Linguistic pet peeves

[Sumelic]

I think the 'American' pronunciation can make sense if you have a very tense /æ/ – something like [ɛə̯] or [eə̯], which many (most?) American dialects have. (Personally, however, i still think the 'British' pronunciation sounds more 'right'...)

As an Ohioan, my /æ/ is [eə̯] before /n/ (when it isn't realized as [ŋ]) and /m/, [æɪ̯] before [ŋ], and [æ] elsewhere. I think this is the most common situation in the US (at least, /æ/ being tense before /n/ and /m/ and not elsewhere; I don't know how common it is for /æ/ to become [æɪ̯] before /ŋ/).

Well, /æ/-tensing before nasals is definitely common in North American English (it's even phonemic in some dialects with the lad-mad split). But there are many dialects where there's tensing in other environments as well (Wikipedia seems to give some good examples of different varieties.) My speech (Californian) just follows the "nasal system" where I have tense [eə̯] before /n/ /m/ and /ŋ/ (also in MARY-MARRY-MERRY and PAIL words) and /a̟/ everywhere else, although the offglide might be a little higher before /ŋ/-- it's hard for me to tell. But I'm in Minnesota now, and one noticeable feature of some of the speakers around here is tensing before /g/. It mostly sounds like [eə̯] to me, but I'd imagine speakers with [æɪ̯] before /ŋ/ who tense /æ/ before /g/ would have [æɪ̯] in this context as well.

[Lao Kou]

Even the Swedish TV personality Filip Hammar seems to have accepted that his surname is pronounced 'hum-MAHR'

Maybe by analogy with Hedy Lamarr? And that apparently came from La Marr, which would have been read [ləˈmɑːr]. (We came close with "Lillehammer", so blame it on the second "a". (though according to the big W, it originally was "Little" Hamar, for which it gives [ˈhɑːˈmɑr] -- for those without pitch accent, that might sound like stress on the second syllable?)

by the natives in America

The Onondaga?

I'd even consider the usual English pronounciation of the cognate 'hammer' closer to the original (with stress on the first syllable). I won't even go into how Americans pronounce the Swedish surname 'Alshammar' (e.g. the swimmer Therese Alshammar).

Maybe by analogy with the "Shemar" of "Shemar Moore"? Not having heard it, I'd guess you're saying her name in the US sounds like an exotic spice from the Near East?

[Prinsessa]

More of an orthographic peeve, or coïncidence of orthographic history, but I hate how <ƀ đ> look so nice while <ǥ> is just awful, because you often need the three together, but because of <ǥ> alone I can't bring myself to do it and find another way to express, say, voiced fricatives.

[Sumelic]

That is annoying! I wonder if it might be possible to use an overbar on the g instead... <ƀađaḡa> doesn't look too bad in this font, but there are definitely fonts where the macron looks too different from the cross on ƀ and đ for this solution to look good.

[DrGeoffStandish]

More of an orthographic peeve, or coïncidence of orthographic history, but I hate how <ƀ đ> look so nice while <ǥ> is just awful, because you often need the three together, but because of <ǥ> alone I can't bring myself to do it and find another way to express, say, voiced fricatives.

I have always had the same complaint and given how quirky g looks (I think it's called double-story g) in some fonts it's actually quite meaningless having the stroke down there. As Sumelic points out the best thing is probably to replace the stroked g with a macron g.

Quoting the Respected Gentleman on the matter (directed to whomever is responsible for the *beep* up), "You are deeply offensive, sir." I'm not suggesting anything, but, "You know.. I mean.. You're American, aren't you?"

[Prinsessa]

My hand-written <g> pretty much has a macron connected to it with a stroke from not lifting the pen tho, as an ascender (double-story too).

[DrGeoffStandish]

My hand-written <g> pretty much has a macron connected to it with a stroke from not lifting the pen tho, as an ascender (double-story too).

Aren't you a bit too young for handwriting this stuff?

BTW, speaking about pet peeves, there's a lot of squirrels outside that have woken up from the winter (not that they're hibernating, but anyway). They're so cute running up and down the pine trees; why can't one buy pet, domesticated squirrels? I want one.

[Prinsessa]

Had to fill in a hand-written form just the other day!

And no need to enslave the squirrels to enjoy their presence. Keep visiting your pine paradise and look at them go!

[sangi39]

My <g y j> look like this:



So my <ǥ> just comes out okay, but it's still pretty weird (the descenders usually go much further to the left, often going underneath the previous two letters).

[DrGeoffStandish]

And no need to enslave the squirrels to enjoy their presence. Keep visiting your pine paradise and look at them go!

The pine paradise is just outside my window, in the background I see the Jamtish mountains (OldJam Jamtafjǫllin, ModSwe Jämtlandsfjällen). I realize that the squirrels outside my window aren't suitable as pets, but wouldn't it be cool to have a domesticated breed of squirrels who bond to humans? (Or maybe you call babies enslaved by their parents too?) And since you're a vegan that'd be perfect, dogs and - especially - cats need meat products but as AFAIK squirrels may thrive on plants alone (they're omnivores like us and even though a healthy vegan diet was impossible prior to the era globalization it is possible today):

• • • "Squirrels' diets consist primarily of a wide variety of plants, including nuts, seeds, conifer cones, fruits, fungi, and green vegetation. However, some squirrels also consume meat, especially when faced with hunger. Squirrels have been known to eat insects, eggs, small birds, young snakes, and smaller rodents."
      (Source: Wikipedia.)

Enough off-topic; sangi39, you actually write g, y and j like that? In any case, it's still strange - inconsistent! - to have a diacritic on different levels in different letters.

[Prinsessa]

I'm not for breeding so nope.

But don't let me be the cause of yet another derailed thread. Trying to think of something to say on topic, but I can't really come up with anything. I'm mostly fond of most stuff that has to do with languages in and of themselves. My peeves are with weird perceptions of languages (the army and navy thing) and so on.

[DrGeoffStandish]

I'm not for breeding so nope.

Of course, I assume here that the breeding process is already performed like with the dogs. And dogs weren't really domesticated, they domesticated themselves through natural selection. We simply let them in and in the end we had furry pals. Maybe one could simulate that process with squirrels? We give them seeds during the winter (OK, they steal the birds' seeds) and basically after some generations they have bred themselves into our homes. They've found a Garden of Eden, just like dogs. Classical symbiosis!

But don't let me be the cause of yet another derailed thread. Trying to think of something to say on topic, but I can't really come up with anything. I'm mostly fond of most stuff that has to do with languages in and of themselves. My peeves are with weird perceptions of languages (the army and navy thing) and so on.

I'll be on-topic! And good luck with your graduate studies in linguistics at Bergen University!

[Prinsessa]

I was actually reading up on this stuff quite recently. There does seem to be evidence to indicate some sort of symbiosis with humans or ancestral hominids and self-domestication of wolves (which seems to have been the ancestor of modern wolves and dogs alike, rather than the modern wolf) initially, but that's obviously not been the case for an immensely long time or indeed modern breeding.

I'm not at any university, by the way. c;

[Ephraim]

More of an orthographic peeve, or coïncidence of orthographic history, but I hate how <ƀ đ> look so nice while <ǥ> is just awful, because you often need the three together, but because of <ǥ> alone I can't bring myself to do it and find another way to express, say, voiced fricatives.

I think it really depends on the font, there seems to be a lot of variation in the design of this character. Some have a fullwidth-stroke, some have a halfwidth stroke, some place it on the top story, some on the bottom. Plus, there is the variation between single-story and double-story forms. I was actually able to find all eight possible combinations in the fonts on my computer, except one (and one is only a stylistic variant).

I think the variant found in Helvetica (4) looks great actually. But the Times New Roman variant (5) looks really bad. Sadly, this variant is quite common.

[Prinsessa]

Looks OK when blown up to this size (but still doesn't look good IMO), but you won't ever be writing at this size. At a normal size it's just a cluttered mess.

[Ephraim]

Looks OK when blown up to this size (but still doesn't look good IMO), but you won't ever be writing at this size. At a normal size it's just a cluttered mess.

I actually think variant 4 looks good even at normal size on a computer screen. It may be tricky to distinguish from normal g, though.

[DrGeoffStandish]

I actually think variant 4 looks good even at normal size on a computer screen. It may be tricky to distinguish from normal g, though.

It's definitely the most appealing of these since (1) it's in the "upper storey", and (2) there's only one crossing of the naked g. (In 8 the upper storey hoop is a bit too small to support the stroke.) But as Prinsessa points out, it clutters...

Damn you, g. Damn you!

[Aleks]

It really bothers me when a language has words with letters that have diacritics next to each other or too many in a word.

[qwed117]

It really bothers me when a language has words with letters that have diacritics next to each other or too many in a word.

I hate people putting commas under a consonant. It looks god-awful.

[clawgrip]

So what do you think of <ç>?