Following last night's A&E drama, I looked today at the plastic bag that we were given to put belongings in, and saw that it was festooned with the following:

patients property bag

Why do news reports talk about helicopter gunships ?

On my jar of face cream it says ---

Protection and hydration for 24 hours.

Use morning and evening.

As this is a music forum ........

I am rather irritated by SB Junior's A Level music teacher, who insists on referring to 'decrescendos'. I was even more depressed to find the word in an on-line dictionary that I sometimes use.

When SBJ questioned his teacher about this he was told that diminuendo is too difficult for students to remember, and that decrescendo means the same thing.

What was wrong with diminuendo? I distinctly recall being taught about crescendos and diminuendos at choir school when I was just nine or ten, so why is it too difficult for A Level students to remember now?

SB

There's nothing wrong with diminuendo but I can't see what's 'wrong' with decrescendo either if some people prefer it (except that it's da**!! ed hard to type)

But surely decrescendo is a corruption of the original Italian terminology? Would an Italian (who spoke no Americanised English) understand what a decrescendo is? And why not just use the correct term?

SB

*smart a*** mode on*

Yes, they would, it's used frequently in music, and it is derived from the verb "decrescere", which ironically means "to decrease"

It's certainly not an Americanism and never was, and it's also not an incorrect term as such. If you want to be really pedantic, decrescendo and diminuendo are not the same anyway, and it's actually quite logical if you think of "diminish" (diminuendo) versus "decrease" (decrescendo).

I find the general use of "crescendOS", "sopranOS" etc. much more irritating, since that's really something no Italian would say. The plural of a masculine noun (ending on -o) is either -i or -o:
"Io sono un soprano" => "Maria e Renata sono dei soprani/soprano" (both correct)
If used in the feminine (la soprano), they are always invariable (le soprano, not soprani) - either way, it's certainly not sopranOS - that's anglicised, not just americanised .

*smart a*** mode off*

Surely not nearly as bad as the ubiquitous use of "panini" as if it were a singular noun.

Changing the subject to another language, does anyone else on this forum insist on pronouncing a certain Swedish flatpack furniture chain as Ick-ey-ah not Eye-kee-ah?

In what way is this ironic? Or were you being ironic in your use of the word "ironic"?

The might give a hint.

P.S. I also pronounce Ikea with EE at the start and always get dirty looks for it.

Far too subtle for me.

I think Ikea is probably pronounced in at least half a dozen different ways, depending on which branch you're visiting.

I used to when they first arrived here. Until I learnt better, that is

I'm sure the way we say it here is typically English and not the way it's pronounced in Sweden or indeed any other country! It's certainly more like Ick-ey-ah in France.

Do you have something in your eye?

Ah well. Our nearest branch is in Gateshead, (locally pronounced as 'Gieertshead'), where said company is called 'Aykeeyah mun', (as in "ahhm gannin te Aykeeyah mun").

SB

I have this discussion with people over and over again. If we pronounced loan words with their native properties every single time we came across one, we'd hardly have any "English" words! There's nothing wrong with saying eye-key-a. I have no Swedish phonology whatsoever so wouldn't even begin to know how to go about pronouncing it "properly."

Certainly true, however I personally think there is a difference between loan words on the one hand, and names/proper nouns on the other. If you e.g. would like people to pronounce your surname the way you would in your native tongue, the same should apply to a name or proper noun?

It's a good way to think about it but it's subjective. It's always my first name that causes the problems, rather than my surname, and I don't really have a problem with people pronouncing it slightly differently and it's usually a decent approximation. A friend of mine is called Jean-R?my, but he'll introduce himself in England as John. Each to their own, I suppose.

It cuts both ways. In Germany I have heard a famous shop (now defunct) pronounced "Vullvort". Incidentally I had never thought about the pronunciation of IKEA and though I put the e on the end of Porsche, I pronounce Mercedes the English way. I did however, manage to pronounce my German mum's name, Lisa, correctly - unlike most English people.

There is a very strong Norse influence here in the north east, so the Geordie pronounciation of Ikea may be closer to the original than we think. When I visited Norway I was suprised how many Geordie words and sayings were immediately recognised by the locals.

SB

Neither do I. We had just returned from the Far East, and I found I was pronouncing it rather as though it was Japanese.

I have the same problem here.
I don't mind the close approximation - there's only so much you can do about an accent and the way your articulators shape sounds, depending on what your native tongue/accent is. You can train it of course, although I have to say that you are probably more keen to do this if you work in a related profession (it's still very common in singing and acting - both to eliminate native accents and to learn new ones).

However, some people don't even try and force their own pronunciation on you instead (I even had people trying to tell me how to pronounce my own name - now that takes the biscuit I guess).

I have to admit though that if I want to avoid a spelling marathon or repeating myself, I pronounce my name the English way, especially over the phone.

pushpull, did you ever hear the older Germans calling it "Volleyvott" (closest approximation without using the phonetic alphabet)? My gran used to say it that way, and I never quite understood - even if you read it out using German phonetics, it can only be "Vohlvort" at the most. Where does the "Volley" come from?

I admit I am a bit of a sucker for languages, annoying enough I will never do all of them justice. I always say: If in doubt about a name or proper noun, do as the Romans (Swedish, ...) do and try to get as close as possible:

http://www.forvo.com/word/ikea/

A lot of it's down to convention and words becoming anglicised (or whatever). After all, we don't generally talk about going to Parree to see the Eefell Tower...

I guess you can go to Naples or Napoli, Munich or M?nchen. Luckily, Paris will always be Paris in that case.

Edit: This question-mark business starts to get a bit annoying ...

No, Oma said "Vullvort". Mind you she said a lot of things that amused me in my youth. "Bassroom" and "Dinner readich now" for instance. Speaking of shops, C&A was amusing too.

My Finnish mum always pronounced it eekea.

I always have a quandry on how to pronounce "sauna" which is possibly the only Finnish word to make it into English. I was brought up to pronounce it "Sow-na" (the Finnish pronunciation) but obviously it has been anglicised to "Sore-na" which just sounds wrong to me.

All manner of lexical, grammatical and syntactical problems are welcomed in pedants' paradise, but we only allow quandaries and dilemmas, not quandries and dillemnas.

Interesting - thank you ! nice to know my original attempt was more or less right, even though it was all for the wrong reasons !

oops. Many apologies I was distracted by the arrival of my dinner.

Pology ccepted.

Hope 'a's are back on the menu now - they're quite useful...

Indeed. And I do have knowledge of French - but I rarely say don't say "I'm going to visit the tour eeff-ell in Paree."

Inversely it works the same way.

"Tu viens d'ou?" "Pres de Mon-ches-t-fleghm-errrrr" rather than "Pres de Manchester."

Edit: The arseing (yes we can get away with that word ) accents work in the preview but not in the post!!! Fiddlesticks.

aaargh - from the bbc - I am truly shocked ---


There's only a few hours left to vote for the six BBC Radio presenter's who bravely took to the stage at the comedy store to raise money for Comic Relief.

Oh no. Wot is the world coming to!


More shocking - sad, really - is that I am no longer shocked or even that surprised to see such things from the beeb.

From an article on the BBC news website.

"It has trended on Twitter and been the subject of huge online comment and discussion.

Mainly because it's been derided by millions of people for what they say are its awful lyrics."

Why does that need its own paragraph? Also, it doesn't even make sense!

Sorry, but this is pedants' paradise!

I'm listening to a re-run of Pick of the Pops on iPlayer at the moment. 1972, so naturally enough, there's some Slade playing at the moment.

Singing 'Look Wot You Dun'.

Discuss.

???

Ditto !

I went back and edited my post... I stupidly put an apostrophe in 'its'.

Ah well, stuff happens

Let's discuss Slade record names...as well as Look Wot You Dun, we have Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, My Frend Stan and Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Ah. ok. Honesty ! (no, I didn't mean honestly!) Honest.

It's sitting there right on the first page of this thread.
Eye definately sore it their!

Totally agree, cambiata - drives me nuts!

It's not as if we PRONOUNCE the word 'definATEly'.

Argh, argh and ARGH.

But then we don't pronounce it definitely, either...

As soon as we play that card, we leave ourselves open to the counter-argument....

Beauchamp is pronounced Beecham
Trottiscliffe is pronounced Trosley
Menzies is pronounced Mingis

And I won't tell you what it's like when a Scotsman grabs your hand, shakes it and says "Farquhar" in your face!


Just because it isn't pronounced exactly as it's apparently spelled proves not a lot...

Sorry - I'm being more than a bit of a pedant myself now :-)

DerekH

Oh, don't be difficult for the sake of it, Czerny, please. I'm on a short fuse today..

I'm not aware that Czerny is pronounced kerzerny either, but that's how it looks to me :-)

This thread is nothing like Paradise as I imagine it.