Fetchez la vache!

“Arthur ASCII” pronounced as per the aforementioned entertainer

Isn’t it pronounced like that? That’s how I’ve always said it! prepares once again to be have been wrong my entire life

People come up with all sorts of pronunciation for things. Usually this is a good sign that they “learn it from a book”, which is itself a good thing.

An amusing one was when someone at a show asked me whether PipeDream 3 used cache-friendly data structures (ARM3 had just come out). I didn’t understand what they were on about. “Cayshe”? What’s that? Oh, you mean “cash”. No, it’s pronounced “cayshe” – it’s from the French you know? Oh, like “vayshe” then?

No, it’s pronounced “cayshe” – it’s from the French you know?

They what?

The French say it mostly the same, just with added sexy.

Otherwise… Caitsche? Céjshee? I don’t even want to think how something that sounds like “cayshe” might be written in French!

Oh, like “vayshe” then?

😂🤣😂 Oh la vache!

This reminds me of Paul F. breaking a big believe of my entire youth about the meaning of Arthur name given to the Archie OS…

Having learned about Arthur only from the few literature available back then in Italy, I always imagined it was chosen because of the legendary King Arthur. Paul Fellow revealed what it really stands for in an interview many years later ruining the mythological dreams of my teenage!

But, if I’ll ever rewrite a Kernel for RISC OS, I am pretty sure I’ll call it – Merlin Kernel™¹ – ;)

¹ I TMed it, so do not steal my awesome idea! XD

Some of that legend is near to here. Paimpont Forest / Brocéliande.

About 80-90km west of here. Mom and I planned to “do the tourist thing”, but “stuff happened”.

But, if I’ll ever rewrite a Kernel for RISC OS, I am pretty sure I’ll call it – Merlin Kernel

Plain one word “Merlyn” would do nicely. I have living evidence of prior use :)

Surely “Swamp Castle” would be a better name for a new kernel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaXdLWt17A for the uninitiated.

Encountering words in their written form first, before hearing them spoken, may well be an important driver of change, especially now that native speakers of English are very much in a minority. Does awry rhyme with hoary , and so on? You have only to listen to the TV to hear how English stress patterns have changed in the last few decades. The same happened to Greek two thousand years ago. What a nightmare learning to speak English must be.

What happens when you learn from books

What a nightmare learning to speak English must be.

The problem is that there are no accents. And much of the spelling was sorted before the vowel shift.

This leaves a poor foreigner looking at the letters “ough” in a word and probably not realising that there’s about eight different ways to say that.
(dough, ought, plough, rough, through, cough, borough, hiccough ¹)

Then there are lots of useful little rules, like “i before e except after c”, which would be good if it weren’t for all the exceptions. So many exceptions it’s a wonder anybody bothered to write down any rules.

The use and abuse of phrasal verbs: I’ll throw up if I have to throw on this outfit, which I guess means I’ll then need to throw it out.
Or, in the case of your favourite nurse, the word “pop” gets used ridiculously a lot – just pop over there and pop your clothes off and then pop up onto the table here…".

Pronunciation that defies several laws of the universe. Worcester (woostuh), Basingstoke (bay-zing-stowk) ², Woking (whoa-king) ².
I am led to understand The North has some excellent examples of place names that English people will screw up, never mind foreigners.

Rhyming?
Word = Bird, Word != Sword.
Dead = Bed. Dead != Bead.
Meat = Sweet. Meat != Great.
But Meat = Meet. Although Wind != Wind (wind that blows, wind it up)
Bare = Chair = Bear; but Bear != Near.

Moth, both, mother, bother!
Rose, dose, lose!

Those laws that were not broken by the pronunciation are broken by pluralisation. House → houses. Okay, good. Child → Children. Uh? Mouse → Mice. What? Sheep → Sheep. TheF…!?

Homonyms that mean vastly different things. Experts Exchange → Expert Sex Change; Therapist → The rapist…

Nicknames. It’s hard enough to work out that Peggy is a Margaret, but a common trend is to take the first syllable only, and whack a “z” on the end if it ends in a vowel. So the potential successors of The Queen would be Chaz and Cam.

I find French difficult. But thank {random sky fairy} that English is my native language, because if I actually had to try to remember all this crap……..

¹ Those days people cheat and just write “hiccup”, as “hiccough” is weird even for an ough word).

² My mother tried “bas-in-stowk” and “wok-ing”, and just got blank looks from everybody. Eventually a native figured it out and provided the correct pronunciations.

And stuck in a rock I have a sword I’d like to be able to wield (without having to wave a bloody great rock around at the same time). If anyone can pull it out for me…

What happens when you learn from books

I learned French from reading the local paper. Plus I’m a very visual person. When I’m speaking, I can damn near see words floating in the air.

Suffice to say, my spoken French is quite bizarre. Amusingly, I only get labelled as a Brit half the time. The other half, they seem to think I’m speaking Québécois!

Parce-que j’ai appris la prononciation française d’un breton très breton, les français pensent d’abord que je suis breton. Plus tard, ils se demandent pourquoi mon français est si mauvais…

A few years ago, mom was a volunteer teacher. She had to go to monthly meetings.
One time, the person that used to run the place was replaced (nothing onerous, the women wanted to do it so she could teach, not spend all day with paperwork).

Another woman took over. And started the meeting. Slowly, people got up and just walked out. After a while, the person mom was with nudged her and they then left.

Outside, she asked mom “did you understand any of that?”. Mom replied “not a word”.
Somebody else said “why do you think we all left?”.

Apparently the new person in charge was from Toulouse, and had an accent that was utterly incomprehensible in the Anjou region.
Like, nobody understood anything.

Also, there was a girl in the local supermarket. If you asked her a question, she’d just give a blank look. Some people figured out to write questions down, and she’d understand. Not deaf or anything, she ended up living here and couldn’t figure out the local accent at all.
[why was she employed in that case? well, she was off the scale cute so I’m guessing that had a lot to do with it]

So don’t feel bad if Frenchies don’t understand your Breton-French. They don’t always understand each other either. Kind of like Britain, huh? ;)

Working in Kiel, the guys there said they understood my very bad German better than that spoken by one of their Bavarian colleagues “Ach, they are not even German!”

Yet there are a bagful of European languages that are as near as dammit completely orthographic, excepting slang and local dialects. Hear a word, you know how it is spelled; see a word, you know how it sounds. Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Welsh, German, … – even Danish. I am tempted to think that a good deal of the funny pronunciations of towns and villages in England have the mischievous purpose of teasing the grockles. Take Beaumaris in Anglesey, for example. I like to pronounce it Beamers . What the locals call it I have no idea.

So don’t feel bad if Frenchies don’t understand your Breton-French. They don’t always understand each other either. Kind of like Britain, huh? ;)

Probably. But there’s no denying my French is pretty bad…

Take Beaumaris in Anglesey, for example. I like to pronounce it Beamers. What the locals call it I have no idea.

Probably something rude in Welsh relating to Edward I

In Welsh it’s Biwmares, which may be a better guide to pronunciation.

What the locals call it I have no idea.

Near us is a Northamptonshire village called Cogenhoe.

Pronounced cook-know

My car’s satnav reads out place names, such as Bury St. Edmunds (comes out as Bury Street Edmunds). I need to get it to try Cogenhoe sometime.

Just down the road from here is Wemyss Bay – pronounced Weem’s Bay.

Just down the road from here is Wemyss Bay – pronounced Weem’s Bay.

I can’t believe that you passed over the other attempt to confuse any non-locals trying to catch trains in Strathclyde: Milngavie.

Have to admit I don’t know how to pronounce Milngavie 8~D

(I’ve only lived in Inverclyde for just over two years, most of that under various degrees of lockdown…)

Have to admit I don’t know how to pronounce Milngavie

It’s “Mul-guy”… obviously. :-)

Culzean, anybody?

Friockheim