English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Alenanno

12:03 AM

Well, I guess time has come for me to go to bed

Night everyone

Jez

cripes, 1am

night all

9 hours later…

Alenanno

9:33 AM

Q: English words related to "face" or "facet" that sounds like W-J-H ?

Greeting all, I'm looking for an English word related in meaning to "face" or "facet" that also sounds like this combination: W-J-H or O-G-H or U-G-H and so on (note that W as in "what", G as in "got" and H as in "have"). Explanation: facet for example sounds like F-C-T and face like F-C. Is th...

etymology

Either Too Localised or Not a real question, to me...

3 hours later…

Robusto

12:57 PM

@Alenanno — NARQ.

Robusto

1:49 PM

@Cerberus, @Peter Shor: I just edited my post on alliteration to address your comments.

Cerberus

Cool.

Robusto

That doesn't mean I agree with you. I don't.

@Cerberus: Do you have access to IPA symbols?

Cerberus

Oh, dear, I read your edit.

@Robusto Yes?

I'm not sure what that professor told you, but alliteration definitely doesn't include assonance in modern usage.

Robusto

Can you give me IPA for ær, eor, and ear as in Old English.

"Allliteration is usually distinguished, as and within, from the mere repetition of the same sound positions other than the beginning of each word — whether a consonant, as in "some mammals are clammy" (consonance) or a vowel, as in "yellow wedding bells" (assonance); but the term is sometimes used in these broader senses." —Wikipedia

Cerberus

2:04 PM

Well, that "sometimes" must be close to never then... honestly I've never ever heard it used that way. If you could find a respectable source...

Robusto

Hahaha.

Cerberus

@Robusto I'm afraid I don't know how those were pronounced. Could you give me a modern word pronounced with the same vowel?

Ear? Bear?

Robusto

How else do you interpret the line I mentioned? See, I remember asking this very same question in my OE class, and the professor, Dr. G—, told me that assonance and consonance were forms of alliteration.

ear as in bear

beornum would sound like bayornum without the pronounced y-glide.

and the ash sounds like the a in flat.

æ being the ash

Cerberus

/ɛə/ is the ea in bear.

Robusto

The e or the ea?

Cerberus

2:07 PM

Both together.

So ea.

Sorry.

The a in flat is /æ/.

Robusto

No surprise there.

Cerberus

Heh.

Robusto

beornum would sound like bear + num except the beor would end with a rounding of the lips.

Cerberus

The OED on alliteration:

> 1. gen. The commencing of two or more words in close connexion, with the same letter, or rather the same sound.

2. The commencement of certain accented syllables in a verse with the same consonant or consonantal group, or with different vowel sounds, which constituted the structure of versification in OE. and the Teutonic languages generally. Thus from the beginning of Langland's Piers Ploughman, text C.:In a somere seyson · whan softe was þe sonne,Y shop me into shrobbis · as y a shepherde were;In abit as an ermite · vnholy of werkes,Ich wente forth in þe worlde · wonders to hure,And …

Robusto

Which totally supports my point.

Cerberus

2:11 PM

As you see, it must be at the beginning of a word/syllable.

Robusto

Are we reading the same thing?

Cerberus

A phonetic vowel cannot be at the beginning.

Ear begins with a glottal stop.

That's why written vowels can alliterate, IF they are at the beginning of a syllable.

Not so with ee in feeling.

Robusto

I read "The commencement of certain accented syllables" as referring to the syllables, not the words themselves.

The key is the accent, not the position in the word.

Cerberus

True.

But the syllable must still begin with the alliterating phoneme.

Eerie begins with a glottal stop, though you could say glottal stop + following vowel together still counts as alliteration, makes it even stronger; but the syllable fee- starts with f.

Robusto

Neither does beornum begin with a glottal stop.

Cerberus

2:18 PM

So you could say co-op and over alliterate (though weakly...).

Robusto

@Cerberus — BTW, you cited Wikipedia in your own comment. If it's not respectable for me, then it's not respectable for you. =P

Cerberus

Heh. Fair enough.

I used it merely to illustrate, rather than prove?

Robusto

Wow. Championship hair-splitting. Bravo.

Cerberus

It's one of my highest skills.

Robusto

And you did it while you were high? Double bravo. Bravissimo!

Cerberus

2:24 PM

bows

Thank you, EL&U!

Robusto

Don't forget to thank the little people like me who made it possible for you to achieve that honor.

Cerberus

Oh. I suppose I could throw you one of them used panties they keep sending me, allegedly from blonde girls.

What's your size?

Robusto

Seriously, though, we were also taught to consider f and þ to be alliterative matches in some cases. But perhaps alliteration is given a broader interpretation in OE scholarship than it is currently, and my view of the word is colored by that.

Or maybe I'm just full of shit and remembering my lessons wrong. ^_^

Cerberus

Could be... but to consider f and þ alliterative matches doesn't sound weird to me. It's just internal vowels that I don't buy.

@Robusto Throws another pair of panties.

Robusto

@Cerberus — See if you can deduce my size from this:

Apr 13 at 9:53, by Robusto

Cerberus

2:32 PM

Hmm... you know that's not my kind of thing.

Robusto

What, deducing sizes?

Cerberus

But they look good on you.

That, too.

Notice her Asian thumb.

*your

I have a drop of Indonesian blood in my veins, and I have it too, though mostly on one hand.

Robusto

BTW, "Piers Ploughman" is Middle English.

Cerberus

Who?

Robusto

You don't recognize your citation from the OED? Maybe one of your other heads looked it up and didn't tell you about it.

Which @Cerberus am I talking to now?

Cerberus

2:37 PM

You they are all equally forgetful.

Ergo, I don't remember which one it was.

Look, if you're sure, perhaps there is some secondary meaning to alliteration. But it must be rarely used, then.

Robusto

Possibly. This is the kind of thing people write dissertations about, I think.

So I don't think we'll solve it here for good and all.

Anyway, today is Father's Day in the U.S. and I must go be feted. TTYL.

Cerberus

Hehe.

Good that you mention it.

Have fun!

I will go visit my father later today.

9 hours later…

Cerberus

11:58 PM

Hey, do you think this guy is for real?

A: Does the idea of being created imply the necessity for obedience to a creator?

Rights of ownership are mutative restraints transfiguring the life form from its very nature in capacity of being separate from its creator. An ensemble of rules insufflating possibility of coexistence between members of a given community should despise terminal rules and fixed principles because...