Greensleeves

Not me. I’m apostate.

I’m sure I have a preferred version, and Ben and Duggan would probably decry it. BUT: it was the one I grew up with. All others are impostors. :smiley:

Apologies for thread drift, however, if I listen to the xylo its got to be with people that got some rhythm. :smiley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYuOZnAqQCY

Since I’m a certified linguistics expert, allow me to help with a transcription:

Greed sleaze, gray three chit oriole. Hum a plate slowly, a prolladoo lie by lie. A tin, sex hate, come bum tying. Sew a mean sirrah sex quavers in Dabar. Ann weaver pick up into the chewing. So we plane the sex quaver off the first bar. So Hugo, one two three four five.

You’re welcome.

THAT’S IT!!!

Except I’m pretty sure he pronounced “first” as “farce”. :wink:

I know. :smiling_imp: If our Scottish and other British friends want to know what it sounds like to an American ear, that’s pretty close.

:laughing: It was perfectly understandable to me.


David

And me.

When I grew up one of my favourite people was my mother’s best friend during the war - a “mock aunt” as we called her. She was a voice coach and actress. She happened to be Scottish. However, one of the things I remember her saying was that Scottish pronunciation was some of the clearest and therefore easiest to understand - some of the best quality spoken English in fact. The reason for this is that Scots tend to pronounce every syllable and, almost, every consonant, whereas some English people and a lot of Americans tend to drawl, that is, leave out parts of words and don’t pronounce them at all. I think this may be why there are so many Scottish actors.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5XyecKONu8

Sounds clear enough to me. Especially for a teenager.

Coming from linguistics, that doesn’t hold water.

For one thing ‘drawl’ doesn’t have any concrete meaning, and like “nasal” and “guttural” is used by people not familiar with linguistics to describe accents different from their own.

The fact is that a quirk of the educational system in the early 19th century led Americans with any schooling to pronounce out each syllable. A class, together out loud, would have to spell out each syllable, pronounce each syllable separately, then put them together to form the word.

There are many examples such as necessary, lavatory, and inquiry which Americans pronounce with four fairly equal syllables as opposed three in England.

As for clarity of enunciation most countries have the same situation where it varies more from different levels of education than country. We have to keep in mind that EVERY form of speech has sufficient enunciation for those speaking it; it is only outsiders who perceive insufficient enunciation.

As far as pronouncing every consonant, no dialect of English does that. Medial ‘t’ becomes a glottal stop in many British dialects and becomes a ‘d’ in America. Pronounce the word ‘water’ with the ‘t’ pronounced the same as it is in initial position (for example as in ‘turn’ or ‘turf’) and if you’re able to do it you’ll hear how strange it sounds.

Likewise English has what are called ‘unreleased final stops’ and it sounds odd to pretty much any English speaker to hear people release those final stops, for example say ‘milk’ with the ‘k’ the same as is it in ‘kite’. (We’re so used to pronouncing initial, medial, and final consonants differently that it’s difficult to switch them round. Try saying ‘lee’ using the ‘L’ as it sounds in ‘full’.)

OK. The first of those has four syllables in normal - usual, that is - English pronunciation; the second would more usually be pronounced with four syllables by English, Scots and Welsh people of my acquaintance (though possibly not some others); and I’m struggling to understand how it is possible to pronounce “inquiry” with more than three syllables.

As far as I know, everybody here in the UK, apart from people from certain parts of the South East, would pronounce that middle ‘t’ in “water” the same as any other ‘t’. It doesn’t sound odd to us.

Again, as far as I am aware, pretty much everybody over here does pronounce that final ‘k’ in “milk” the same as any other ‘k’, just the same as in the initial ‘k’ sound in “kite”.

I suppose you’ve just proved my point.

But I’m not a linguist … Mr Guru Sir is … he’ll be along in a minute to set me, you or us straight. :slight_smile:

My wife is a lowland Scot (South Lanarkshire); when we moved to the western U.S. after our marriage 35 years ago people would remark on her learning English! Or worse yet, ask her to “say something” so their children or friends could be stunned and amazed. Nowadays, her origins are only evident when she is really mad.

An interesting thing to do is to read the first post of a thread, and then the last ones…Remembers me of the Jurassic Park scientist explaining the chaos theory by putting a drop of water on the back of his hand, and watching it move around a totally unpredictable way.
And what about the OP ? He must have run far away from this asylum.

Yeah, it’s three syllables for me, too. :confused:

Oh, come on; the inmates are self-committed, and that’s why they’re cool. He’ll be back.

What I find difficult is when some gem of a thought gets posted during a thread-drift and then it is a nightmare for me to search and find it. Bookmarking sometimes doesn’t get me where I want to be. :slight_smile:

The thread-drifts can at times be quite amusing. :smiley: :boggle: :astonished: :really: :blush: :waah:

In-kwy-er-y. Imagine you were saying it slowly down a poor 'phone line. But perhaps only if the stress is on the second syllable. What Ben said for the others.

FWIW (to get on topic maybe) I’m with MTGuru, Peter and others so far as the tune is concerned.

Oh, right. Like “inquire-y”. For as long as I can remember I’ve pronounced it “In-kwurry”.

Sorry for still driving in the off-topic lane.

I’d just like folk to get the difference between ‘inquiry’ and ‘enquiry’, but doubt we’ll convince the Merkan speakers! :stuck_out_tongue:

The sources can’t even agree. One states that the difference is a recent development in UK English, whereas another says it’s traditional (whatever that means). One thing that appears universal is the observation that US usage favors the I, whereas UK usage favors the E.

And you’re right: I can’t be bothered with that fine point. Asking is asking. :wink:

Perhaps not universal because my British understanding/usage seems backed up by this…

http://www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammar-tip/is-it-enquiry-or-inquiry/

Where ‘enquiry’ is a question/request for info, ‘inquiry’ more of an investigation and I’d use (and distinguish between) both for these contexts.

Now don’t get me started on ‘affect’ and ‘effect’!