"etc" or "ect"?

[oDDity]

"In stead" is actually one of two mistakes: either it's a typo of "instead", or they're missing an identifier, such as a possessive, e.g., "in your stead." Note that the latter form (stead as it's own word) is quickly becoming archaic.

 

When I think about it, I'm pretty sure "instead" arose from "in stead," but that it is definitely an archaic form. Unless the text is very old or intended to appear very old ("ye olde English"), it's simply a mistake.

 

As I keep pointing out, how the spoken word is written is an entirely arbitrary invention.

The idea that you actually get annoyed or irritated because things aren't being written down exactly as you were taught in school, is laughable.

 

I think people should start writing phonetically according to their accent, instead of this boring uniformity. Imagine how boring it would be if everyone's voice sounded exactly the same.

[sparhawk]

Writing phonetically has a big problem though. After all there are different pronouncations of vocals in different languages. If I write vienese dialect, germans have a pretty hard time understanding it. They already have a hard time understanding my dialect when it is spoke, but in written text it's even harder. So this would be a pretty bad idea.

 

It would cause even more problems for people like here, where native speakers and non-native speakers meet. If everbody would write phonetically as they experience the pronouncation in their own alphabet we wouldn't understand each other.

[oDDity]

We would understand one another as well as if we were speaking in real life, and that's enough.

In practice, context takes care of most ambiguities.

Even if you would just type 'ze' instead of 'the' and 'und' instead of 'and' (though phonetically it should be 'unt' I suppose)and swap your 'v' and 'w' around, it would make things more interesting.

I like accents.

Incidentally, my accent would read quite a lot like the way dwarves speak in fantasy games, since a Northern Ireland accent is quite a bit like Scottish accent.

'I'll punch yer face in ye twat'

[sparhawk]

ar u schur u ken ried zis? Meibie u ken, bicaus it is ä simpl exempl, bat eim schur u wuld häf mor problems with mor komplex sentenses. Sam of ze kerekters abof mei not iefen schow ap on ur skrien bicause u mei not häf ze fonts instauld.

 

Some of the characters above may not even show up on your screen, because you may not have the fonts installed. I typed them exactly as I would here them, when I would think in german lengauge. Quite tough to write this way though. Took me longer to type the above, then a posting which would be thrice as long.

 

The last sentence of the first paragraph is the first sentence of the second one. Just in case...

 

I wonder what the german speakers think about this example.

[oDDity]

As different as that was from regular english, I could read and understand it fine, and of course, the point is, that if you did it all the time, people would get used to it.

It's interesting that it's more difficult for you to type in your own accent that to type some generic spellings.

But of course, you don't have to type every word phonetically, just the smaller pronouns and prepositions are enough to give it some character, because even people who have no accent would have to change a lot of spellings if they started to write phonetically.

No one speaks english the way it is written.

[sparhawk]

The problem I wanted to point out is, that a speaker from, let's say Uganda, would type it quite differently then me, or some other speaker fom Japan. So writing in this way would be quite hard to read, because there wouldn't be a single way how to write, but many. I think this is exactly the problem that cultures suffer from where they have quite a lot of dialects. There is a reason why they choose an official language and stick to it.

 

And of course it's hard to write this way for me, because I'm not used to it. I can read and type in english without thinking, but this is only because I do it now for years. Writing in this way is similar to learning to write in a new language. After some time I would be jsut as fast with it, as I'm now with regular writing.

[Nyarlathotep]

I hav a Midwestern accent with onlee the slīhtest edging into a Suthern drawl. The result is that if I spelled everithing foneticallee, it wood look almost exactlee the same. Watever you think, I think it's eesier to reed and wrīt with a standard spelling than it is wrīt foneticallee.

 

Special characters apply to the above.

[oDDity]

It's only easier because that's what you're used to.

Americans have big problems understanding many spoken accents other than their own. Take the many differing accents from around the UK. I can understand them all easily, because I'm used to them from TV shows over the years.

So if it was normal for people to write in their accents, we'd all be used to it, and it'd be as easy as reading in this generic, uniform way.

Think of it like reading a novel, where some characters speak in a strong accent, so the author actually types in those accents.

 

One major americanism you left out of your spelling there was changing mid-word t's to d's. 'Fonedicalee' 'bedder' (better)

[Nyarlathotep]

Except that I don't consistently do that. A large number of Americans do do that. At most, I do it 50% of the time, and I suspect that to be a rather egregious overestimate. When my enunciation does slip, I usually wind up pronouncing something halfway between a 't' and a 'd' rather than a 'd'.

 

Besides, I was having difficulties translating my accent into something that looked phonetic without using a proper (obfuscated) pronunciation key or any digraphs. Obviously, I had to use 'th' since most people aren't even aware there's a symbol for the sound (there's actually symbols for both sounds, but damned if I can remember what they are). I cheated and used an 'h' (to mean an aspirated 'h') instead of the proper digraph 'gh' (a different but similar sound) and dropped aspirated 'h's that I pronounce (maybe half the time) but are somewhat atypical in American English. Ironically, it's actually harder to make my speech look phonetic than it is to actually write phonetically.

 

In retrospect, one thing I forgot to do to better convey my accent is to drop vowel sounds. For example, "phonetically" should have been written "fonetic-lee" rather than "foneticallee." Yes, I pronounce "phonetically" with a hard 't'.

[Domarius]

My friend took a class in phonetics as part of her acting course, this is a whole new way of writing, giving specific sounds to specific characters. It's necessary because of the various interpretations of different letters by people of different accents.

[STiFU]

Phew, this was a lot of catching up to do! And if I imagined all this was written in everyone's personal accent it would've used up triple the time I guess. Writing is a way for communication and it's purpose is to deliver the message as good as possible. So in the context of this forum, phonetic writing would be sheer foolery, since it's a source of information and nothing with a deeper message that could be delivered via special pronounciations. In a chat it's ok to do it, because you can ask directly if you don't understand something. I still wouldn't apreciate it in a chat, because it takes longer to read it and time is the most valuable ressource in my life.

 

It's interesting that I would have written Sparhawks text differently, even thought we live in the same country. Let me do my transformation:

"Ar ju schur ju kän ried sis? Mäeibie ju ken, bikos it is ä simpl exahmpl, bat eim schur ju wut häf mor problems uis mor komplex sentenses. Sam of se käräkters äbaf mäei not iewen schou ap on jor skrien bikos ju mäei not häf se fonts installt."

 

When I went through this I noticed that Sparhawk interestilngly still left some "english thinking" in it. (e.g. "bicaus" and "wuld") It's indeed really hard to write this way.

 

Another common mix up: life / live . I would have done it wrong myself in this post, if I hadn't locked it up!

[sparhawk]

When I went through this I noticed that Sparhawk interestilngly still left some "english thinking" in it. (e.g. "bicaus" and "wuld") It's indeed really hard to write this way.

 

Yeah, the l in "wuld" would have to be removed. With "biecause" I disagree though. It doesn't sound like "o" to me, more like an "au". that's why I wrote it this way.

The biggest problem I had was to decide wether to use "e" or "ä" in some cases, because the difference is pretty small.

 

When I read your translation, it was also quite hard to read. Looks to me like something from the north. If I look at the text and would have to decide where it's comming from I would probably say norwegian or finnish maybe.

[STiFU]

Hehe yeah, I'd say that too. But I come from Nord-Rhein-Westfalen, so no!

[sparhawk]

Where from? I'm living in Essen.

[STiFU]

Hehe, I partied where you live last year on the Love Parade... I'm from Dortmund, which is as good as "next door" (for the non-germans). The world is small! Have you played Medal of Honor Airborne? I am asking because one level is located in Essen and I wonder whether you did recognize anything from reality. I didn't but then again I was the first time in Essen last year although it's so close. (Hilarious, isn't it?)

[sparhawk]

Funny! No, didn't play MoD, but would be interesting to look at it and see if I can recognize it. I doubt it thought, because I have seen some photos when my wife was young and the city looks still quite different.

[Tels]

Hehe, I partied where you live last year on the Love Parade... I'm from Dortmund, which is as good as "next door" (for the non-germans). The world is small! Have you played Medal of Honor Airborne? I am asking because one level is located in Essen and I wonder whether you did recognize anything from reality. I didn't but then again I was the first time in Essen last year although it's so close. (Hilarious, isn't it?)

 

Dortmund? Eh, thats pretty close

[Vadrosaul]

Just saw another common error: 'exited' instead of 'excited'. I'm usually indifferent when seeing spelling mistakes, but that one is irritating due to both exited and excited being fairly opposite.

[STiFU]

Since we are talking about english here, I've got a question. Where does "for pete's sake" come from? A friend of mine said, it was very common to say this. Is it maybe from a TV series? Like "praise the Fons"?

[Gildoran]

I would guess it has a religious origin, since other commonly used phrases are "for god's sake" and "for Christ's sake". Most likely Pete is used because some christians find it offensive to reference god/Christ in exclamations ... perhaps Pete is for St. Peter?

[oDDity]

It's a way of using the phrase without actually swearing or blaspheming.

Another substitute is 'For goodness sake'

It's like say heck instead of hell.

[Baddcog]

While I like the idea of typing phonetically oDDity I think you have a very general idea of how 'americans' speak in general.

 

Accents vary quite widely across the US, as they probably do anywhere.

I was born and raised in Colorado but I often get mistaken for a southerner (My mother is from Arkansas and maybe I picked it up from her a bit), but I've never heard anyone say to me or anyone else that they have a 'Coloradoan(?)' accent. Typically the strong accents 'known' to people are southern, New Yawkan, New Jerseyan, ect... Everyone one else just sounds like a hill billy, or they speak proper english.

Of course Black people tend to have very strong dialect, I don't know how that would be classified. Ebonics I guess, so that's another 'accent'.

[Nyarlathotep]

And I'm a Southerner who is mistaken for a Midwesterner due to a distinct lack of accent. (A Midwestern accent is considered to be as close to "accentless" American as you can get.)

[Ishtvan]

Does anyone else get bothered by mis-interpreting common phrases and then repeating the mis-interpretation?

 

For example, "for all intents and purposes" becomes "for all intensive purposes," which doesn't even make sense. Also, "force of habit" becomes "forcive habit," which I don't think is actually a word. It drives me crazy.

[sparhawk]

Never heard those. Quite funny though.

 

I know one from my childhood, which still bothers me. In Vienna there were hundred and thousand (austrian) Schilling bills. Now in slang terms it happened that he hundred Schilling bill started to be called "one kilo" which is short for kilogramm. That always bothered me, because obviously a kilo is thousand gramm, so it should have been the thousand Schilling bill being called like that. Never understood why it was applied to the hundred.