malloc + 4??

[Kevin Torr]

http://www.yep-mm.com/res/soCrypt.c

I have 2 malloc's in my program, and when I write the contents of them to
the screen or to a file, there aren addition 4 characters.

As far as I can tell, both the code to register the malloc and to write
information into the malloc is solid. Why then ismy program returning an
additional 4 characters?

register malloc 1:
line 192

register malloc 2:
line 214

write to malloc 1:
line 200 - 205

write to malloc 2:
line 221 - 225

display malloc 2:
line 157

write malloc 2:
line 251

Here's how you execute the program:

socrypt.exe /e :i input.txt :o output.txt :A keya.txt :B keyb.txt :k
keyout.txt

**note that the input, keya, and keyb files must exist or the program will
return an error code.

If you write a text string into the input.txt file, it will write the same
string into the output.txt file plus an addition 4 characters.

The 1024 char random 'masterkey' is also written out to the keyout.txt file
with an addition 4 characters.

Why is this happening? I'm totally baffled and have spent days trying to
figure this out.

[Thomas Stegen]

Irrwahn Grausewitz wrote:

But it's a concept not unheard of; other examples of ligatures are
the dutch 'ij' ("kijk"), the danish 'ae' (example?),

The 'ae' is scandinavian and not purely danish. It is a single letter
though and has its own place in the alphabeth (it is number 27).

Norwegian examples: "baer" (berry), "skjaere" (cut) (also of interest is
is the skj sound, does not exist in english really, sort of like "ssh").

The ae is a single glyph though, æ.

So the above examples would be "bær" and "skjære".

--
Thomas.

[Joona I Palaste]

Thomas Stegen <ts*****@cis.strath.ac.uk> scribbled the following:

Irrwahn Grausewitz wrote:

But it's a concept not unheard of; other examples of ligatures are
the dutch 'ij' ("kijk"), the danish 'ae' (example?),

The 'ae' is scandinavian and not purely danish. It is a single letter
though and has its own place in the alphabeth (it is number 27). Norwegian examples: "baer" (berry), "skjaere" (cut) (also of interest is
is the skj sound, does not exist in english really, sort of like "ssh"). The ae is a single glyph though, æ. So the above examples would be "bær" and "skjære".

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"There's no business like slow business."
- Tailgunner

[Thomas Stegen]

Joona I Palaste wrote:

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

Finland is not part of Scandinavia you know ;) Anyways yeah, I was
thinking of the sound, the letter has different appearance.

Some people include Finland in Scandinavia, but they are wrong.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden recognise each other as scandinavian,
they recognise no other countries as such. If you want to include
Finland and Iceland use the term "the nordic countries".

Finland and Russia lies on the scandinavian peninsula, but denmark
does not. So it is a bit strange that denmark is part of scandinavia
while finland is not from a geographical viewpoint. From a historic
perspective it is not so strange. The scandinavist political movement
advocated unifying Denmark, Sweden and Norway into a single kingdom.
Finland was part of the Russian empire and so couldn't be included in
this union, so a new term was invented to to mean the nordic
countries excluding Finland, this term was scandinavia. Now, this union
was never to be, but there was a monetary union (kroner) until the first
world war. We still use kroner, but they are not compatible with
eachother.

--
Thomas.

[Joona I Palaste]

Thomas Stegen <ts*****@cis.strath.ac.uk> scribbled the following:

Joona I Palaste wrote:

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

Finland is not part of Scandinavia you know ;) Anyways yeah, I was
thinking of the sound, the letter has different appearance. Some people include Finland in Scandinavia, but they are wrong.
Norway, Denmark and Sweden recognise each other as scandinavian,
they recognise no other countries as such. If you want to include
Finland and Iceland use the term "the nordic countries".
I am aware of the formal situation. But generally when people talk
about Scandinavia, they mean the Nordic countries. I was going by the
pragmatic definition. Isn't pragmatism what this newsgroup is about
these days?
Finland and Russia lies on the scandinavian peninsula, but denmark
does not. So it is a bit strange that denmark is part of scandinavia
while finland is not from a geographical viewpoint. From a historic
perspective it is not so strange. The scandinavist political movement
advocated unifying Denmark, Sweden and Norway into a single kingdom.
Finland was part of the Russian empire and so couldn't be included in
this union, so a new term was invented to to mean the nordic
countries excluding Finland, this term was scandinavia. Now, this union
was never to be, but there was a monetary union (kroner) until the first
world war. We still use kroner, but they are not compatible with
eachother.

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union. So, as much as we Finns hate
the Russians, they saved our entire culture and language from our *real*
enemies - the Scandinavians! (Only kidding - nothing personal against
Scandinavians, myself.)

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"As we all know, the hardware for the PC is great, but the software sucks."
- Petro Tyschtschenko

[Thomas Stegen]

Joona I Palaste wrote:

I am aware of the formal situation. But generally when people talk
about Scandinavia, they mean the Nordic countries.
Not when you are in Scandinavia.
I was going by the
pragmatic definition. Isn't pragmatism what this newsgroup is about
these days?

It is not a pragmatic definition, it is a mistake, common though.
When people here in britain ask me about Scandinavia I am usually
pragmatic and ask tell them that Finland is not part of scandinavia
if it is relevant (I also mention the Nordic countries at this point).
I don't just "assume" they know what they are talking about and go on
explaining.

--
Thomas.

[Dan Pop]

In <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union.

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss language?

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Joona I Palaste]

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union.

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss language?

I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"We're women. We've got double standards to live up to."
- Ally McBeal

[Richard Delorme]

Dan Pop a écrit :

In <t7**********@127.0.0.1> Alberto =?iso-8859-1?Q?Gim=E9nez?= <al****@teleline.es> writes:

El Tue, 13 Apr 2004 20:30:03 -0400, Joe Wright escribió:

With all due respect, Spain (Iberia) has four (more?) regions with
their own languages. Castille, Andalusia, Catalonia, Basque, etc.
Which of these are you talking about?

Spanish is Spanish, everywhere. Another thing is dialects, or people's
pronounciation. Other topic is Catalan, Basque, "gallego" (don't know
translation), which are languages on their own.

Then, why do I see "Castellano" on so many DVDs, instead of "Español"?

Four languages are spoken in Spain: Basque, Castilian, Catalan and
Galician. So, inside Spain, Spanish (Español) is called Castilian
(Castellano) to distinguish it from the other languages. As Castilian is
the main language spoken in Spain, and the one that spread out, outside
Spain it is usually called Spanish.

--
Richard

[Mark Henning]

"Joona I Palaste" wrote...

Thomas Stegen <ts*****@cis.strath.ac.uk> scribbled the following:

Irrwahn Grausewitz wrote:
The 'ae' is scandinavian and not purely danish. It is a single letter
though and has its own place in the alphabeth (it is number 27).

Norwegian examples: "baer" (berry), "skjaere" (cut) (also of interest is
is the skj sound, does not exist in english really, sort of like "ssh").
The ae is a single glyph though, æ.
So the above examples would be "bær" and "skjære".

It's *NOT* "Scandinavian". Only Danish and Norwegian (and maybe
Icelandic) use it. Finnish and Swedish use ä and ö instead of æ and ø.

'ae' is also used in English (e.g. dæmon, etc...) either as a single glyph
or two, it is the same. They most likely have roots in Danish/Scandinavian
or whatever (I don't know, i'm not an etymologist). Our little island has
been invaded so many times that very little of English actually originated
here. (Which, i suppose, is why there is very little consistency between
written words and sounds.)

M Henning

[Mark Henning]

Joona I Palaste wrote...

Dan Pop wrote:

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss

language?
I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

There is a kind of precedent for this. When it comes to history, I am mostly
ignorant, but, AFAIK, whenever it was that the UK was formed, English became
the "only official language" in the kingdom, but Welsh (and Irish and
Scottish to a lesser extent) has still survived. People still taught their
children to speak welsh down through the generations as well as english,
refusing to turn their back on their culture and language.

M Henning

[Dan Pop]

In <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

If Russia had never conquered Finland, the entire Finnish culture and
language would have ceased to exist as Finland would have been
assimilated into this aforementioned union.

How do you know? European minorities are notorious for their resistance
to *cultural* assimilation. Are the Finns any weaker than the Occitans
or the Csangos (which are far smaller ethnic groups)? Any idea about
how many people are native speakers of the fourth official Swiss language?

I don't *know*, I'm speculating here. Maybe the culture wouldn't have
totally vanished, but the language would. The Swedish monarchy at the
time was very intent in making Swedish the only official language in
their entire kingdom.

Which was an additional reason for the minorities to fiercely fight for
preserving their cultures (and the language is an essential part of a
culture).

The Romanians in Transylvania have been under Hungarian domination for
1000 years (until the end of WW1). To oppose the authorities'
efforts to integrate them and their culture they have switched from
the Christion Orthodox church (which was independent and, therefore,
had no one to defend it) to the Greek Catholic one (which was under
the Pope's authority, so the Hungarians couldn't touch it) and they
adopted Latin names, which could not be "hungarised". You'd think
that the Hungarians learned something from that, but they didn't:
for about 5 years, during WW2, part of Transylvania was again under
Hungarian rule and the first thing the Hungarian authorities did was to
hungarise the Romanian names on the newly issued identity cards. Which
created lots of headaches after the war, when the same person appeared
under different names on different documents... A former teacher of
mine had to prove in a court of justice that Niculas Cornel and Nikuláss
Kornéliusz (not sure about the Hungarian version) were one and the same
person, as the name on his birth certificate was at odds with the name
on his highschool graduation diploma.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Richard Delorme]

Mark Henning a écrit :

'ae' is also used in English (e.g. dæmon, etc...) either as a single glyph
or two, it is the same. They most likely have roots in Danish/Scandinavian
or whatever (I don't know, i'm not an etymologist).

The AE ligature is quite common in Latin. Dæmon is a Latin word, with
the spelling preserved in English.

--
Richard

[Dan Pop]

In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation should be
obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your partner, you must use
a language he understands (as any bridge player *should* know).

If they do it between themselves, ignorance doesn't need any further
explanation.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Joona I Palaste]

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation should be
obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your partner, you must use
a language he understands (as any bridge player *should* know).

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the Americans and
never the other way around?

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"You will be given the plague."
- Montgomery Burns

[Neil Cerutti]

In article <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation
should be obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your
partner, you must use a language he understands (as any bridge
player *should* know).

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the
Americans and never the other way around?

Because if you don't we'll take our soccer ball and go home.

--
Neil Cerutti
"We have to show some respect for the dead!"
"Why? The dead are losers."
-- _Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things_

[Joona I Palaste]

Neil Cerutti <ho*****@yahoo.com> scribbled the following:

In article <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:
But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation
should be obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your
partner, you must use a language he understands (as any bridge
player *should* know).

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the
Americans and never the other way around?

Because if you don't we'll take our soccer ball and go home.

As long as you keep your hands off our petanque balls, be my guest.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark
to read anyway."
- Groucho Marx

[Dan Pop]

In <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:

In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation should be
obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your partner, you must use
a language he understands (as any bridge player *should* know).

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the Americans and
never the other way around?

Because the (average) European is supposed to be able to figure out
the difference between the European billion and the American billion,
while the (average) American isn't. I'm not saying this to belittle
the Americans, but multiculturality is a far more common concept in
Europe (and especially continental Europe) than in America. See the
discussion about the American audience of Asterix.

So, it boils down to whether you want to communicate with your partner or
you want to deliberately confuse/misled him. Also note that the European
billion is too big to be of much practical use and even when it could be
used, the European mass media prefer "thousand of milliards" instead. So,
in real life communication, it is only the American billion that gets
actually used.

Is "pragmatism" a concept beyond your grasp?

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Neil Cerutti]

In article <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Neil Cerutti <ho*****@yahoo.com> scribbled the following:

In article <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Dan Pop <Da*****@cern.ch> scribbled the following:
In <c4**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi> Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:
>But how does this explain the fact that Europeans use "billion" in the
>wrong way too?

If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation
should be obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your
partner, you must use a language he understands (as any bridge
player *should* know).

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the
Americans and never the other way around?

Because if you don't we'll take our soccer ball and go home.

As long as you keep your hands off our petanque balls, be my
guest.

Heh. ;-)

--
Neil Cerutti
"We have to show some respect for the dead!"
"Why? The dead are losers."
-- _Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things_

[Stephen Sprunk]

"Joe Wright" <jo********@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:6b********************@comcast.com...

It's just that milliard doesn't seem to roll off the tongue that well. I
don't believe I've heard it in conversation.

Sure it does -- in French :)

It seems to me we Americans got it wrong -- a million millions should be a
billion. In that system, the -illion number can be trivially determined by
dividing the base-10 log of a number by six. In the American usage, you
have to divide the base-10 log by three and subtract one.

Since I speak both French and US English, this drives me nuts; I never even
thought to ask what British (or other non-US) English speakers used. This
strikes me as rather similar to the mixed use of 12- and 24-hour time in
English depending on the locale.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin

[Old Wolf]

mw*****@newsguy.com (Michael Wojcik) wrote:
Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

Yes, and this means that neither Spanish nor English is "pronounced
as written". Finnish is *almost* - the 'n' in "ng" or "nk" is not
pronounced like a normal 'n'. Otherwise it's "pronounced as written".

Japanese is pronounced as written, if you write it that way.

(OK, n' can be pronounced as /n/ or /m/, but that's a trivial
difference and a mistake would never cause confusion.)

Some other differences (using the currently-popular system of romanization):
"sh" is not the same as 's' 'h'
"ei" is the same as "ee"
"g" is pronounced "ng" in some situations
syllabic "n" is sometimes "ng" and sometimes causes nasalisation of
the preceding vowel instead
"i" and "u" are unvoiced in some situations
"h" before an unvoiced vowel, has a different sound
"j" in "ji" is slightly different to "j" in "ja" (actually I'm not
sure about that one)

None of these would change the meanings of words, or cause confusion.
Certainly if you use the Japanese letters then there is no doubt.
I suppose it is as close as we are going to get to "pronounced as written".

Another point: some words are written the same way, but are distinguished
by tonality (eg. rising then falling has 1 meaning, falling then rising
has another). Can't think of any examples offhand, sorry. Chinese is
even worse in this respect. Does this count?

Also - does C count as 'pronounced as written' ?

[Joona I Palaste]

Stephen Sprunk <st*****@sprunk.org> scribbled the following:

"Joe Wright" <jo********@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:6b********************@comcast.com...

It's just that milliard doesn't seem to roll off the tongue that well. I
don't believe I've heard it in conversation.

Sure it does -- in French :) It seems to me we Americans got it wrong -- a million millions should be a
billion. In that system, the -illion number can be trivially determined by
dividing the base-10 log of a number by six. In the American usage, you
have to divide the base-10 log by three and subtract one. Since I speak both French and US English, this drives me nuts; I never even
thought to ask what British (or other non-US) English speakers used. This
strikes me as rather similar to the mixed use of 12- and 24-hour time in
English depending on the locale.

I have to agree, but as Dan Pop said, Americans are used to everyone
doing things their way, while Europeans are used to prepare to do things
in other ways, so it's unlikely Americans will ever change to the more
logical system. More probably Europeans will change to the less logical
system, as importance of getting understood overweighs importance of
doing things right. This applies to pretty much any other cultural
difference between Americans and Europeans, too.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"To know me IS to love me."
- JIPsoft

[Stephen Sprunk]

"Joona I Palaste" <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the Americans and
never the other way around?

As an American who speaks four languages and has travelled internationally,
I try to be sensitive to such things, but it just doesn't come naturally to
us. I see three reasons why -- meant as explanation, not justification:

1. IMHO, you can't understand how other cultures differ until you speak a
second language. The US is virtually the only place on earth you can life
your entire without consistently running into other languages, due to its
relatively homogenous culture, large population, and isolated geography.

2. English, both the American and British forms, has completely replaced
French (and further back, Latin) as the lingua franca of international
communications, especially in commerce. This reinforces reason 1 because
Americans are thus under no pressure to learn another language.

3. The US is one of a handful of countries with a media industry large
enough to export its culture (books, movies, TV, etc). It's often joked
that the US's only significant export is its culture, while it imports
everything else.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin

[Joona I Palaste]

Stephen Sprunk <st*****@sprunk.org> scribbled the following:

"Joona I Palaste" <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...

Why is it always the Europeans who have to pander to the Americans and
never the other way around?

As an American who speaks four languages and has travelled internationally,
I try to be sensitive to such things, but it just doesn't come naturally to
us. I see three reasons why -- meant as explanation, not justification: 1. IMHO, you can't understand how other cultures differ until you speak a
second language. The US is virtually the only place on earth you can life
your entire without consistently running into other languages, due to its
relatively homogenous culture, large population, and isolated geography. 2. English, both the American and British forms, has completely replaced
French (and further back, Latin) as the lingua franca of international
communications, especially in commerce. This reinforces reason 1 because
Americans are thus under no pressure to learn another language. 3. The US is one of a handful of countries with a media industry large
enough to export its culture (books, movies, TV, etc). It's often joked
that the US's only significant export is its culture, while it imports
everything else.

I think #2 is (at least partly) the result of #3. The American
commercial influence over the rest of the world was just too strong for
any other language than English to hold up.
Anyway, I agree to all three points, and I'm glad you're not using them
as justification. (IOW, you don't think that "might makes right", unlike
some Americans I know (none of them are from this newsgroup), who I
decline to name.)
What can be done about it? Diddly-squat, I'm afraid. The only possible
remedy would be to re-colonise North America, this time with more than
one nationality, but there's a snowball's chance in hell of that,
especially with the US having the world's largest military army.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"Hasta la Vista, Abie!"
- Bart Simpson

[Irrwahn Grausewitz]

ol*****@inspire.net.nz (Old Wolf) wrote:
<snip>

Also - does C count as 'pronounced as written' ?

Not necessarily, but it is 'translated as written',
as opposed to 'translated as intended'.

Regards
--
Irrwahn Grausewitz (ir*******@freenet.de)
welcome to clc: http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt
clc faq-list : http://www.faqs.org/faqs/C-faq/faq/
clc OT guide : http://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html

[CBFalconer]

Dan Pop wrote:

.... snip ...
If they do it when discussing with Americans, the explanation
should be obvious: if your intent is to communicate with your
partner, you must use a language he understands (as any bridge
player *should* know).

Failures there can become _very_ expensive, as any club player (as
opposed to duplicate) can attest. Why do these idiots always cut
ME as their partner :-( Then they cut out of the game before I
have had a chance to take suitable advantage of them :-((

--
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office
in foreign policy matters with war on my mind." - Bush

[Keith Thompson]

"Stephen Sprunk" <st*****@sprunk.org> writes:
[...]

As an American who speaks four languages and has travelled internationally,
I try to be sensitive to such things, but it just doesn't come naturally to
us. I see three reasons why -- meant as explanation, not justification:

1. IMHO, you can't understand how other cultures differ until you speak a
second language. The US is virtually the only place on earth you can life
your entire without consistently running into other languages, due to its
relatively homogenous culture, large population, and isolated geography.

[...]

Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.

Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A: American.

If I were a benevolent dictator imposing a universal language, I'd
pick something far more regular than English (though it's hard to beat
it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).

On the other hand, as a native speaker of American English, I'm only
too glad to take advantage of the existing situation. If the dominant
language of this newsgroup were something other than English, I'd be
in deep trouble.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
Schroedinger does Shakespeare: "To be *and* not to be"

[Richard Bos]

Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> wrote:

"Stephen Sprunk" <st*****@sprunk.org> writes:
[...]

As an American who speaks four languages and has travelled internationally,
I try to be sensitive to such things, but it just doesn't come naturally to
us. I see three reasons why -- meant as explanation, not justification:

1. IMHO, you can't understand how other cultures differ until you speak a
second language. The US is virtually the only place on earth you can life
your entire without consistently running into other languages, due to its
relatively homogenous culture, large population, and isolated geography.
Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.

Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A: American.

English. No, not British - the Welsh sometimes speak Cymru, and the
Scots Scottish.

USAnians speak zero languages, plus one uncategorisable bastardisation
of the language of the last answer ;-p
If I were a benevolent dictator imposing a universal language, I'd
pick something far more regular than English (though it's hard to beat
it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).

Possible, but that may also be because it is an amazingly bad way of
holding a spelling contest. In the .nl and .be, we have our yearly
"Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal", but that consists of a number of
spoken _sentences_, which the candidates need to write down. That's much
more realistic, IMO.
It's not a school children's activity, either - the contestants are
adults, both a group of celebs and a group of selected "unknown"
candidates - plus, of course, everybody who sits behind the telly and
plays along, including yours truly - and the celebs, of course, tend not
to do as well as the others. Usually, a Belgian wins - last year, a
Belgian guy won with 0 - yes, zero - errors. That was bleedin' amazing.

Richard

[Ben Pfaff]

ol*****@inspire.net.nz (Old Wolf) writes:

None of these would change the meanings of words, or cause confusion.
Certainly if you use the Japanese letters then there is no doubt.

Not entirely true: if I recall correctly, the hiragana character
for "ha" is sometimes pronounced "wa", the hiragana character for
"wo" is sometimes pronounced "o", and there may be other
exceptions that I am unaware of.
--
"To get the best out of this book, I strongly recommend that you read it."
--Richard Heathfield

[Joona I Palaste]

Richard Bos <rl*@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> scribbled the following:

Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> wrote:

"Stephen Sprunk" <st*****@sprunk.org> writes:
[...]

> As an American who speaks four languages and has travelled internationally,
> I try to be sensitive to such things, but it just doesn't come naturally to
> us. I see three reasons why -- meant as explanation, not justification:
>
> 1. IMHO, you can't understand how other cultures differ until you speak a
> second language. The US is virtually the only place on earth you can life
> your entire without consistently running into other languages, due to its
> relatively homogenous culture, large population, and isolated geography.

If I were a benevolent dictator imposing a universal language, I'd
pick something far more regular than English (though it's hard to beat
it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).

Possible, but that may also be because it is an amazingly bad way of
holding a spelling contest. In the .nl and .be, we have our yearly
"Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal", but that consists of a number of
spoken _sentences_, which the candidates need to write down. That's much
more realistic, IMO.
It's not a school children's activity, either - the contestants are
adults, both a group of celebs and a group of selected "unknown"
candidates - plus, of course, everybody who sits behind the telly and
plays along, including yours truly - and the celebs, of course, tend not
to do as well as the others. Usually, a Belgian wins - last year, a
Belgian guy won with 0 - yes, zero - errors. That was bleedin' amazing.

People here might know next to nothing about Finnish, but like it's
been said, Finnish is pronounced pretty much like it's written. I have
studied (at least cursorily) many languages, and I truly believe Finnish
gets the closest to a 1-1 correspondence between written glyphs and
spoken sounds. As a child, when I first heard of the complex
pronunciation rules of English, I tried very hard to find such rules in
Finnish. The closest I ever got was "ng" and "nk" which are pronounced
like the "ng" and "nk" in English, not as "n" and "g" or "n" and "k"
separately.
German is *almost* like Finnish, but even that language has "ei"
pronounced as "ai" and "ie" pronounced as "ii". (Phonetic renditions -
not to be read as English.)
I believe that the Finnish pronunciation system is by far the simplest
in the entire western world. That is not to say anything about the
Finnish grammar - it's mostly easy, but trying to explain the binding
rules between case suffixes and word stems can be extremely difficult
even for a native Finn.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"'So called' means: 'There is a long explanation for this, but I have no
time to explain it here.'"
- JIPsoft

[Mark Henning]

Richard Bos wrote:

English. No, not British - the Welsh sometimes speak Cymru, and the
Scots Scottish.

I believe, that the word you are looking for is Cymraeg. (Cymru = Wales)

[Mark Henning]

"Joona I Palaste" <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...

People here might know next to nothing about Finnish, but like it's
been said, Finnish is pronounced pretty much like it's written. I have
studied (at least cursorily) many languages, and I truly believe Finnish
gets the closest to a 1-1 correspondence between written glyphs and
spoken sounds. As a child, when I first heard of the complex
pronunciation rules of English, I tried very hard to find such rules in
Finnish. The closest I ever got was "ng" and "nk" which are pronounced
like the "ng" and "nk" in English, not as "n" and "g" or "n" and "k"
separately.
German is *almost* like Finnish, but even that language has "ei"
pronounced as "ai" and "ie" pronounced as "ii". (Phonetic renditions -
not to be read as English.)
I believe that the Finnish pronunciation system is by far the simplest
in the entire western world. That is not to say anything about the
Finnish grammar - it's mostly easy, but trying to explain the binding
rules between case suffixes and word stems can be extremely difficult
even for a native Finn.

Welsh is a highly phonetic language. To the extent that the spelling of the
words mutate depending on their context to match the way that syllables
mutate
when spoken verbally. Welsh is pronounced *exactly* as it is written.

M Henning

[Joona I Palaste]

Mark Henning <ma*******@btopenworld.com> scribbled the following:

"Joona I Palaste" <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...

People here might know next to nothing about Finnish, but like it's
been said, Finnish is pronounced pretty much like it's written. I have
studied (at least cursorily) many languages, and I truly believe Finnish
gets the closest to a 1-1 correspondence between written glyphs and
spoken sounds. As a child, when I first heard of the complex
pronunciation rules of English, I tried very hard to find such rules in
Finnish. The closest I ever got was "ng" and "nk" which are pronounced
like the "ng" and "nk" in English, not as "n" and "g" or "n" and "k"
separately.
German is *almost* like Finnish, but even that language has "ei"
pronounced as "ai" and "ie" pronounced as "ii". (Phonetic renditions -
not to be read as English.)
I believe that the Finnish pronunciation system is by far the simplest
in the entire western world. That is not to say anything about the
Finnish grammar - it's mostly easy, but trying to explain the binding
rules between case suffixes and word stems can be extremely difficult
even for a native Finn.

Welsh is a highly phonetic language. To the extent that the spelling of the
words mutate depending on their context to match the way that syllables
mutate
when spoken verbally. Welsh is pronounced *exactly* as it is written.

Not knowing anything about Welsh, I was unaware of this. Could you give
some examples of this?

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"How come even in my fantasies everyone is a jerk?"
- Daria Morgendorfer

[Richard Bos]

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> wrote:

Richard Bos wrote:

English. No, not British - the Welsh sometimes speak Cymru, and the
Scots Scottish.

I believe, that the word you are looking for is Cymraeg. (Cymru = Wales)

You may well be right, _I_ don't speak the lingo <g>.

Richard

[Dan Pop]

In <ln************@nuthaus.mib.org> Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> writes:

it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).

There are such contests for French, too. The winners are usually NOT
native French speakers.

BTW, the average native French speaker can speak French grammatically
correct, but cannot write French grammatically correct. For most verbs,
several tenses and forms are pronounced identically, but written
differently. Since they learned speaking instinctively, get it right
when speaking is trivial, while getting it right when writing requires
a solid understanding of the French grammar (otherwise, it's trivially
easy to mix up, e.g. the infinitive and past participle of most regular
verbs).

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Mark Henning]

"Joona I Palaste" wrote...

Mark Henning <ma*******@btopenworld.com> scribbled the following:

Welsh is a highly phonetic language. To the extent that the spelling of the words mutate depending on their context to match the way that syllables
mutate
when spoken verbally. Welsh is pronounced *exactly* as it is written.

Not knowing anything about Welsh, I was unaware of this. Could you give
some examples of this?

Examples of mutation? Well, since this thread has already strayed from any
semblance of topicallity...

Bear in mind i am not a native welsh speaker, indeed I am only passing
familiar with the language.

in = yn
Wales = Cymru
in Wales = yng Nghymru

Dydw i ddim yn byw yng Nghymru.

M Henning.

[Joona I Palaste]

Mark Henning <ma*******@btopenworld.com> scribbled the following:

"Joona I Palaste" wrote...

Mark Henning <ma*******@btopenworld.com> scribbled the following:

> Welsh is a highly phonetic language. To the extent that the spelling of the > words mutate depending on their context to match the way that syllables
> mutate
> when spoken verbally. Welsh is pronounced *exactly* as it is written.
Not knowing anything about Welsh, I was unaware of this. Could you give
some examples of this?

Examples of mutation? Well, since this thread has already strayed from any
semblance of topicallity... Bear in mind i am not a native welsh speaker, indeed I am only passing
familiar with the language. in = yn
Wales = Cymru
in Wales = yng Nghymru Dydw i ddim yn byw yng Nghymru.

Wow, you sure use a lot of "y" letters in Welsh. =)
How do you go about pronouncing all that? It looks like gibberish to me.
And what does it mean? I can only fathom the "yng Nghymru" part, and
even that only because you translated it for me.
All this reminds me of the "sandhi" phenomenon in Sanskrit. The sandhi
is a rigid set of rules of sound assimilation between adjacent words,
or within one word. It is reflected in both speech and writing. Is this
the case with Welsh too?

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"Products like that make me wish I could menstruate."
- Andy Richter

[Mark Henning]

Joona I Palaste wrote...

Mark Henning <ma*******@btopenworld.com> scribbled the following:

Bear in mind i am not a native welsh speaker, indeed I am only passing
familiar with the language.

in = yn
Wales = Cymru
in Wales = yng Nghymru

Dydw i ddim yn byw yng Nghymru.

Wow, you sure use a lot of "y" letters in Welsh. =)

In welsh, y and w are vowels.
How do you go about pronouncing all that? It looks like gibberish to me.
And what does it mean? I can only fathom the "yng Nghymru" part, and
even that only because you translated it for me.
It means "I do not live in Wales" which is true. In fact I only ever
visited the country once, and that was as a small child. As for
pronunciation, I am not entirely sure, since while I can read and write
very basic welsh, I have never actually *spoke* it :) (it is rarely,
if ever, used outside of wales). Though I believe it pronounced thusly:

Dadoo ee thim un bayoo ung ghymroo
All this reminds me of the "sandhi" phenomenon in Sanskrit. The sandhi
is a rigid set of rules of sound assimilation between adjacent words,
or within one word. It is reflected in both speech and writing. Is this
the case with Welsh too?

I don't know, i'm not a linguist :).

It sounds similar. Welsh seems to 'flow' from one word to the next. The
mutations allow the boundaries between the words to be slurred. (more
precisely, the mutations probably arose because the word boundaries were
slurred due to the evolution of the language.)

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be thought to
mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with a vowel, as it is
dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a lot more severe.

[Arthur J. O'Dwyer]

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Richard Bos <rl*@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> scribbled the following:

Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> wrote:

If I were a benevolent dictator imposing a universal language, I'd
pick something far more regular than English (though it's hard to beat
it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).
Possible, but that may also be because it is an amazingly bad way of
holding a spelling contest. In the .nl and .be, we have our yearly
"Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal", but that consists of a number of
spoken _sentences_, which the candidates need to write down. That's much
more realistic, IMO.

People here might know next to nothing about Finnish, but like it's
been said, Finnish is pronounced pretty much like it's written. I have
studied (at least cursorily) many languages, and I truly believe Finnish
gets the closest to a 1-1 correspondence between written glyphs and
spoken sounds.

Closer even than Spanish? I think the only significant irregularities
in Spanish pronunciation are what happens to 'c[aou]' versus 'c[ei]' and
'gu[ao]' versus 'gu[ei]'. But I'm a little out of it, so maybe I missed
a couple. ;)

-Arthur

[Joona I Palaste]

Arthur J. O'Dwyer <aj*@nospam.andrew.cmu.edu> scribbled the following:

On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Joona I Palaste wrote:

Richard Bos <rl*@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> scribbled the following:

> Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> wrote:
>> If I were a benevolent dictator imposing a universal language, I'd
>> pick something far more regular than English (though it's hard to beat
>> it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
>> language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
>> is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).
>
> Possible, but that may also be because it is an amazingly bad way of
> holding a spelling contest. In the .nl and .be, we have our yearly
> "Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal", but that consists of a number of
> spoken _sentences_, which the candidates need to write down. That's much
> more realistic, IMO.

People here might know next to nothing about Finnish, but like it's
been said, Finnish is pronounced pretty much like it's written. I have
studied (at least cursorily) many languages, and I truly believe Finnish
gets the closest to a 1-1 correspondence between written glyphs and
spoken sounds.

Closer even than Spanish? I think the only significant irregularities
in Spanish pronunciation are what happens to 'c[aou]' versus 'c[ei]' and
'gu[ao]' versus 'gu[ei]'. But I'm a little out of it, so maybe I missed
a couple. ;)

Well, like I said above, Finnish has *no* irregularities, if you don't
count "ng" and "nk". So it is closer to a 1-1 correspondence than
Spanish.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"We're women. We've got double standards to live up to."
- Ally McBeal

[Michael Wojcik]

In article <c5**********@oravannahka.helsinki.fi>, Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:

What can be done about it? Diddly-squat, I'm afraid. The only possible
remedy would be to re-colonise North America, this time with more than
one nationality, but there's a snowball's chance in hell of that,
especially with the US having the world's largest military army.

The previous colonization involved more than one nationality.
Depending on your definition of "colonization", it was a 300-500 year
process involving at least three major European ethnicities, many
African ones (generally not by choice), and significant contributions
from South America and Asia. (There were not, AFAIK, many native
Australians who participated in the colonization of North America,
and native Antarticans tend to keep a low profile.)

And the folks who were already here were of more than one nationality
(pick a different word if you define "nationality" restrictively) too.
Five hundred is the popular estimation.

The folks who won the wars and had the money were nearly all
anglophone, so in the early US English became the dominant language,
and nothing else really had much chance of challenging it. And
because the US is a relatively young country, it had relatively
advanced communications technologies in place as it extended its
borders. That encouraged language homogeneity and tended to suppress
regional variation.

Still, there are plenty of Spanish speakers in the US. Most have at
least some English, but not all.

(By the way, Joona, sorry I never responded to your last post in the
comics thread - I was away from Usenet for a while due to a personal
emergency. My partner's car died and we had to get her a replacement
right quick. I'll answer your questions by email when I have a
chance.)

--
Michael Wojcik mi************@microfocus.com

The penance was not building the field and bringing back Shoeless Joe
Jackson, but rather tossing on the field with his father. -- Kevin Aug

[Richard Delorme]

Dan Pop a écrit :

In <ln************@nuthaus.mib.org> Keith Thompson <ks***@mib.org> writes:

it for richness of vocabulary). I've heard that English is the only
language in which spelling bees are held (contests in which the object
is to correctly spell words after hearing them spoken).
There are such contests for French, too. The winners are usually NOT
native French speakers.

That's not true. The most popular contest is "la dictée de Pivot" also
known as "Les Dicos d'or" and the winners are usually French, but there
is a category for non native French speakers.
BTW, the average native French speaker can speak French grammatically
correct, but cannot write French grammatically correct. For most verbs,
several tenses and forms are pronounced identically, but written
differently. Since they learned speaking instinctively, get it right
when speaking is trivial, while getting it right when writing requires
a solid understanding of the French grammar (otherwise, it's trivially
easy to mix up, e.g. the infinitive and past participle of most regular
verbs).

Although your last example is a common mistake, it's very easy to avoid
it for a native french speaker: just replace the verb by another one
(usually "prendre") and its pronunciation discriminates between the
infinitive and the past participle. The most difficult part of the
French grammar is the agreement of the adjectives and past participles.
In some cases, it only depends on the order of the words in the sentence.
Besides French grammar, spelling French is difficult because of the many
ways (not as much as English, though) to write the same sound and
because of the presence of mute letters (much more than English), e.g.
"saint", "sain", "sein", "seing", "ceint", "cinq" all share an identical
pronunciation but a different meaning.

--
Richard

[Keith Thompson]

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be thought to
mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with a vowel, as it is
dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed by a
vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
Schroedinger does Shakespeare: "To be *and* not to be"

[CBFalconer]

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

[Martin Dickopp]

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.com> writes:

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

Would you say that it is /possible/ (in correct English) to pronounce
the "e" in "the cat" like the first vowel of the word "ago"? Does the
same apply to the "e" in "the ant"?

Martin
--
,--. Martin Dickopp, Dresden, Germany ,= ,-_-. =.
/ ,- ) http://www.zero-based.org/ ((_/)o o(\_))
\ `-' `-'(. .)`-'
`-. Debian, a variant of the GNU operating system. \_/

[Joe Wright]

CBFalconer wrote:

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

Are you sure? How about "The President of the United States"? I would
pronounce it "Thuh President of thee United States". You not?

--
Joe Wright mailto:jo********@comcast.net
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein ---

[CBFalconer]

Martin Dickopp wrote:

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.com> writes:

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]
There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

Would you say that it is /possible/ (in correct English) to
pronounce the "e" in "the cat" like the first vowel of the word
"ago"? Does the same apply to the "e" in "the ant"?

IMO, no, but I may be mistaking the sound represented. The two
acceptible prononciations of "the" are thee and thuh. I believe
you are referring to a "tha" sound, which I expect is limited to
some rural areas in the UK and the Ottawa valley in Canada, and
others unknown to me.

I have no facility in sound representations :-(

--
Churchill and Bush can both be considered wartime leaders, just
as Secretariat and Mr Ed were both horses. - James Rhodes.

[CBFalconer]

Joe Wright wrote:

CBFalconer wrote:

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]

There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

Are you sure? How about "The President of the United States"? I
would pronounce it "Thuh President of thee United States". You not?

I would use either "thuh" or "thee" with abandonment there.
Assuming I want to make any pronouncements on the subject :-)
However, I am not the ultimate authority.

--
Churchill and Bush can both be considered wartime leaders, just
as Secretariat and Mr Ed were both horses. - James Rhodes.

[Peter Pichler]

"Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.ch> wrote in message
news:c5***********@sunnews.cern.ch...

BTW, the average native French speaker can speak French grammatically
correct, but cannot write French grammatically correct.

The same can be said about the English. The first time I've read 'their'
instead of 'there' in a paper, it confused me so much that I had to go
to the author to ask him WTF he'd meant. The same for 'write' and 'right'
and many others (such as 'see' and 'sea', in an attempt to bring this
thread back on topic).

Peter

[Alan Balmer]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 18:20:50 +0100, "Peter Pichler" <pi*****@pobox.sk>
wrote:

"Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.ch> wrote in message
news:c5***********@sunnews.cern.ch...

BTW, the average native French speaker can speak French grammatically
correct, but cannot write French grammatically correct.

Shouldn't that be "the average native French speaker can speak
grammatically correct French , but cannot write grammatically correct
French"?
The same can be said about the English. The first time I've read 'their'
instead of 'there' in a paper, it confused me so much that I had to go
to the author to ask him WTF he'd meant.
My current pet peeve is "lose" and "loose".
The same for 'write' and 'right'
and many others (such as 'see' and 'sea', in an attempt to bring this
thread back on topic).

Peter

--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
re************************@att.net

[Arthur J. O'Dwyer]

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004, Martin Dickopp wrote:

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.com> writes:

Keith Thompson wrote:

"Mark Henning" <ma*******@btopenworld.com> writes:
[...]
There is a similar phenomonon in english. The word 'a' can be
thought to mutate to 'an' when it precedes a word beginning with
a vowel, as it is dificult to pronounce otherwise. Welsh is a
lot more severe.

And similarly, "the" is pronounced with a long 'e' when followed
by a vowel, though the spelling doesn't change.

Oh? I would pronounce "the ant" just the same as "the cat".

Would you say that it is /possible/ (in correct English) to pronounce
the "e" in "the cat" like the first vowel of the word "ago"? Does the
same apply to the "e" in "the ant"?

Assuming you pronounce "ago" "uh-go," not "ah-go," then certainly.
Yes and yes.

However, Keith is right, at least in my dialect of American English!
I didn't realize it until I repeated some sentences to myself and watched
which pronunciation I used:

"For Pete's sake, get in the boat!"
"For Pete's sake, get in the airplane!"

"Have you seen the caterpillar?"
"Have you seen the anteater?"

"The President of the United States of America!"

Repeat these sentences at full conversational speed, without
trying to pronounce the "the"s any particular way. When I do
that, I find that I am unconsciously inserting a sort of "y"
sound in between "the" and "airplane," and so on, thus turning
the "thuh" into a "thee" before a vowel. It's very subtle, and
it's not wrong English not to make the switch in pronunciation,
but I think it's something that comes naturally to speakers of
at least one American English. :)

Very interesting! (but off-topic)

-Arthur