Pop-up suggesting download of repair tool

[Gene E. Bloch]

For that word, I suppose it is. But on this side of the pond, it's
spelled "aluminum". Only one "i".

And in the kingdom of the (linguistically) blind, the one-i'd can is
king.

OK, that pun is *way* off-topic...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You must be new to Usenet.
A moderated web forum is what you want.

Yes. This one is not moderated, and quite often, it's not even moderate.

That's a big part of why I enjoy it, come to think of it.

 

[Bob Henson]

I nearly always hear "algae" pronounced "aljee", even from my own
mouth, but in this case the "ae" is easily thought of as equivalent to
an "e" (in English).

In my judgment

When I was taught Latin, (and Latin doesn't change much, even these days
) the ae plural was pronounced as in "eye", hence the "g" before it was
always hard. In many years of studying it was always been pronounced that
way by academics, at least. If that were not the case, the singular would
be pronounced "alja" which would indeed, be singular.

 

[Bob Henson]

Yes. This one is not moderated, and quite often, it's not even moderate.

That's a big part of why I enjoy it, come to think of it.

The digressions are, more often than not, more interesting than the Windows
7 discussions, which leave little room for opinion, and hence controversy.

--
Bob
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

Obsolete : The computer you have.
State of the Art : The computer you can't afford.

 

[Ken Blake]

I've always heard "gaol" pronouced as "jail", and "algae" with the hard "g".

Sorry, typo! Almost all "ga" words are pronounced "gh." I meant "Can
you come up with English words in which the "g" in "ga" is pronounced
"dj."

Yes, "gaol" is pronounced like "jail," but "algae" is never properly
pronounced with a hard "g." It's "al-djee" None of my dictionaries
even list "al-ghee" as an alternative

 

[Ken Blake]

When I was taught Latin, (and Latin doesn't change much, even these days
) the ae plural was pronounced as in "eye",

Same here.

hence the "g" before it was
always hard. In many years of studying it was always been pronounced that
way by academics, at least. If that were not the case, the singular would
be pronounced "alja" which would indeed, be singular.

But many English words that come from the Latin aren't pronounced as
they are in Latin. For example, do you know anyone who pronounces
"alumni" as it's pronounced in Latin--"alumnee."

Standard English, again, according to all my dictionaries, including
the OED, has the singular pronounced "a-gha" and the plural "al-jee."

 

[Ken Blake]

For that word, I suppose it is. But on this side of the pond, it's
spelled "aluminum". Only one "i".

Yes, I know. We're on the same side of the pond.

And I said pronunciation, but I really meant both spelling and
pronunciation. Historically, we're wrong and the Brits are right. It
should be "aluminium."

 

[Ken Blake]

And in the kingdom of the (linguistically) blind, the one-i'd can is
king.

OK, that pun is *way* off-topic...

Yes, but funny. <g>

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

There are exceptions in English, but in general the "g" before "e" and
"i" is pronounced "dj," and before other letters is pronounced "gh."

[When discussing this (the "soft g"), why do we so often put a d in
front of the j? It's similar to the question of why we anglicise the
surname of the composer of the 1812 overture - and many similar Russian
names - as beginning with a T.]

"For every gift there is a gin" (or it might have been the other way
round), as my mother used to say regarding the pronunciation of our
surname. (We pronounce it with a soft g, ji-. Since online has increased
and I've been able to ask, I've found usage among other Gillivers is
about fifty-fifty. [Gullivers I think all use a hard g.])

For example, here's an English word with "ga" which is correctly
pronounced with a hard "gh", but which almost everyone pronounces
wrong: "margarine."

There's an English word almost everybody pronounces wrong; I'll put it
at the end of this post just before the delimiter.

In Italian (which I'm not fluent in, but is the foreign language I
know the best), as far as I know, there are no exceptions to that
rule.

Many - I'd venture to say most, but I don't know that many; certainly
most of the ones I know or have a nodding acquaintance with (French,
German, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Dutch, even Welsh ...) - languages are
pretty phonetic in spelling. The rules are sometimes a bit obscure, and
you need a good ear (e. g. for the French "-erent" verb ending), but
once you've learnt them, you know how it will sound. I think I could
read out a passage in most of those and be at least 90-95% correct in
pronunciation, even if I hadn't a clue what they were about. (I'd get
the stresses wrong, probably.)

Can you come up with English words in which the "g" in "ga" is
pronound "gh"? There are very few, but here are two: "algae" and
"gaol."

As others have said, the -ae is a special case. I'd have expected it to
have atrophied into something else by now - like the one in
encyclopaedia, which (especially in leftpondia) has often morphed into
-e- - except that in algae, it's not easy to see what it would morph
into.

wrong
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We've reach the point where 'polluter pays' means 'may hand out some
brooms for others to clear up the mess in their living rooms'.
- Jim Lesurf in uk.tech.broadcast, 2013-2-21
(about spectrum, but true in general)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Ken Blake

But many English words that come from the Latin aren't pronounced as
they are in Latin. For example, do you know anyone who pronounces

Indeed. And then there's the question of how the plural (or occasionally
the singular) should be formed. (If you want to light the kindling,
discuss whether the plural of octopus is octopuses, octopi, octopodes,
.... [to my surprise, my spillchucker accepted the first two of those
three!]. Plus you can take it to the extremes of whether the endings
should decline if the word isn't the subject - when talking of
alumnorum, for example!)

"alumni" as it's pronounced in Latin--"alumnee."

Standard English, again, according to all my dictionaries, including
the OED, has the singular pronounced "a-gha" and the plural "al-jee."

If we're talking of "algae", I'd say the singular is so rarely used that
it's as near obsolete as it is possible for it to be. (I _presume_ you
omitted the l accidentally; if not, I certainly haven't come across that
wrinkle. It would remind me of the strange French plural of eggs - "un
oeuf, deux oeufs" [one egg, two eggs] being IIRR pronounced "ern erf,
duh zuh".)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:20:42 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"



Then you're one of the few people I know who say it correctly <g>

Another (though it was gigawatts in his case) being the wild-haired
character in the "Back to the Future" films. (Prof. Brown, or Lloyd, or
something like that?)

Then there's the question of whether we really mean gibibytes (which we
do unless we're hard drive manufacturers). And no, I don't know whether
that should have a hard or a soft g!

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

As it seems to have been common usage for at least the last couple of
decades, I'd dispute that.

I expect it's been _common_ usage for a lot longer than that. However, I
suspect that for all of that time (and up to now, or we wouldn't be
having this discussion), there have been people who consider that
pronunciation to be incorrect, and who would have pointed it out to an
aspiring politician, unless (or possibly even if) he was deliberately
trying to appeal to "the common man" (an attempt which often backfires
on politicians).

 

[Ken Blake]

[When discussing this (the "soft g"), why do we so often put a d in
front of the j?

No real need to, I suppose.

It's similar to the question of why we anglicise the
surname of the composer of the 1812 overture - and many similar Russian
names - as beginning with a T.]

But there I think there *is* a real need. If it were spelled
"Chaikovsky" (and by the way, I have occasionally seen that spelling),
some people might pronounce it Kaikovsky.

 

[Ken Blake]

Then there's the question of whether we really mean gibibytes (which we
do unless we're hard drive manufacturers). And no, I don't know whether
that should have a hard or a soft g!

Technically, of course, you are right that almost all of us say
"gigabyte" when we should say "gibibyte." But for all practical
purposes, "gibibyte" is used so rarely that the enormous majority of
people don't know the word and wouldn't know what it meant if they
heard or saw it.

So, I say "gigabyte" even though I know I shouldn't. Being understood
is more important than being correct.

 

[Ken Blake]

Of course there is the ever popular word that 90% of politicians, actors
and all around famous people cannot even get right! The old nucular (
NUKE-U LAR) war versus the proper word being nuclear (NU CLEAR). Drives
me nuts to have somebody that supposedly has some education and cannot
even pronounce or spell that word!

The pronunciation nuke-u-lar always reminds me of reel-a-tor, another
very common, and similar, mispronunciation.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[When discussing this (the "soft g"), why do we so often put a d in
front of the j?

No real need to, I suppose.

Glad you agree. The country that includes Jakarta (Indonesia is it?)
persuaded us to drop the D from it some while ago.

It's similar to the question of why we anglicise the
surname of the composer of the 1812 overture - and many similar Russian
names - as beginning with a T.]

But there I think there *is* a real need. If it were spelled
"Chaikovsky" (and by the way, I have occasionally seen that spelling),
some people might pronounce it Kaikovsky.

If it was supposed to be pronounced Kai-, then spell it Kai-! I think
we've got enough problems with weird spellings in our own language,
without putting weird ones on transliterations.

Our own names, of course, give foreigners fits - Featherstonehaugh,
Cholmondeley, Alnmouth but Alnwick, Ulgham ...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

When I was taught Latin, (and Latin doesn't change much, even these days
) the ae plural was pronounced as in "eye", hence the "g" before it was
always hard. In many years of studying it was always been pronounced that
way by academics, at least. If that were not the case, the singular would
be pronounced "alja" which would indeed, be singular.

Well, in this country at least, alumni is pronounced to rhyme with 'I'
and alumnae to rhyme with 'me', so there's little hope for you

Outside of a Latin class I haven't heard algae pronounced as in Latin.
And a lot of people think the singular of algae is alga, pronounced
algee. The same people (I guess) think the plural of "larva" is
"larva"...etc...or even 'ekcetera'

I gave up on alt.english.usage so long ago that I don't have a record of
its correct name. Too many messages for these slow fingers. Or slow
neurons.

I am nowready to bow out of this OT subthread ;-)

 

[Ken Blake]

[When discussing this (the "soft g"), why do we so often put a d in
front of the j?

No real need to, I suppose.

Glad you agree. The country that includes Jakarta (Indonesia is it?)
persuaded us to drop the D from it some while ago.

It's similar to the question of why we anglicise the
surname of the composer of the 1812 overture - and many similar Russian
names - as beginning with a T.]

But there I think there *is* a real need. If it were spelled
"Chaikovsky" (and by the way, I have occasionally seen that spelling),
some people might pronounce it Kaikovsky.

If it was supposed to be pronounced Kai-, then spell it Kai-!

I didn't write it carefully enough. I didn't mean Kai like the
beginning of "kind" I meant Chai, as in the name "Chaim" or the
beginning of "Hanukah."

I think
we've got enough problems with weird spellings in our own language,
without putting weird ones on transliterations.

I agree.

Our own names, of course, give foreigners fits - Featherstonehaugh,
Cholmondeley, Alnmouth but Alnwick, Ulgham ...

I know how to pronounce Cholmondeley, but not the others. Can you
help?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I didn't write it carefully enough. I didn't mean Kai like the
beginning of "kind" I meant Chai, as in the name "Chaim" or the
beginning of "Hanukah."

I also know people who think the book is called "The Brothers
Karamatsov". One of those people, the only one whom I can recall ATM, is
in no (other) way a dummy...

Actually, some of the others might have been radio announcers and such.
Anyway, since I can't recall who they are, I can't vouch for their
intelligence.

BTW, IMO the spelling "Tschaikowsky" is borrowed directly from the
German transliteration.

 

[choro]

There are exceptions in English, but in general the "g" before "e" and
"i" is pronounced "dj," and before other letters is pronounced "gh."

For example, here's an English word with "ga" which is correctly
pronounced with a hard "gh", but which almost everyone pronounces
wrong: "margarine."

In Italian (which I'm not fluent in, but is the foreign language I
know the best), as far as I know, there are no exceptions to that
rule.

Can you come up with English words in which the "g" in "ga" is
pronound "gh"? There are very few, but here are two: "algae" and
"gaol."

I don't think there are any such words in the English language. I merely
use "Gh" as an illustration. "Gh" should really stand for a soft Ga as
in Afghanistan which is normally pronounced Afganistan but which should
really be pronounced with a soft G. Listen to some of the more
knowledgeable presenters, reporters especially ethnic ones pronounce
Afghanistan with a very pronounced (to Western ears) soft G. I believe
India's most famous poet's name starts with a soft G and is
transliterated Gh for the first consonant. --
choro
*****