Words you just can't pronounce.

[Yojevol]

Dances With Wolves
We watched this yesterday having recorded it off Channel 5. If you remember it's the story of Kevin Costner's John Dunbar and his acceptance into a Sioux indian tribe. The film is notable for the Indian dialogue used throughout with subtitles.
The odd thing about making that movie is that they had a woman teaching the actors the Lakota language, but Lakota has a male-gendered language and a female-gendered version.
When a bunch of present day Lakota guys went to see the film they had a real good laugh because all the cast, including the macho braves and Dunbar, were speaking the ladies version in the very feminine way!

In our ignorance we thoroughly enjoyed the film having not seen it in 30 years.

Brain

 

[John Brown]

It's not difficult - plurals don't take apostrophes, possessives and contractions do.
The misplaced ones are known as greengrocers' apostrophes, as the commonest place to find them is in greengrocers' windows - best apple's, pear's etc. here.
I'm one of those poor souls who had to learn what gerunds, pluperfect passive subjuctives and other horrible thing were.

I know the real rules. I wonder about the rules other people have in their heads, when they add apostrophes to some plurals, but not all.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Dances With Wolves
In our ignorance we thoroughly enjoyed the film having not seen it in 30 years.
Brain

If it were the most dreadful film ever made, it would still be worth watching for the music.

 

[rafezetter]

Could'a been Moon Unit ....

On the radio recently, I heard somebody "famous", though I didn't catch who, refer to his two sons Charlie Ocean and River Joe. Presumably they are a bit wet but, hopefully, not stupid like their parents.

How's about
Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, Petal Blossom Rainbow, Buddy Bear Maurice and River Rocket Blue Dallas?
That really takes some beating for child cruelty.

You don't need to do that for child cruelty, you just have to name your son after a family WWI hero (with a not unusual name) you idolised as a child, then tell him he isn't worthy of the name. Repeatedly.

But I get your point - names can be dangerous, and might be why so many artists (music mostly) have a stage persona and an everyday name, and also probably behind the ethos of the first nations habit of naming people after deeds or regularly displayed behaviours, an "earned" name will often relect the person far more than a "given" name. - So don't be guy from the joke about familial relations with a sheep - though on reflection being named after deeds might put some people off doing the socially damaging kind.

My above confession has oft lead me to consider changing it to distance myself from those memories which is obviously still a sore point.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

[

But I get your point - names can be dangerous, and might be why so many artists (music mostly) have a stage persona and an everyday name, and also probably behind the ethos of the first nations habit of naming people after deeds or regularly displayed behaviours, an "earned" name will often relect the person far more than a "given" name. - So don't be guy from the joke about familial relations with a sheep - though on reflection being named after deeds might put some people off doing the socially damaging kind.

Greece has a tradition of naming people after their grandparents. However, this causes much friction in the family, because - which grandparent? Never ask a mother the name of her new baby, because there will have been months, if not years, of internecine warfare over which side of the family wins the honour of getting the child named. I was at a lunch where I brought up this interesting cultural anomaly, and was then subjected to a half-hour fight between the couple opposite over what to name the baby. Eventually someone pointed out that they weren't even married yet, let alone pregnant.

The other (and more salient) point to this is that in a small village, where everyone is related (!) there is a tendency for everyone to be called Giorgos, or Dimitris. Everyone, because they all had the same great-great-grandfather. So to specify which one you are taking about, you get given a nickname, which you earn at a young age and it tends to stick. So my neighbour, Vasilis, is called "Boulis", which means a small child who hides behind his mother's skirts (almost the same as "shy", but not quite). He is sixty now, but still known as the cowardly child. Another neighbour is Photis the Tightwad, another would be Christos the Whinger. The best part of this, being foreigners, is we had no idea what these slightly esoteric words meant when we arrived, and genuinely thought it was their surnames. Much consternation ensued because these names tend not to be used to people's faces, because they are mostly (but not always) disparaging. How we laugh now, years after the embarrassing incidents (plural)...

(We apparently have earned the sobriquet "The Tall Couple" - nice to know we have something other than "that weird foreign family on the hill" to distinguish us from all the other foreigners who don't live in the village, because there aren't any).

Today is Tsiknopempti, so we will be assisting the above-mentioned neighbours in barbequing 300 souvlaki and 30 kilos of pork belly. And its raining, so a proper English barbecue. Marvelous traditions in this country.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Greece has a tradition of naming people after their grandparents ...

This used to be expected in Cornwall, which is why so many people (especially the elderly) are known by their second forename. My wife worked in a bank (nearly forty years ago, it's not quite so common now) and used to get frustrated trying to find a customer with a common surname - .g. Arthur Smith - and after going through the alphabet to find he was actually William Arthur.
The first forename was the name of the grandparent. My father was called William George, known as George, his father was Arthur Harold, known as Harold. My other grandfather as called Frederick Charles, known as Charles. My mother and I escaped this, but both my children are known by their second forenames.

 

[Andy Kev.]

No sammy.se, Jojevol's friend Monika isn't suggesting that all English speakers are constantly drunk!

My (Swiss) wife put much the same idea in a rather more descriptive way - "Most English speakers seem to have eaten and already digested half of every 2nd word before it leaves their mouths as a sound".

She further compounded her insult when we visited UK once on holiday. While visiting Scotland (I think that's somewhere up above Watford!) she claimed that all the local speakers were much easier for her to understand than people who originate from "darn sowf ". Comparing my own "impeccable" accent with all the "och aye dern noos" etc, etc, one hears up there, I was even more offended as, of course, I originate from "darn sowf". Thank goodness we didn't go to Geordie-land too .

I can see what your wife is getting at. I teach English to Germans and I've come to the view that whereas German is like a stone which has been cut and polished with clear edges, English is like a pebble that has become smoothly rounded off after years on the beach. That said if your wife thinks we've digested half of our words, don't let her hear Danish. I thought we were bad for not saying half of what was written down. Compared to the Danes, we're not even gifted amateurs! Danish does sound very nice, though.

 

[AES]

Good description of German, Andy (MOST of the time anyway)! You DO need to sound every letter in the word. E.g. "Ker nee"

Don't know about Danish though, but can't be any "worse" than Geordie though. Or can it?

 

[Andy Kev.]

Oh yes it can!

Here's a link to the Danish trailer of the film of one of my favourite thriller books:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgS7L8Y2fpE

The subtitles are not related to what is being said on the screen.* I reckon it's easier to decode written Danish than it is spoken Danish.

*I've just watched it again and it turns out that some of them are or they might be in another Scandinavian language e.g. Swedish.

 

[Irish Rover]

On one of my first visits to Christchurch (NZ) I had difficulty with the very English names on some of their streets. I was told that Leicester St was not pronounced Lee-Chester, but Lester. Worcester St was not pronounced War-Chester, but Wooster. And Gloucester St was not pronounced Glou-Chester, but Glosster. So when asked where I was staying I told them it was a hotel in Manster St - but they said it was pronounced Manchester :roll:

Go figure.

Cheers, Vann.

There is nothing to "go figure"
You are introducing the problem yourself by putting an h where it doesn't belong in Leicester, Worcester and Gloucester and removing the h from Manchester, where it does belong.

 

[AES]

Andy Kev, you wrote "Oh yes it can!"

Yup, "listened" to that clip. See what you mean

 

[Trainee neophyte]

On one of my first visits to Christchurch (NZ) I had difficulty with the very English names on some of their streets. I was told that Leicester St was not pronounced Lee-Chester, but Lester. Worcester St was not pronounced War-Chester, but Wooster. And Gloucester St was not pronounced Glou-Chester, but Glosster. So when asked where I was staying I told them it was a hotel in Manster St - but they said it was pronounced Manchester :roll:

Go figure.

Cheers, Vann.

There is nothing to "go figure"
You are introducing the problem yourself by putting an h where it doesn't belong in Leicester, Worcester and Gloucester and removing the h from Manchester, where it does belong.

Have we played the "ough" game yet? How many different ways to pronounce the same letters: plough, through, cough, chough, etc. I won't go through them all, and I won't look them all up, because that would be cheating. I think there might be 10 different pronunciations - can we get them all, and can we get to 11? Google not allowed!

 

[whiskywill]

Have we played the "ough" game yet? How many different ways to pronounce the same letters: plough, through, cough, chough, etc. I won't go through them all, and I won't look them all up, because that would be cheating. I think there might be 10 different pronunciations - can we get them all, and can we get to 11? Google not allowed!

No Google? My first thought is that is tough, though I will try. How much "dough" are you offering?

 

[AES]

If you want "games" like tough, etc, "T n", then look no further than the "Dearest Creature in creation" .pdf file that I posted back on, I think, P4 of this thread. I bet neither you (nor anyone else) can get through those 2+ pages without at least a few stumbles!

 

[Irish Rover]

I'll have a go as I've thought his through and I think I have given it a thorough enough examination. I may not succeed but I will plough on regardless as, barring any hiccoughs, I need to go to Burscough shortly if I can manage to cough up the exorbitant train fare!
If not, I'll just have to go to Slough again :|

 

[John Brown]

Really not got anything to do with this thread, except that it concerns words, but it's one of my favourites.
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/12/ ... l-economy/

 

[Nigel Burden]

Greece has a tradition of naming people after their grandparents ...

This used to be expected in Cornwall, which is why so many people (especially the elderly) are known by their second forename. My wife worked in a bank (nearly forty years ago, it's not quite so common now) and used to get frustrated trying to find a customer with a common surname - .g. Arthur Smith - and after going through the alphabet to find he was actually William Arthur.
The first forename was the name of the grandparent. My father was called William George, known as George, his father was Arthur Harold, known as Harold. My other grandfather as called Frederick Charles, known as Charles. My mother and I escaped this, but both my children are known by their second forenames.

Whilst researching family history I found out that my mothers eldest sister who I knew as Aunt Joan was actually named Florence Joanna. This made sense of why her son in law called her Flossei.

Nigel.

 

[Cinimod]

My West country favourite would have to be Woolfardisworthy.

My wife's parents used to live there and I could never work out how it was said. The locals pronounce it Woolzery........dom