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"why can't the english learn to speak?" (Original Post) niyad Apr 2013 OP
"The French don't care what they do as long as they pronunce it properly".. nt rrneck Apr 2013 #1
Maybe they need subtitles. Fla_Democrat Apr 2013 #2
The other night, I tried to watch a 60s British film called, "The Knack" LeftInTX Apr 2013 #3
When I was a kid, I had trouble following everything said on Monty Python. Bucky Apr 2013 #15
I was lucky, I fled the south to live in Boston Warpy Apr 2013 #26
Reality is reflected in language. DeSwiss Apr 2013 #4
I'll raise you . . . enlightenment Apr 2013 #6
Excellent metaphors! DeSwiss Apr 2013 #10
Aren't they? enlightenment Apr 2013 #17
what about verbing? hfojvt Apr 2013 #21
Love it. enlightenment Apr 2013 #33
I just love Hobbes last line hfojvt Apr 2013 #40
Rather, the English were beaten senseless by waves of invaders Warpy Apr 2013 #27
Language appears to act like software when used in ways that create assuptions. Dragonfli Apr 2013 #8
Thank you..... DeSwiss Apr 2013 #9
That looks like a great resource! Dragonfli Apr 2013 #11
Some choice bits: DeSwiss Apr 2013 #12
thank you for this very sobering collection niyad Apr 2013 #14
De nada. DeSwiss Apr 2013 #35
And George finished that sage piece by ending it with a preposition....n/t monmouth3 Apr 2013 #13
Yes he did. He advanced the idea that.... DeSwiss Apr 2013 #23
"with which the language is cluttered up." ??? SharonAnn Apr 2013 #36
An example of a ''dead metaphor'' --- DeSwiss Apr 2013 #41
they're Vulgarians... opiate69 Apr 2013 #5
somebody once observed that "england and america are two countries separated by a common niyad Apr 2013 #7
Oscar Wilde, I believe. n/t SwissTony Apr 2013 #18
. . . niyad Apr 2013 #16
well when I snuck into a classroom, I used to learned hfojvt Apr 2013 #19
And don't forget go/went/gone. CBHagman Apr 2013 #20
When a person is executed, they are hanged; a picture is hung on the wall, however muriel_volestrangler Apr 2013 #22
It's proper to say "hanged" if referring to hanging as an execution method Spider Jerusalem Apr 2013 #25
exactly hfojvt Apr 2013 #30
because the next line is "for the cold-blooded murder of the english tongue" (rhyming) niyad Apr 2013 #42
In "Hot Fuzz," the London cop needs a translator for northern England mainer Apr 2013 #24
This one right? opiate69 Apr 2013 #29
Yeah! When I was up north in the UK, I had the same problem! mainer Apr 2013 #38
lol. I think there was a scene in Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels like that too... opiate69 Apr 2013 #39
I visited some distant cousins in Southern Germany (around Spaichingen) hfojvt Apr 2013 #31
That line was pretty funny about America not using it in years. Cleita Apr 2013 #28
There's not really such a thing as "proper spoken English" though Spider Jerusalem Apr 2013 #32
True. I was aware of different accents growing up, I decided to adopt a Cleita Apr 2013 #34
Great clip! Haven't seen that in "yars"! Thanks. nt Honeycombe8 Apr 2013 #37

rrneck

(17,671 posts)
1. "The French don't care what they do as long as they pronunce it properly".. nt
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 10:55 PM
Apr 2013


The hundred years war will never end.

LeftInTX

(24,560 posts)
3. The other night, I tried to watch a 60s British film called, "The Knack"
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 11:03 PM
Apr 2013

I didn't understand a word! The film was about being "mod" and the ongoing the sexual revolution. They had all sorts of different slang and phrases. I was totally lost.

Bucky

(53,805 posts)
15. When I was a kid, I had trouble following everything said on Monty Python.
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 10:08 AM
Apr 2013

I knew it was funny, but I missed a lot of the jokes because of the Estuary accent and the rapid delivery. When I bought a box set of the full Monty a couple of years ago, I found I understood it all perfectly.

I'm not sure what my point is in sharing that.

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
26. I was lucky, I fled the south to live in Boston
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:48 PM
Apr 2013

and there was enough crossover in slang that I can understand most of it.

However, my 6 yeas of French didn't prepare me for idiomatic French and I get lost very quickly. Even "Merde!" and "Merde, Encore!" didn't prepare me for a lot of films and recent novels.

If I want to feel really dumb, all I have to do is put a French film into the DVD player and turn off the subtitles.

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
4. Reality is reflected in language.
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 11:05 PM
Apr 2013
- And just as people are born, evolve and eventually die in reality, so do languages.

K&R

“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”

~George Orwell

enlightenment

(8,830 posts)
6. I'll raise you . . .
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 11:34 PM
Apr 2013
“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

- John Nicoll


hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
40. I just love Hobbes last line
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 05:00 PM
Apr 2013

"maybe someday we can make language a complete impediment to understanding"

but who uses words like impediment?

Pretty high-brow for a comic strip.

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
27. Rather, the English were beaten senseless by waves of invaders
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:52 PM
Apr 2013

who insisted their own languages be adopted. The English, being entirely perverse, kept a death grip on the most annoying parts of the former language to flummox the invaders.

Case in point: the "gh" monster, that pair of letters that is pronounced differently from word to word, e.g. "through," "laugh," "caught," "eight."

Dragonfli

(10,622 posts)
8. Language appears to act like software when used in ways that create assuptions.
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 01:45 AM
Apr 2013
It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.

Consider the following paired sets of propositions, in which Standard English alternates with English-Prime (E-Prime):

lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.

I suggest reading more on the subject of e-prime there is much more at the link provided, this is old school stuff I studied decades ago and have unfortunately not applied very well over the years
http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm


I enjoy laurie Anderson's piece called "language is a virus (from outer space)" for different, artistic reasons. I think you can find it on youtube, it was amazing when I saw it performed live
 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
9. Thank you.....
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 02:40 AM
Apr 2013

...for the link. It's good to see others with their eyes wide open.

- It's not easy to Dedroidify.

Dragonfli

(10,622 posts)
11. That looks like a great resource!
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:00 AM
Apr 2013

I see all my favorites and more, some I've never heard off.
Any resource with Alan Watts AND Bill Hicks on the same resource page has to be good, I'm ashamed to say I am only up on less than a third of those listed, looks like I have more dedroidification to do

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
12. Some choice bits:
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:30 AM
Apr 2013

"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." ~Carl Sagan

[center][/center]

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves." ~Dresden James

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." ~Edward R. Murrow

"If one wants to recognize effortlessly the essense of politics, let one reflect upon the fact that it was a Hitler who was able to make the world hold its breath for many years. The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics in general as no other fact can." ~Wilhelm Reich, The mass psychology of fascism
-
Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a 'communication bypass'. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms ('downsizing' for 'firing of many employees') or deliberately ambiguous phrases ('wet work' for 'assassination'). Doublespeak is distinguished from other euphemisms through its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions.
-
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." ~George Orwell
-
"There are no political solutions, only technological ones, the rest is propaganda." ~Jacques Ellul
-
"Don't you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-Bottling Association? And don't you know they would allow thousands and millions to die if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is." ~Robert Ingersoll, A Lay Sermon
-
"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us." ~Leo Tolstoy

RAW: Government

"What would you think of a man who not only kept an arsenal in his home, but was collecting at enormous financial sacrifice a second arsenal to protect the first one? What would you say if this man so frightened his neighbors that they in turn were collecting weapons to protect themselves from him?
What if this man spent ten times as much money on his expensive weapons as he did on the education of his children?

What if one of his children criticized his hobby and he called that child a traitor and a bum and disowned him?
And he took another child who obeyed him faithfully and armed that child and sent it out into the world to attack neighbors?

What would you say about a man who introduces poisons into the water he drinks and the air he breathes?
What if this man not only is feuding with the people on his block but involves himself in the quarrels of others in distant parts of the city and even in the suburbs?

Such a man would clearly be a paranoid schizophrenic... with homicidal tendencies."

Robert Anton Wilson

"Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed." ~I.F. Stone

"How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does it is murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder... Only get enough people to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?" ~Adin Ballou, 1845

"An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'" ~St. Augustine

"Practically speaking, no government knows any limits to its power except the endurance of the people." ~Lysander Spooner, Trial by Jury

"Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace!" ironic slogan by Harry Elmer Barnes, historian

Interviewer: If you were elected president what's the first thing you would do?
Robert Anton Wilson: Resign.

He was harassed, but still he spoke with authority. He was, in fact, characteristic of the best type of dominant male in the world at this time. He was fifty-five years old, tough, shrewd, unburdened by the complicated ethical ambiguities which puzzle intellectuals, and had long ago decided that the world was a mean son-of-a-bitch in which only the most cunning and ruthless can survive. He was also as kind as was possible for one holding that ultra-Darwinian philosophy; and he genuinely loved children and dogs, unless they were on the site of something that had to be bombed in the National Interest. He still retained some sense of humor, despite the burdens of his almost godly office, and, although he had been impotent with his wife for nearly ten years now, he generally achieved orgasm in the mouth of a skilled prostitute within 1.5 minutes. He took amphetamine pep pills to keep going on his grueling twenty-hour day, with the result that his vision of the world was somewhat skewed in a paranoid direction, and he took tranquilizers to keep from worrying too much, with the result that his detachment sometimes bordered on the schizophrenic; but most of the time his innate shrewdness gave him a fingernail grip on reality. In short, he was much like the rulers of Russia and China. 'Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, published in 1975.

 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
23. Yes he did. He advanced the idea that....
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:09 PM
Apr 2013
''The shortest way of saying anything is always the best.''
~George Orwell, ''As I please, 1943-1946'' (1943)

''Brevity is the soul of wit.''
~William Shakespeare, ''Hamlet Act 2, scene 2'' (1603)




 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
41. An example of a ''dead metaphor'' ---
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 05:08 PM
Apr 2013
23 Skidoo!



Flatiron Building

Due to the geography of the site, with Broadway on one side, Fifth Avenue on the other, and the open expanse of Madison Square and the park in front of it, the wind currents around the building could be treacherous. Wind from the north would split around the building, downdrafts from above and updrafts from the valuted area under the street would combine to make the wind unpredictable. This is said to have given rise to the phrase "23 skidoo", from what policemen would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women's dresses being blown up by the winds swirling around the building due to the strong downdrafts.

niyad

(112,440 posts)
7. somebody once observed that "england and america are two countries separated by a common
Sat Apr 6, 2013, 11:35 PM
Apr 2013

language" (quote is generally attributed to shaw, but there appears to be some question about that).

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
19. well when I snuck into a classroom, I used to learned
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 11:11 AM
Apr 2013

that it was proper to say "hanged" rather than hung

but that could be an American thing, and it seems to have changed now too, just like we now apparently have well paying jobs which were formerly good paying.

Way back in 1978, my 10th grade Englisch teacher was flummoxed when I told him it should be sneaked rather than snuck.

Almost everybody I have ever met says "have drank"

and I constantly tell them

it is

drink, drank, drunk
sink, sank, sunk,
think, thank, thunk

thanks for listening, I think.

CBHagman

(16,968 posts)
20. And don't forget go/went/gone.
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 11:21 AM
Apr 2013

A friend of mine with an advanced degree, additional postgraduate work, and multiple publications to her credit still says "I had went" instead of "I had gone." Maybe it's a regional thing, or maybe she just listens to the Weavers.


muriel_volestrangler

(101,160 posts)
22. When a person is executed, they are hanged; a picture is hung on the wall, however
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 02:36 PM
Apr 2013

'Hung' for the simple past tense ("I hung around for a bit"; "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't&quot in all cases.

 

Spider Jerusalem

(21,786 posts)
25. It's proper to say "hanged" if referring to hanging as an execution method
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:44 PM
Apr 2013

"the murderer was hanged at dawn"; "the picture was hung on the wall".

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
30. exactly
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:01 PM
Apr 2013

but in the video in the OP, the proper Englishman says "by right she should be taken out and hung".

So i was like "Now wait just a bloody minute ..."

mainer

(12,013 posts)
24. In "Hot Fuzz," the London cop needs a translator for northern England
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:25 PM
Apr 2013

It's one of the most hilarious scenes I ever saw in a movie.

mainer

(12,013 posts)
38. Yeah! When I was up north in the UK, I had the same problem!
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:54 PM
Apr 2013

I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. Funny thing was, my London escorts couldn't understand them, either.

 

opiate69

(10,129 posts)
39. lol. I think there was a scene in Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels like that too...
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:59 PM
Apr 2013

Dammit, not I have to go look
Edit: nope.. It was in Snatch, now that I think of it.. Brad Pitt's character.. it was the running joke, I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=vZ-nirYb00s

hfojvt

(37,573 posts)
31. I visited some distant cousins in Southern Germany (around Spaichingen)
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:05 PM
Apr 2013

they were rather proud, or thought it funny that people in Berlin could not understand their German.

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
28. That line was pretty funny about America not using it in years.
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 03:53 PM
Apr 2013

The fact is I don't know where you go in America to learn proper spoken English, maybe drama school? I do know the English, if they can afford it, will give their children elocution lessons. I think it's even taught in some schools, but we don't have anything like that, not even at university level.

I was always more interested in pronouncing words correctly because I was brought up bilingually in English and Spanish. I did not want to have a trace of Spanish accent in my English because I knew it would lower my employment opportunities especially in jobs where good telephone skills were needed.

 

Spider Jerusalem

(21,786 posts)
32. There's not really such a thing as "proper spoken English" though
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:33 PM
Apr 2013

there are "prestige dialects" (in the US, "General American"; in the UK so-called "Received Pronunciation&quot that are the standard elocution lessons and accent training usually aim for. There are significant differences in pronunciation of some words between American and British English, though...some of them: schedule (UK "shedyule", US "skedjule"...although increasingly one hears the "American" pronunciation); vitamin (UK: vit-a-min, US vye-tamin); privacy (UK, short "I" like "privy&quot ; water (Americans say something more like "wodder&quot ; route (UK "root", US "rowt&quot ; advertisement (UK, stress on 2nd syllable - "ad-VERT-is-ment", US, stress on 3rd syllable, "ad-ver-tize-ment&quot ; laboratory (UK: la-bor-uh-tree, US lab-ra-tory); buoy (UK: "boy"; US, it usually sounds like "booey&quot ; inquiry (UK: in-kwi-ree).

Given the significant differences in pronunciation beyond those introduced by different dialects, I always laugh when anyone says "we should spell phonetically!" because...whose phonetics?

Cleita

(75,480 posts)
34. True. I was aware of different accents growing up, I decided to adopt a
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 04:41 PM
Apr 2013

California accent, since I felt that is where I would be mostly living in the future although for awhile when I was eight years old I had some British playmates and started picking up their accent. It didn't last though. My dad was from Arkansas and had that southern drawl but I didn't care for it.

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