English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:03

@Cerberus I think that's a false dichotomy. Whatever effects having one could easily lead to the other becoming possible.

Then again...

Cerberus

Bacon is freedom?

Mitch

And France is Bacon

A chacun son gout!

Quod erat disputandam

Cerberus

Hah.

Mitch

Putin de quelque chose russe.

Ya know what's funny...

when I was a kid

it feels not that long ago and yet

when I was a kid

Cerberus

It isn't.

Mitch

00:06

That may very well be the case but hear me out.

when I was a kid, my mom used to make this salad dressing

it was called 'French dressing'.

It wasn't some magical recipe

It was just... I kind of can't believe that anyone would do this not out of desperation...

it was just ketchup and mayonnaise mixed all up to be this orangey stuff.

it wasn't as thick as either ketchup or mayonnaise, as my memory tells me, but I can't reconstruct anything other than those two ingredients.

Anyway, the nightmarish combination of those two is not the point of this story.

And this story is not a story I have ever hinted at or mentioned before

unless I have forgotten.

Well anyway fast forward to many years later, which at this point in time is very many years ago

an fact almost indistinguishable in backwards looking time as the French Dressing episode.

Robusto

@Mitch Is there a point to this story, or are you just brushing up on your small talk?

Cerberus

@Mitch This is called cocktail sauce in Dutch. I think.

Mitch

but looking forward to was a few years. Maybe a decade?

Anyway that's not terribly important

Cerberus

Or was it whiskey sauce?

Very, very French.

Mitch

at least not for this story

(that was a hint to some later story to occur)

((just in case it wasn't obvious))

(((already)))

So...

I was in France

(which is a true story)

on purpose

and

With somebody else's mom

and you can figure out the rest of the story from here yourselves as an exercise for the reader

but I will continue

if only out of habit

Also, I'm waiting for people to attend a meeting which I highly suspect they won't show.

so basically I'm here until I hear a chime.

SO this friend's mom (it was. afriend and I was staying with them) she was making this salad dressing...

out of...

ew

I mean the mayonnaise was great because, you know, France

ketchup and mayonnaise

And she called it...

Yes.. you in front... what do you think they called it?

Come up to the board

Cerberus

00:16

Cocktail sauce?

Mitch

yes, in front of the whole cla

Cerberus

It's pretty bad.

I don't know why people do it.

Mitch

Good try but no

it's pretty close

Cerberus

That's what it's called here.

Whiskey sauce?

Mitch

but if you were following the story you could have figured it out.

classic parallelism

It was called 'American' dressing

Cerberus

00:17

Hah.

Well, it is rather American, isn't it?

Mitch

ya see, Americans called it

Cerberus

Oh, French sauce.

That's funny.

Mitch

oh

you got it

Cerberus

But anything with ketchup is more American than French.

Mitch

yeah Americans called it French dressing and the French called it American dressing

Cerberus

00:18

So she was right. But also wrong.

Mitch

I'm sure the reasoning, if anything has a reason, was different.

@Cerberus Yes. There is that small twist to the story

I'm sure there's a variety of tomato thing that is analogous to ketchup in French cuisine such that it has a similar function to ketchup, tastes like ketchup but because it is French tastes all fancy and shit

@Cerberus Well, she was right because that's what they call it there

Cerberus

There is simple tomato purée.

But mixing it with mayonnaise it not something one does.

Mitch

yeah, but that just doesn't have a ketchupy feel to it.

@Cerberus It shouldn't be something that anyone does

It's a gastronomic crime

Cerberus

Heh.

Mitch

however I will admit to enjoying immensely some food misdemeanors

Cerberus

00:22

But shouldn't it be something one hears about?

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm not making the story up on purpose at this moment. And I don't think I made it up in the past. It sounds like one of those exaggerations of reality that are funny but when you look into reality it's not true.

but then I haven't looked into reality to see if the French really do something like that and call it that.

I have a very clear memory of my mom mixing those shudder two ingredients and calling it French dressing.

Oh and if you mix in some sweet relish (chopped up pickles), then that is called Thousand Island dressing

I think that was invented by Escoffier

or Brillat-Savarin?

One of those dudes who was desperate at one time or another.

Cerberus

@Mitch It is funny.

Mitch

now I have to go look things up.

Cerberus

What things?

Mitch

> Place ketchup, onion, mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, garlic powder, and salt in jar of a blender.

After my further research I will make a confession.

> Ingredients: Sel, Tabasco ou poivre de Cayenne, Vinaigre, Huile de maïs, Ketchup. Préparation: Mélanger tous les ingrédients.

That was the closest recipe I could find. They all involve ketchup pf some sort (to be found in the ethnic section of your local epicerie). I kind of count the corn oil as a proxy for mayo. I know that doesn't sound right, in so many ways, but it's the closest.

So anyway, I believe that is somewhat in accord with my memory so we'll say the story would pass as 'mostly believable'

Cerberus

00:39

I believe it.

Mitch

OK now for the confession.

I really like dipping my french fries into

a chocolate milkshake

also into mayo -and- into ketchup but not at the same time

and not at the same time or in the same vicinity as a chocolate milkshake

that would be wrong.

So @Cerberus do you have any food stories?

@Cerberus It was a bit crazy so I wasn't sure of it myself.

Cerberus

I'm afraid my food life is less exciting than yours.

I'm eating lots of muesli now, is that exciting?

And I eat chickpease out of the tin.

Maybe with pepper and salt when I feel adventurous.

Mitch

@Cerberus That's a bit worrisome. If French Dressing in America is the same as American dressing in France is exciting to you then maybe you should get out more.

@Cerberus with or without milk?

without milk would just be painful

if life must be painful or boring, no one ever says it can't be both.

@Cerberus definitely needs both salt and pepper

@Cerberus wait... lots? as in a really really big bowl right now, or in general mostly everyday

Cerberus

00:54

@Mitch No, that's scary.

@Mitch With!

Some eat it with yoghurt, though.

@Mitch Several small bowls a day.

I started two days ago.

Mitch

@Cerberus Granted. Maybe watch more TV? That's safer.

Cerberus

Partly instead of dinner, isn't that worriying?

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh thanks god. my teeth hurt empathetically imagining without

Cerberus

@Mitch I don't watch television.

Mitch

@Cerberus I know. I'm taunting you.

Cerberus

00:56

Phew.

Mitch

@Cerberus I mean it offers good fiber but maybe that's a lot of fiber?

Cerberus

Maybe!

My stomach was grumbling slightly.

But it is good, cheap, and generally wholesome.

It prevents me from eating...worse things.

Mitch

Did you like swallow some jewelry by accident (I don't know how, that's your story to tell) and you're trying to 'get it out'?

Cerberus

Uhh.

No.

Is muesli used for that?

Mitch

Just checking

I'm not a medical type person but I've heard that it can help things move along.

in quantity

like in numerous small quantities

@Cerberus anything with a lot of fiber like that.

Cerberus

01:02

Noted.

Robusto

Chuck Close, photorealist painter, dead at 81

tchrist

02:22

@Mitch Here's another of those ones.

1

Q: Pronunciation of "I" vowel name in fast speech

I'm not a native english speaker. I was wondering what is the right way to pronunce the "I" (/aɪ/) vowel name in fast speech. Perhaps i'm confused, but sometimes i hear /a/. Like in the Arctic Monkeys song "I bet that you good look on the dance floor". Just in the chorus, i hear something like /...

I don't know why foreigners keep thinking that words actually sound in real life like the dictionary says they do.

Cerberus

He just wants his suspicion confirmed that they don't.

tchrist

But special things happen when singing that do not necessarily correspond to allegro speech.

Well, his name look Spanish. As a rule, they don't have reduced vowels in unstressed syllables. In reality, more of that happens in some Latin American speakers than you are apt to hear in Spain or Mexico.

Remember it's more of a syllable-timed language, not a stress-timed one.

For us when speaking fast, things start to disappear all over the place.

That can't happen to him, if I'm right in my suspicion. So it will seem weird to him. There's a whole other set of pronunciation rules that apply to English than you can ever find in a dictionary.

Cerberus

0

A: Pronunciation of "I" vowel name in fast speech

Welcome to the site! There is no real 'right' way to pronounce I in fast speech, let alone song. I can only say that the allophones you have heard, in the given positions in those sentences, are quite common. There might be other options as well. The faster a vowel is pronounced, the more likely ...

I have posted a quick answer.

tchrist

Thank you.

Cerberus

Feel free to edit as it pleases you.

tchrist

02:29

European Portuguese squishes in this same way. The Brazilians marvel, and often don't follow till they get used to it.

Cerberus

Those pesky Europeans swallow the second half of each word, it seems.

tchrist

In English we have enough signal through the normal speech patterns that it doesn't throw us so much.

@Cerberus Or of each syllable at times. It's just a flurry of Russian-sounding consonants at times. :)

Cerberus

Quite!

It sounds almost Slavic to us.

tchrist

Yah. spektmrvowlzh in a Romance langauge.

Cerberus

Uhh.

tchrist

02:34

It's like that. You expect more vowels in a Romance language. When they do this, everything runs together and suddenly you can't parse word boundaries any longer.

It takes months and months of hearing it in your head all day before that stops happening.

I posted a video about this a few days ago.

In the American South, they turn all the one-syllable words into multi-syllable ones plus with new diphthongs as well even simple words like yes or set, but then they take diphthongs like /ai/ and make them monophthong /a/.

I'm teasing a little, but some accents can sound like that.

"pen" becomes "pi: yun".

It's really hard when you aren't used it and it comes at you out of nowhere. Takes a bit to get used to what they're doing.

Nobody talks like dictionaries. :)

"man" and "maam" become very complicated words.

Mitch

@tchrist related...

19

Q: What is the difference between /ʌɪ/ and /aɪ/ in English?

Is there any difference between the two diphthongs in English IPA transcriptions? If I search a word in the Cambridge dictionary, it gives /aɪ/ for both UK English and US English. For example, the word "night" is transcribed as /naɪt/ in Cambridge English dictionary for both UK and US English. Bu...

pronunciation phonetics vowels ipa diphthongs

tchrist

cries

DIYICKSHUNAIREEZ AH LAHZ!

Thing is, native speakers never notice this.

They get used to how to map those syllables into their own accent, and think nothing of it.

A billion people speak English.

It's getting tiring explaining this again and again. We need a canonical master question we can close duplicates to. :)

They keep thinking the dictionaries are telling them things that they were never meant to say.

That is, they BELIEVE them. They see symbols, look them up in some IPA table, and think this is meaningful.

It never has anything like the millions of accents on lexical sets, or the effects of fast speech rules on real speech.

No native speaker in the history of English, probably, has every deliberately pronounced night as [nʌɪt] in normal speech ;-) However, we must remember that language-specific transcriptions do not use IPA symbols faithfully in the first place. Clive Upton's [aka OED's] weird (and self-regarding) decision to change the carefully mediated conventions for the transcription of English are widely criticised. Here's John Wells's comments. Note the specific comments regarding /ʌɪ/ in the last paragraph - which are hugely understated. — Araucaria - Not here any more. Oct 24 '20 at 22:24

Cerberus

02:50

@tchrist Yes, I have heard that.

tchrist

> Price. The standard notation might seem to imply that the starting point of the price diphthong is the same as that of the mouth diphthong. In practice, speakers vary widely in how the two qualities compare. In mouth people in the southeast of England typically have a rather bat-like starting point, while in price their starting point is more like cart. In traditional RP the starting points are much the same.

Upton's notation implicitly identifies the first element of price with the vowel quality of cut -- an identification that accords with the habits neither of RP nor of southeastern s…

The thing is, there are times when /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ] in any version of raising before unvoiced vowels. This just mostly happens in North America, although there are a few dialects from the Isles too, like that isn't RP like Ulster Irish or some such.

> Bat. It is well known that the quality of the RP bat vowel has changed since the 1930's. It is now more similar to "cardinal [a]" than it used to be. Hence Upton's choice of the [a] symbol. A more conservative line is to stick with the familiar symbol [æ], but to redefine it as appropriate. That, after all, is what we have all done with the [V] symbol for the vowel of cut, blood, which used to be a back vowel but now has a central/front quality for which the most specific IPA symbol would probably be [6] (turned a).

Yeah, that's always struck me as batty that the OED does that. It's very confusing.

Sorry. Skunk attack!

Literally.

It just sprayed outside my back door closeby. It smells awful. I don't think any of the animals were hit though I haven't found Randy to check yet.

Mitch

03:20

@tchrist tell us how it turns out. I mean it never turns out -good- but it can at least turn out not awful

Robusto

03:30

@tchrist Try tomato juice.

tchrist

It's just outside. I think it got startled. Maybe under the deck. Then again, that's one of Randy's haunts too and he hasn't come in. I know he won't be hurt or anything. But he's very cautious. I bet it was just the dog running around atop the back deck.

Lorin's up in bed, and not smelly.

But he was there when it happened.

Tucks in early, gets up early. Randy is opposite.

It was really very strong. I thought the thing was right at my door.

Making sure all the doors and windows are locked. Don't need anything climbing in looking for pet food.

Once had a bear on the deck and the door not even latched shut all the way.

Which I discovered only after she'd left.

OH.

The fallen apples are rotting out in front. Neighborhood smorgasbord.

peers out window with flashlight

Whole back of the house stinks.

Hospitalizations are really bad. And deaths are picking up right on cue.

And we all know why. It's heartbreaking.

CowperKettle

04:24

Deaths from all causes in Sverdlovsk Oblast

Oblast is "region" in Russian.

The city was renamed back to Yekaterinburg in 1990, but the name of the oblast stayed the same, Sverdlovsk.

Sverdlov was a Bolshevik revolutionary who died very young.

Yakov Sverdlov

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (Russian: Яков Михайлович Свердлов; 3 June 1885 – 16 March 1919), was a Bolshevik Party administrator and chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 1917 to 1919. He is sometimes regarded as the first head of state of the Soviet Union although it was not established until 1922, three years after his death. Born in Nizhny Novgorod to a Jewish family active in revolutionary politics, Sverdlov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902 and supported Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction during an ideological split. He was active in the Urals...

> Yakov's eldest brother Zinovy was adopted by Maxim Gorky, who was a frequent guest at the house. Zinovy was the only Sverdlov to reject revolutionary politics and had little to no contact with Yakov after the revolution.

Maxim Gorky was a famous worker writer

Zinovy Peshkov

Zinovy Alekseyevich Peshkov (Russian: Зиновий Алексеевич Пешков, French: Zinovi Pechkoff or Pechkov, 16 October 1884 – 27 November 1966) was a Russian-born French general and diplomat. == Early life == Born as Zalman or as Yeshua Zalman Sverdlov (in Russian: Zinovy Mikhailovich Sverdlov), the future Zinovy Peshkov was the second child and eldest son in a Jewish family in Nizhny Novgorod. His father, Mikail Izraylevich (1846?-1921), was a relatively prosperous itinerant coppersmith and copper engraver from the region of Bialystok in the Kingdom of Poland, in an area of Belarusian and Lithuanian...

M.A.R.

@Mitch it's sorta interesting that during the recent drama, they've been implicitly elevated from 'terrorist' to 'unorthodox freedom fighter' status

CowperKettle

So, Yakov became a radical revolutionary, and Zinovy became a French general

M.A.R.

I'm looking on the bright side. The state media that parrots the government didn't suddenly start showing a more favorable image of Taliban

So maybe we won't stoop that low.

CowperKettle