English language question

[Dave Thompson]

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:38:34 GMT, Default User

The musical was "Meet me in St. Louis."

I'll think you find that those songs were written by people who weren't
native St. Louisans and quite possibly had never been there. They also
had other considerations, like how the song sounded.

The "St. Looey" pronounciation was certainly not prevalent around 1945,
otherwise there'd be a significant number of people still using that. It
is the tendency in St. Louis to completely squash all French
pronounciations. The street name Gravois is not Grav-WAH, it is GRAV-oi
or GRAV-ois. My town of Florissant is FLOOR-uh-sant. Bellefontaine is
BELL-fountain.

And (at least some decades ago) Creve Coeur was "creeve core".
But Des Peres was "day pear", about as close to correct French as you
can get with a Midwestern accent. And Laclede, of course, is pretty
much the same either way.

But I've never found anything elsewhere to match the seemingly
gloriously redundant naming of Olive Street Road Boulevard.

The likelyhood of "St. Looie" being prevalent anytime recently is pretty
slim. It's one of those outsider things, like Frisco.

ObSortOfVaguelyOnTopic: "McAuto", the computer part (division?
subsidiary?) of McDonnell Douglass, long before Boeingization, was
once a big, I believe one of the biggest, (US) vendors of commercial
time-sharing services. But I have no recollection of that including C.

- David.Thompson1 at worldnet.att.net

 

[Default User]

And (at least some decades ago) Creve Coeur was "creeve core".

Sometime "Creeve Cur".

But Des Peres was "day pear", about as close to correct French as you
can get with a Midwestern accent.

I usually hear "Duh Peer". Of course, the river is frequently (jokingly)
called the River Despair.

But I've never found anything elsewhere to match the seemingly
gloriously redundant naming of Olive Street Road Boulevard.

Olive Street Road was the road that took you to Olive Street.



Brian Rodenborn

 

[John Smith]

However Canadians are naturally confused, being simultaneously
attacked from childhood on all spelling fronts by intolerant
adjacent spellmeisters. This will not be resolved until we
**acheive**

Is this a typo or is it the way you were taught?

Canadian hegemony. (and then we have to worry about
Quebec).

They will just go on spelling it "obtenir."

 

[Joona I Palaste]

Is this a typo or is it the way you were taught?

Well, I've seen native English-speakers routinely write "wierd", so
"acheive" doesn't surprise me. I know I'm supposed to pick at people's
English skills, but the German skills of native English speakers often
annoy me. It's as if they knew when to write "ei" and when to write
"ie", then do it the exact opposite way.
Correct spellings of German words:
Words with "ie": Friede, Liebe, Dieb, Dienst, riechen (to smell),
mies, viel, Wien (the capital of Austria)
Words with "ei": mein, heil, Sonnschein, Teil, Ei, weiss, reichen (to
be enough), einfach, drei, Wein (wine)

 

[Dan Pop]

"acheive" doesn't surprise me. I know I'm supposed to pick at people's
English skills, but the German skills of native English speakers often
annoy me.

Do you realise that you get annoyed far too easily and by far too
insignificant things? And, at the same time, you don't seem to care
enough for the things that really matter.

A perfectly phrased and spelled, but incorrect sentence is far more
annoying than a badly spelled and phrased, but correct one.

Dan

 

[Default User]

Well, I've seen native English-speakers routinely write "wierd", so
"acheive" doesn't surprise me.

The first is usually due to the misapplication of, "I before E except
after C and when sounding as A as in neighbor and weigh." As "weird"
doesn't fit that rule (along with a raft of others) it can cause
confusion.

The word "achieve" doesn't cause such problems, and is more rarely seen
misspleled (sic). It's more likely a typo in this case.




Brian Rodenborn

 

[Default User]

Do you realise that you get annoyed far too easily and by far too
insignificant things? And, at the same time, you don't seem to care
enough for the things that really matter.

Damn that's good. If I was running a .sig I'd swipe, but I'm not so I
won't.



Brian Rodenborn