH, I've never forgotten that one square mile = 640 acres.
Probably because I found it surprising that an acre is so small that
so many could be fitted into a single square mile. Youneverknow.

For late-comers, a while back, we discussed the case of an analysis of
English phonology whose author noted that the only flaw in the theory
was that it "wrongly" predicted that _arctic_ would be pronounced
[artIk], exactly the pronunciation that I was specifically *taught*.
The r was treated like, e.g. the k of _know_: used in the spelling,
but not in the speaking. You don't say "_k_now," you don't say
"ar_k_tic."

--
-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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