Return-Path: Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0tGVlt-0000ZTC; Fri, 17 Nov 95 20:44 EET Message-Id: Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 8D64EB1E ; Fri, 17 Nov 1995 19:44:20 +0100 Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:54:02 BG Reply-To: IAD@BGEARN.BITNET Sender: Lojban list From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: Re: buffer vowel To: Veijo Vilva In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:39:53 -0500 from Content-Length: 1162 Lines: 23 On Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:39:53 -0500 John Cowan said: >la .iVAN. cusku di'e > >> I have no problem saying /D@ 'TeImz/ when I'm speaking English [...] > >Am I missing some subtle joke here? As an iggerant American, I was always >taught that "Thames" in that context is /tEmz/, although there are towns >in the U.S. that are called /TeImz/. No, it's one of the world's worst jokes. It's called English spelling. My familiarity with the river's English name (as with most English words) comes from reading original English texts (ju'i And: nothing to do with my being Bulgarian, merely with my not being English), so I was convinced that it was pronounced with the _th-_ of _thin_ and the _-ames_ of _James_ until John said it wasn't and I looked it up in a dictionary. (Yes, I know that guessing the pronunciation of an English word on the basis of the spelling is a risky affair, but one can't look up every single word one encounters.) I haven't often come across the name in conversation (one doesn't discuss English streams in polite Scottish society), and I have not been impressed by any mismatch between my ideas and reality. Now I know better. --Ivan