Comments on: Monthly etymology gleanings for June 2012, part 2

By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » The oddest English spellings, part 21: Phony from top to bottom

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:34:54 +0000

[...] as to advocate the spelling phantastic. (For more than a century there has been no progress in the movement of spelling reformers, but certain things should be said again and again for the record, even if they fall on deaf ears; [...]

By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » Puzzling heritage: The verb ‘fart’

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:30:11 +0000

[...] Compare even such more dignified but “common” names as scrimmage and scrummage, mentioned in the June “gleanings,” part 2, and the names recorded for a wagon or cart: lorry, lurry, rolly, and rully, all meaning [...]

By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » Monthly etymology gleanings for June 2012

OUPblog » Blog Archive » Monthly etymology gleanings for June 2012 — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:39:09 +0000

[...] thanks to those who responded to the recent posts on adverbs, spelling, and cool dudes in Australia. I was also grateful for friendly remarks on the Pippi post and the [...]

By: Valerie Yule

Valerie Yule — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 05:22:28 +0000

The future of English is hopeful if the written language can be updated, like most other alfabetic languages. Otherwise, illiteracy will continue overseas as well as with all who use our lingua franca. Experiment, and challenge assumptions – it is how other sciences progress.

2011, Yule, Valerie, ‘Recent developments which affect spelling. On the possibility of removing the unnecessary difficulties in English spelling, while leaving the basic appearance of English print intact.’ English Today, 107, vol 27, No 3. Sept 2011, pp 62-67. http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A839oLF6

And see http://blogs.msdn.com/naturallanguage/archive/2006/07/05/old-vs-new-spelling-in-french-a-new-speller-based-on-the-french-spelling-reform.aspx

A half hour cartoon overview of reading and spelling, especially useful for learners who are stuck somewhere http://www.ozreadandspell.com.au/

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 06:20:14 +0000

I repeat, the Nostratic hypothesis is not the Proto-World hypothesis: it is the claim that the Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Afroasiatic, (Elamo-)Dravidian, and possibly Eskimo-Aleut language families have a reconstructible common origin. It has nothing to say about Austronesian, Tai-Kadai, Dene-Yeniseian, Pama-Nyungan, Niger-Congo, Sino-Tibetan, etc. etc. Methodologically, the Nostratic hypothesis employs the comparative method and so is part of historical linguistics, though only a minority of historical linguists accept it. Arguments for Proto-World are founded on Greenberg-style mass comparison, an entirely different matter.

What is more, the common ancestor of all extant languages is not necessarily the same as the common ancestor of all languages living and dead. There may have been languages older than the common ancestor which have left no descendants.

By: peter demaere

peter demaere — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 05:47:04 +0000

Thanks Anatoly! I read with interest this post and the blog that you mentioned in your intro (The Oddest English Spellings, Part 20). In the latter, I discovered that the post-vocalic consonant could influence the phoneme that precedes it. Also, I would think that a lot of the confusion between similarly looking (or rhyming) words that do not sounds alike anymore (good, food, for instance) might be related to that pesky little “u”, “w”, and “v” (Roman/French too), all which can easily be misread, as I remember reading once (monks did not have a reliable led lighting or yearly eye-sight checks either, I suppose!) I think the same could be said about the “a” and “o” which in some font style have just one short stroke separating them, which might explain the “saw”, but also, I think, “flower” > more “flawer” that “flo … wer”, unless it has rained a lot on it! (Middle English flour flower, best of anything < Old French flor, flour, flur < Latin flōr- (stem of flōs ) < Modern French fleur) In any case, it would be nice if adults could put their little personal interest and ego to the side and focus in tidying up the one system onto which all else rests: the English spelling system. Is it easy to build a house without a strong foundation? Imagine the time wasted by the carpenter re-shaping the door to fit the misaligned door opening! Should we continue to give medals to spelling-bee champions? We have spell-checkers! I mean spellcheckers! Let's tame that 400 year old beast because learning to read isn't fun for many! http://reforming-english.blogspot.ca/

By: Adrian Morgan

Adrian Morgan — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:24:48 +0000

I went to school in rural South Australia, and in the version I know, it was the entire phrase “cool dude” that was purported to mean “camel’s penis”, not just “dude” by itself.

Also, whether it was an etymological claim, or a claim that the phonetics of the phrase coincidentally resembles that of the phrase “camel’s penis” in some unspecified language, was never clear. The context was invariably something like, “Are you a cool dude?” -> “Yes” -> “Ha! You’re a camel’s penis!”, which is not a context in which scientific precision is on anyone’s mind.

Never worked on me, anyway. I wouldn’t claim to be a dude, because I don’t consider the term “dude” to be inclusive of geeks. The term belongs to a culture I was never a part of, and I would define it as a member of that culture. But that’s a whole other discussion.