English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

00:00

My theory is that all the ones that have a phonetic diphthong for their V get disyllabic pre-L breaking with a schwa, but not the others.

1. peel [ˈpʰijəɫ]
2. pill [pʰɪl]
3. pell [pʰɛl]
4. pal [pʰæl]
5. pale [ˈpʰejəɫ]
6. paal [pʰɑɫ]
7. pile [ˈpʰɑjəɫ]
8. poil [ˈpʰojəɫ]
9. Powell [ˈpʰɑwəɫ]
10. Paul [pʰɔɫ]
11. pole [ˈpʰowəɫ]
12. pull [pʰʊɫ]
13. pool [ˈpʰuwəɫ]

Only the ones with a front vowel get a bright L, so 2 and 3 and 4. The schwa break darkens the L otherwise.

I may have a bright L at the end of phaal. Interesting. That suggests that my "a" isn't a back vowel there? Weird.

I'm sure it's dark in call but when I say Kal Drogo from Game of Thrones, it may not be a dark L.

And I don't say Kal in Kal Drogo as /kæl/ but as /kɑl/, like Carl with a silent R.

The writer intended to invoke latent memories of khan.

Which similarly has /ɑ/ not /æ/.

Interesting that there's a lexical/phonemic gap: there's not pVl word whose V is the NUT vowel.

Because the bilabial P blocked the NUT vowel there and left it with the FOOT vowel, even in those of us with the STRUT–FOOT split, which is most but not quite all of us.

So pull, full have the FOOT vowel but cull, hull have the STRUT vowel. It's weird.

Why oh why oh why did the Romans bequeath unto us only five vowel letters?

Cerberus

00:15

Because they were only given those by the Greeks?

I know nothing about phonetics.

Dannyu NDos

IIRC there are 7 vowels in the Greek alphabet.

tchrist

It's funny how they add to add a second upsilon.

Dannyu NDos

Alpha, Epsilon, Eta, Iota, Omicron, Upsilon, and Omega.

tchrist

alpha, eta, epsilon, omega, omicron, upsilon.

And iota.

Right.

Dannyu NDos

I presume you think English should adopt diacritics?

tchrist

00:17

The Romans only had one E and one O. But then they decided they need to reborrow a second U via Y.

@DannyuNDos It will never happen, unfortunately.

But they needed the Y for Greek words only.

Look at the pain we have to go through with IPA to have pairs of these.

Dannyu NDos

I don't know why, but when I was like around 5–7, I didn't think the Greek alphabet was a copycat of the Latin alphabet, but thought the Cyrillic alphabet was.

tchrist

ɪ, ɛ, æ, ɔ, ʊ.

@DannyuNDos Yes, the Cyrillic alphabet descends from the Greek one, albeit indirectly via Glagolitic and with emendations.

Dannyu NDos

Yet the Latin alphabet also descends from the Greek alphabet, no?

tchrist

At least Cyrillic made new glyphs when they needed them. We lack the courage.

@DannyuNDos More indirection.

> The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet, which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The problem with the IPA glyphs, among many, is that they are not all easily handwritten or legible as distinct glyphs at small sizes or poor lighting etc.

They were deliberately created to make them possible to typeset.

In metal type. When you couldn't cut your sorts.

Dannyu NDos

[a], [ɑ], [e], [ə], [ɪ], [o], [ɔ], and [ʉ] – Those are the English monophthongs, I think. The diphthongs with their glides stripped off results in them as well.

Ä, A, É, E, I, Ô, O, and U?

Ä from Finnish, É from French, and Ô from Vietnamese.

tchrist

00:28

Don't do that.

Dannyu NDos

:(

tchrist

Take from multiple languages is harder.

Yes, with diacritics you can do things. But nobody will ever do that.

alphabet

@tchrist Geoff Lindsey says that in his "these phonetic symbols are all wrong" video; only ones ending in glides usually undergo pre-L breaking.

tchrist

@alphabet Then we need to teach people that pee and poo end in glides so that they can understand how to pronounce peel and pool.

@DannyuNDos I am not 100% convinced you can survive with just one U.

You might be able to. I'd need to think about it more.

alphabet

@tchrist I've noticed that (as Wiki says sometimes happens in AmE) my nonprevocalic /l/ are often the purely velar [ʟ]. Wiki seems to think this is most common in the South but you can find people online (and other wiki pages) saying it's more widespread.

tchrist

00:33

lit?

till?

tell?

let?

Dannyu NDos

/ʊ/ is actually [ɵ], and /uː/ is actually [ʉw]. Given that [ʉ] would never occur as a monophthong, I thought it'd be okay.

alphabet

My /l/s are never clear, and it's actually hard for me to articulate /l/ without moving the back of my tongue up.

tchrist

Strange.

Sing: ma, me, mi, mo, mu; la, le, li, lo, lu.

Seems like you're trying to scrulch your L's the same way you do your R's.

You should learn Catalan. They do that.

All their L's are very dark and velar.

Even where you don't expect it.

Dannyu NDos

And in Korean, all L are very light and alveolar...

tchrist

Spanish doesn't have dark L's. It's pronounced much more in the front of your mouth than Portuguese or Catalan, more like Italian.

alphabet

00:44

If I say "pal" (or pretty much all of the words on that list) and try to add a vowel immediately after it, it matches Wiki's recording of [ʟ].

tchrist

The Vowels of Catalan (Subtitles: Eng, Esp, Cat)

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alphabet

But it sounds very strange to try and add a vowel after that sound; a following vowel usually changes it to [ɫ]

tchrist

At least they have pure monophthongs.

alphabet

@tchrist Yeah, I've read somewhere that this realization of /l/ is likely related to bunched /ɹ/

When I say the word "milk" (as I very often do), the /l/ and the /k/ occur in roughly the same place and the tip of my tongue doesn't move up.

tchrist

A lot of people have L-vocalization in milk.

As if 'twere miwk.

Dannyu NDos

00:56

Unsure whether I've mentioned this, but I'm thinking of building my own song-synthesizing software like Vocaloid or SynthV. The English phonology is an obstacle because of its unwieldiness for the vowels, but I've eventually come up with the vowels mentioned above – [a], [ɑ], [e], [ə], [ɪ], [o], [ɔ], and [ʉ]. I'm also considering throwing [ʏ] in for realization of /ju/.

As a current SynthV user, I should complain of that SynthV's representation of English phonemes are... a mess.

CowperKettle

L-vocalization

L-vocalization, in linguistics, is a process by which a lateral approximant sound such as [l], or, perhaps more often, velarized [ɫ], is replaced by a vowel or a semivowel. == Types == There are two types of l-vocalization: A labiovelar approximant, velar approximant, or back vowel: [ɫ] > [w] or [ɰ] > [u] or [ɯ] A front vowel or palatal approximant: [l] > [j] > [i] == West Germanic languages == Examples of L-vocalization can be found in many West Germanic languages, including English, Scots, Dutch, and some German dialects. === Early Modern English === L-vocalization has occurred, si...

alphabet

At first I thought I might just be vocalizing the /l/, but then I realized if I add a vowel after it it sounds like [ʟ], and if I pay attention to what my tongue is doing it's some sort of weird bunching thing that never happens with vowel sounds

That said, it seems like sometimes the middle of my tongue doesn't quite hit the velum, it just gets very close. Other times it does. Dunno.

CowperKettle

No Milk Today - Animation (HQ)

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alphabet

I can make the vocalized /l/ in milk by adding some sort of [w] or [o]; it sounds like a plausible pronunciation of that word but it's different from whatever I'm doing.

At least, it certainly sounds much more like Wiki's pronunciation of [ʟ] than of [ɰ]

And it's the same sound at the end of all your pVl words

CowperKettle

01:55

Word of the day: golden plover

alphabet

02:12

Popular raccoon boy band The Discarded

alphabet

03:23

Jul 25 at 18:37, by alphabet

Alphabet's Law: the number of upvotes you get for an answer is inversely proportional to the time you spent writing it.

I just got 7 upvotes for an answer defining the word "snort."

Ah well, I take internet points where I can find them.

Mitch

@alphabet snort

You knew I would say that

alphabet

@Mitch How would you transcribe a "snort" in IPA?

I'm sure some phonetician has invented a fancy term. ("Intranasal fricative"?)

...I was actually right. Snorts are called "nasal fricatives": ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4821429

(Not to be confused with "nasalized fricatives.")

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17549507.2021.1891285

> An active nasal fricative can be perceived either as a high frequency air emission sound through the nose (anterior nasal fricative) or as “snorting” or turbulence (posterior nasal fricative) (Zajac, Citation2015).

The extIPA transcription is [n̥͋] (you'll need to zoom in many times for that diacritic to render properly).

(Or is it [ʩ]? I'm getting confused about the difference between "anterior" and "posterior" nasal fricatives.)

Nvm, I think it is [n̥͋]

I just spent some time trying to make an "ejective snort." I think I mostly succeeded in making some part of my throat hurt that I didn't know existed.

It's pretty easy to make a glottally reinforced snort (and in fact I think that is a common phonetic realization of snorting). But if you try to make an ejective [p'] but release the air with a snort instead, you get weird throat pain. Dunno.

Anyway, this is all going in my new paper on snort phonetics. I expect the next Geoff Lindsey video to cover the prevalence of presnortal hard attack.

CowperKettle

04:10

@alphabet Aww

CowperKettle

04:55

> Early Saturday morning (Oct. 21), India conducted an uncrewed test of the emergency-escape system of its new crew capsule, showing that the vehicle can jet away from its rocket if there's a problem during launch.

Soon there will be an indian astronaut.

Vikas

06:55

Joke of the day: India Will Eradicate Poverty And Become Developed Country In Next 25 Years: PM Modi

CowperKettle

@Vikas Why not? India has a lot of sunlight. Place solar panels on every building, on top of all trains, on water channels and ponds :)

But if Nate Hagens is to be believed, all countries will have it bad in the next 25 years..

Vikas

@CowperKettle That would probably only grow overall GDP.

CowperKettle

> India generated 7.1% of its domestic electricity from solar in H1 2023 timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/104200624.cms

Vikas

I'm pretty sure 25 years is too optimistic. It's not wrong to be optimistic but it's unrealistic.

> The industry standard for most solar panels' lifespans is 25 to 30 years. Most reputable manufacturers offer production warranties for 25 years or more.

LOL. Even if you place solar plates all over India, you'd still need to replace them after 25 years.

CowperKettle

I think that with Peak Oil, global warming, and the AI, nobody knows what will happen in the next 2 years, let alone 25..

@Vikas Yes, unfortunately

What if oil suddently rises to $200?

Vikas

07:04

We still have to fix old train infrastructure.

@CowperKettle $200 for how much oil?

Or how much increase in percentage.

CowperKettle

per barrel

The_AH

Hopefully USA goes down a bit.

CowperKettle

In 2008, it was at $140

Vikas

@CowperKettle If I have to pay twice per liter petrol today, I would stop riding my motorcycle for commute.

CowperKettle

I'm having pulsating pain in my left arm. I think it's 'epileptic' activity, at least provisionally so, for I'm not sure of the precise mechanism.

Vikas

07:10

Every two-three years I have light pain in any of my arms. It's light pain. Goes away by its own overnight.

Probably due to lack of some vitamins.

CowperKettle

I avoid clichés like the plague, with every fiber of my being.

3

Vikas

> Windows Phone gets revenge on YouTube from the grave by helping users bypass its ad-blocker-blocker

CowperKettle

HM, I have a windows phone, an old Nokia 520

I really loved the interface on it, the sliding squares and rectangles.

It was so cool to use.

Vikas

@CowperKettle Nice. I also have Nokia 630. It was my first smartphone.

CowperKettle

My sister bought that Nokia 520 and gave it to me as a gift upon bying a cooler one :)

Because I was not into phones.

I liked that it had a satellite map feature.

Vikas

07:15

They had nice bright colors.

CowperKettle

Yes, they have that tech used in advanced PC monitors.

Vikas

No I mean the rear plastic body designs.

Like bright yellow, green, orange etc.

CowperKettle

Ah!

jlliagre

08:37

@CowperKettle A rain bird!

Xanne

Wordle 855 6/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I should have been ablr to do this in four.

:64372436

And spell able correctly at the same time.

jlliagre

08:56

Wordle 855 5/6

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟨🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

jlliagre

09:22

@Xanne Our last three tries look alike :-)

CowperKettle

09:47

@jlliagre Indeed! Pluvium. I never noticed that

Plutarch wrote in his Quaestiones Convivales that golden plovers can cure a person from jaundice.

The_AH

Probably is a myth.

CowperKettle

And also the oriole

> It was thought that jaundice, described as “when the body is yellow, yellow the face, and the flesh is trembling” 8 (Figure 2), could be cured by having the icteric patient gaze at a golden oriole. The often deadly disease underlying the jaundice would then mysteriously be transferred from the patient to the hapless bird. 6

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9742756

> The renowned English physician Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689) considered chlorosis to be a hysterical disease

Yep. Clearly a psychosomatic disease.

Thomas Sydenham

Thomas Sydenham (10 September 1624 – 29 December 1689) was an English physician. He was the author of Observationes Medicae (1676) which became a standard textbook of medicine for two centuries so that he became known as 'The English Hippocrates'. Among his many achievements was the discovery of a disease, Sydenham's chorea, also known as St Vitus' Dance. To him is attributed the prescient dictum, "A man is as old as his arteries." == Early life == Thomas Sydenham was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property. His brother was Colonel William Sydenham.At the...

The_AH

Wait, jaundice, yellow.

This is giving me the Baby In Yellow vibes.

CowperKettle

10:13

This is giving me the Disco Duck vibes

Rick Dees and his Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck TOTP ( 1976 )

►

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle this article is claiming the opposite

> Despite the recommendation by Sydenham in the 17th century that the condition be treated with iron supplements, chlorosis was classified among the hysterical diseases.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7616296

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Ah!

> There were cases, he tells us, in his practice where "I have consulted my patients' safety and my own reputation most effectually by doing nothing at all."

Ryder Rude

10:49

how is truth defined according to u? (truths about the universe)

M.A.R.

11:12

@RyderRude something that accurately reflects what's going on? I think you're not really looking for a definition of truth, in which case you should talk about what's really bothering you rather than some metaphysical debate

We have ways of trying to get closer to it, like science, and they're never flawless, but they're the best we got.

Something that's true explains what's around me satisfactorily, and also helps me predict the future satisfactorily. That's coincidentally how I define a good model, which really means that we're always in search of good models for truth, and there are countless versions of truth out there.

Michael Rybkin

Tell me please if this sentence sounds fine to you?

There are only few songs that I love as much as "Devil's Child"!

M.A.R.

@MichaelRybkin sounds fine to me

0

Q: What is the single word for "suppression of one's right by using muscle power" or "not letting one exercise one's power by using force"

Is there any single word for "suppression of one's right by using muscle power" or "not letting one exercise one's power by using force"?

"Muscle power" I feel like I'm buying whey protein

user 726941

A few songs @MichaelRybkin

Oppression comes to mind

Ryder Rude

11:41

@M.A.R. I am looking for a definition. I feel like the line between truth and belief is blurred. so we have no concrete definition but a limiting process like u said

can we try to define it as best as possible tho?

the identity thesis says some statements of ours have an identity relation with the truths of the universe

Ryder Rude

12:09

@M.A.R. this sounds like a good definition to start with

people can still subjectively feel that their false beliefs explain things around them

Michael Rybkin

12:49

@M.A.R. Thank you.

tchrist

13:13

I would see beautiful women and men on the tv screen and wished i could date them, I thought it was normal until I was 7yrs old.

Robusto

Dafuq?

tchrist

This is what happens when you let eight-year-olds post.

jlliagre

16:23

J.J. Lionel - La Danse des canards (1981)

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Der Ententanz

Mitch

16:42

@jlliagre Nice 'stache

Swan Lake – Dance of the cygnets (The Royal Ballet)

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jlliagre

17:01

@Mitch Different leagues ;-)

Lambie

OK, here you go: youtu.be/H2fVjXoYmxM The Importance of Dancing like an Idiot

M.A.R.

17:18

@RyderRude I mean, so do I a lot of the time. We're not thinking about these finer distinctions in our daily lives. No doubt this line of thought has been brought on by debating a controversial subject, and that's when people's conviction resembles arrogance.

You don't have to relinquish your beliefs to be accepting of, or at least not be hostile towards opposing viewpoints

@tchrist 6/10 moderate trolling

tchrist

Just seems a little nuts.

CowperKettle

17:36

jlliagre

yesterday, by CowperKettle

Ways of saying Friday in French dialects (19th century)

CowperKettle

OOPs

I'm having Alzheimer's

I've been cooking madjadra.

At least what I call madjadra.

The barebones version. Rice, green lentils, and some sauteed-in-oil chopped onions.

M.A.R.

What on Earth is madjadra

Sounds like a Bollywood villain

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. A very nice dish popular in the Palestine

I learned about it in about 2004, reading a webforum of Russian women who live in the Palestine

They shared their fave recipes, and I picked up madjadra there, and liked it.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle rice and lentils is very nice? Your bar is very low

CowperKettle

17:43

Mujaddara

Mujaddara (Arabic: مجدًرة mujaddarah, with alternative spellings in English majadra, mejadra, moujadara, mudardara, and megadarra) is a dish consisting of cooked lentils together with groats, generally rice, and garnished with sautéed onions. It is especially popular in the Levant. == Name and origin == Mujaddara is the Arabic word for "pockmarked"; the lentils among the rice resemble pockmarks. The first recorded recipe for mujaddara appears in Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook compiled in 1226 by al-Baghdadi in Iraq. Containing rice, lentils, and meat, it was served this way during celebratio...

M.A.R.

That looks like every nondescript food ever

CowperKettle

> The first recorded recipe for mujaddara appears in Kitab al-Tabikh, a cookbook compiled in 1226 by al-Baghdadi in Iraq.

> Because of its importance in the diet, a saying in the Eastern Arab world is, "A hungry man would be willing to sell his soul for a dish of mujaddara."

M.A.R.

The version I like has raw onions and yogurt. I guess it's not mahabharata though

What's the point of cooked onions anyway

CowperKettle

LOL

Yogurt with rice and lentils?

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle sure why not

Though I consume yogurt with everything

Nearly.

Snailboat used to say "yogurt is icky". I still remember that. It was an affront to my favorite food's honor

Yogurt has more calcium than milk.

jlliagre

17:56

Cerberus

I wonder about the m.

M.A.R.

Oh is it chocolate caramel France time again already?

jlliagre

No it's Shabbat.

Cerberus

One would expect sabedi.

M.A.R.

> The biblical ban against work on the Sabbath, while never clearly defined, includes activities such as baking and cooking, travelling, kindling fire, gathering wood, buying and selling, and bearing burdens from one domain into another.

It's okay to steal the working's man money as part of a hedge fund during Sabbath uh Shabbat

What's the difference?

With vs without lisp?

Oh, timezones

Cerberus

18:06

Religious people are weird.

jlliagre

@Cerberus The change likely predates French: *sambati dies

CowperKettle

> “When I wrote this, only God and I understood what I was doing. Now, God only knows.”
― Karl Weierstrass

Cerberus

18:28

@jlliagre Ah, I see.

tchrist

Galloromans are chicken novels coming soon to a romcom near you.

jlliagre

18:46

@Cerberus Samstag auch.

Cerberus

@jlliagre Ahh yes.

In Dutch, we are still pagan like the English, zaterdag.

tchrist

dimenge         diumenge
diluns          dilluns
dimars          dimarts
dimècres        dimecres
dijòus          dijous
divendres       divendres
dissabte        dissabte

Cerberus

That's funny, I accidentally types Zaterdag with a capital, which is incorrect in Dutch.

So I somehow, automatically applied English spelling rules to a Dutch word.

jlliagre

@tchrist Yes, day names are very close between Catalan and Occitan.

Cerberus

The leaders of four of the five largest Dutch parties.

The woman on the left is a Turkish immigrant, leading the largest party, centre-right.

alphabet

19:07

@Cerberus The sitcom was cancelled after one season.

Cerberus

@alphabet Hehe yeah.

tchrist

@alphabet youtube.com/shorts/YzIHimXiP5I

tchrist

21:33

1

Q: Is there a word for a woman going away from home to learn etiquette

I was wondering if there is a word that describes either the act of a woman going away to learn etiquette from someone outside her immediate family, or describes a woman who is going away to learn etiquette from someone outside her immediate family? Old fashioned words are fine, it would be espe...

single-word-requests

Robusto

21:49

@tchrist It's called a "finishing school."

Which was what Sarah Lawrence et al. used to be. And still probably are.

jlliagre

#waffle639 5/5

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩⭐🟩⭐🟩
🟩🟩⭐🟩🟩
🟩⭐🟩⭐🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🔥 streak: 10
🏆 #waffleelite
wafflegame.net

tchrist

22:06

@Robusto Collins: "A finishing school is a private school where rich or upper-class young women are taught manners and other social skills that are considered to be suitable for them."

OED:

> 1836
I'll bring in a bill for the abolition of finishing-schools.
C. Dickens, Sketches by Boz 1st Series vol. II. 341
Charles John Huffam Dickens • Sketches by ‘Boz’, illustrative of every-day life and every-day people [First series] • 1st book edition, 1836 (2 vols.).
London: John Macrone..., [London] Whiting

Is their first citation.

> A school where a pupil's (usually young lady's) education is ‘finished’.

Now what's the equivalent for a moneyed gentleman? Officer corps?

Finishing School for Men.

For valets and butlers, apparently.

tchrist

22:29

> All hands man your battle stations.

Curious that you can only man your battle stations; you can't unman them.

> Our team of groomers have a combined 630 dog years of experience.

CowperKettle

Trump and Lebowski. Masterpiece.

tchrist

23:33

@CowperKettle DUDE!

Robusto

23:50

@tchrist I'm not sure, but I think Pauline Kael called finishing schools places where "young well-to-do women go to acquire a passing knowledge of knowledge."

Jul 8, 2015 at 15:34, by Robusto

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

tchrist

As opposed to sending them off to university for the real thing so they needn't pretend.

2

A: Passing knowledge of

I consider this valid. My dad (1916, London) used it extensively but I don't ever. Macmillan knows it as well. It is most common in this sense with resemblance, acquaitaince and knowledge. I think if I heard passing association I would understand it in sense 2 in the dictionary - "temporary", lik...

> 1.b. 1751– Done, made, or shown in passing; casual, cursory.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…