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''flourish'' and ''nourish''
<<What do you think would happen if Schoonmaker travelled all across the country and started asking random people if the words ''ferry'' and ''furry'' were pronounced the same way? Would Schoonmaker still think that most people have this ''merry-Murray'' merger?>>
*Hopefully* that would dispel his misconceptions about how most Americans pronounce those words.
And guess which one of those words Schoonmaker has used today:
Tuesday, August 2, 2005: "werry" for "worry" Quote-''A poll of Americans and Japanese about concern that World War III might occur in their lifetime prompted me to address today's word. -ORR- is very ambiguous. In a stressed syllable, the vowel is usually seen as broad-A (borrow, tomorrow, corridor as most people say them) or AU (torrid as most people say it, lorry, abhorred). Only in "worry" (and its derivatives) is ORR pronounced ER or UR. Since most people rhyme "berry" and "hurry", and ER is the way this sound is most commonly spelled (especially in multitudinous agent words (purchaser) and comparatives (bigger), let's go for the spelling that new learners are more likely to think of when they hear the word spoken: "werry".'' Yep, it's ''worry''.
<<Since most people rhyme "berry" and "hurry",>>
Goddamit! Argh!!! *How* stupid...
Here's another thing Schoonmaker had to say about ''furry-ferry'':
Quote-''YES, I noted that in checking "merge", some dictionaries use the U with a hat as the vowel. But in any case, that is the ER sound, as shown plainly by the sample words in Dictionary.com's own pronunciation key: "urge, term, firm, word, heard". + As for "ont", I suggested that because "ant" is a homophone we can eliminate from a language filled to overflowing with homophones, and seems to those of us who say "ont" -- meaning a large proportion of the best-educated people in the U.S. and almost everybody in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, etc. -- that calling a person by a homophone for an insect is arguably disrespectful. I have no power to impose anything, and the SSWD site is designed mainly to make people think. As for "tord", too-waurd is a spelling pronunciation, and as with ev-er-y and other spelling pronunciations (which my Random House Unabridged labels so people know better than to use them), spelling reformers can properly advise people that tho they think they are being careful to be correct, they are actually being wrong. + The distinction between "ferry" and "furry" is, I repeat, not "worth making. All those words would rhyme PERFECTLY as most people regard things." People who try to draw needless distinctions and force people to try to supply only one of essentially interchangeable spellings do spelling reform a disservice. This is not the distinction between "merry" rhyming with "berry" and "merry" rhyming with "Mary". It is TRIVIA that ordinary people do not waste time on and cannot justify wasting educational time and money on. If you see a poem in which one line ends with "ferry" and the next appropriate line ends in "furry" or "worry" or "cherry" or "very", will you be startled by an appalling lack of rhyme? If so, you are one in perhaps 15,000 people. + Native speakers of English cannot and do not make the short-E as in "bed" and follow it with R in the same syllable and come out with anything like what most people say for "very", "berry", etc. Following-R changes the quality of many vowels in its same syllable. + Make all the silly and PRETENTIOUS distinctions you want. Ordinary people concerned with communication rather than language as an arcane study to itself will not trouble to heed you.''
<<As for "ont", I suggested that because "ant" is a homophone we can eliminate from a language filled to overflowing with homophones, and seems to those of us who say "ont" -- meaning a large proportion of the best-educated people in the U.S. and almost everybody in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, etc. -- that calling a person by a homophone for an insect is arguably disrespectful.>>
Schoonmaker, don't assume that I pronounce "aunt" as "ant". I use the long-A [Ant] rather than the flat-A [{nt] pronunciation of "aunt", *exactly* as you do. My quarrel with your spelling "ont" is that to Eastern New Englanders like me, plus Britons, Irish, Australians, and New Zealanders, all of whom make the father-bother distinction, "ont" represents not our pronunciation [Ant] but rather [Qnt], which of course is not how anyone pronounces it. I'd like to remind you that the Eastern New Englanders, Britons, Irish, Australians, and New Zealanders easily add up to 95 million people or more. That's quite a lot of people to alienate from your supposedly universal spelling system. <<As for "tord", too-waurd is a spelling pronunciation, and as with ev-er-y and other spelling pronunciations (which my Random House Unabridged labels so people know better than to use them), spelling reformers can properly advise people that tho they think they are being careful to be correct, they are actually being wrong.>> I think there may be some disagreement over whether that is a spelling pronunciation, considering that no less reputable an institution than Cambridge University lists [twOrd], [twoUrd], and [t@wOrd] as the only pronunciations in its online dictionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=toward*1+0&dict=A Regardless of whether it's a spelling pronunciation or not, it is used extremely commonly, and I would wager that a strong majority of people in both America and Britain use one of the "w pronunciations". <<The distinction between "ferry" and "furry" is, I repeat, not "worth making.>> What is your definition of a distinction that is "not worth making"? If people make a phonemic distinction between two words, then they will most certainly find it worth making. <<All those words would rhyme PERFECTLY as most people regard things.">> Have you asked them? Or are you relying solely on your own, regionally biased interpretation of things? The fact is that the ferry-furry or merry-Murray merger, which you confidently proclaim to be standard throughout North America, is in fact limited to Philadelphia and surrounding parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Any article about the merger will tell you that. Scroll down to "Murray Christmas" in this article, for example: http://citypaper.net/articles/081497/article008.shtml This article (in the "Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley" section) also attests that the merry-Murray merger is a distinctive feature of Philadelphia speech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English#Philadelphia_and_the_Delaware_Valley This article says the same thing: http://tomveatch.com/Veatch1991/node31.html#tex2html79 Anecdotally, I can attest to how our local talk radio personality Jim Braude, originally from Philadelphia, was teased during the 2004 election because he couldn't distinguish "Kerry" from "curry". His cohost obviously thought that that was a distinction "worth making". It is no coincidence that you, who live in New Jersey, think that everyone has the merry-Murray merger. This merger is, in fact, very rare and highly regionally marked. If you lived in any state other than New Jersey or Pennsylvania, this would simply not be an issue. <<People who try to draw needless distinctions and force people to try to supply only one of essentially interchangeable spellings do spelling reform a disservice.>> You do spelling reform a disservice to not represent basic phonemic distinctions that the vast majority of people clearly make. <<If you see a poem in which one line ends with "ferry" and the next appropriate line ends in "furry" or "worry" or "cherry" or "very", will you be startled by an appalling lack of rhyme?>> If the next line ended in "furry" or "worry", then yes, I would. <<If so, you are one in perhaps 15,000 people.>> Where is your research to back this up? Have you conducted a poll? Once again, your acute lack of knowledge about modern American English makes itself evident. <<Native speakers of English cannot and do not make the short-E as in "bed" and follow it with R in the same syllable and come out with anything like what most people say for "very", "berry", etc. Following-R changes the quality of many vowels in its same syllable.>> For anyone outside of North America, and for most New Englanders and New Yorkers, this simply does not hold true. I, as a New Englander, pronounce "very" and "berry" with the *exact* same vowel as in "bed". I use a different vowel for "furry", a different vowel for "Murray", and a different vowel for "Mary". You can expect *everyone* outside of North America to make all of these distinctions as well. <<Make all the silly and PRETENTIOUS distinctions you want. Ordinary people concerned with communication rather than language as an arcane study to itself will not trouble to heed you.''>> I grew up making all these distinctions that are in question. I find it offensive that you denigrate the way that I and roughly a hundred million people speak. In a free society you have the right to spout whatever nonsense you wish. But I also have the right to ignore such nonsense, and that is exactly what I intend to do. To argue with you further would simply encourage you and lend some iota of justification to your misguided and ignorant viewpoints.
SpaceFlight, *please* do not post anything else by Schoonmaker. I do not intend to argue with or discuss him further.
Quote-''SpaceFlight, *please* do not post anything else by Schoonmaker. I do not intend to argue with or discuss him further.''
Okay. <<food - fued (British inclination to insert a Y-glide in places like this would be countered here by the fact that there already is a Y-glide word of this type, spelled "feud".)>> <<hisxplanation for this one is ridiculous. And once again his profound ignorance of the English language makes itself apparent: A Y-glide (yod) in this context would be no more British than American, because American English doesn't have yod-dropping after F. The spelling of "food" doesn't need to be reformed.>> Lazar, Actually a y-glide in that context would be more American than British, because there are some East Anglian dialects in England that have yod-dropping after all consonants. <<The distinction between "ferry" and "furry" is, I repeat, not "worth making.>> << is your definition of a distinction that is "not worth making"? If people make a phonemic distinction between two words, then they will most certainly find it worth making.>> I think that his definition of a distinction that is ''not worth making'' is any phonemic distinction that's not native to his Newark, New Jersey dialect. He seems to say that the only distinctions that are ''worth making'' are the distinctions that are native to his Newark, New Jersey dialect.
Like so many of Schoonmaker's ideas this one is hopeless. ''Flourish'' and ''nourish'' are not parallel in sound to "perish" and "cherish" to me ... that is if by "parallel in sound" he means "rhyme". (Doesn't he know the word "rhyme"?) For me a better respelling would be "flurrish" and "nurrish". However, this illustrates one of the main problems with spelling reform: it's rare to find a re-spelling that would be acceptable to everyone. So, no, they don't need re-spelling.
<<Like so many of Schoonmaker's ideas this one is hopeless. ''Flourish'' and ''nourish'' are not parallel in sound to "perish" and "cherish" to me ... that is if by "parallel in sound" he means "rhyme". (Doesn't he know the word "rhyme"?) For me a better respelling would be "flurrish" and "nurrish". However, this illustrates one of the main problems with spelling reform: it's rare to find a re-spelling that would be acceptable to everyone. So, no, they don't need re-spelling.>>
Jim, ''flurrish'' and ''nurrish'' would work even in Schoonmaker's accent. The problem is that Schoonmaker has this rare merry-Murray merger and ferry-furry merger (see above), so he thinks that ''flerish'' and ''nerish'' would work equal as well as ''flurrish'' and ''nurrish'', they wouldn't. ''flurrish'' and ''nurrish'' would do. Not ''flerish'' and ''nerish''.
<<equal as well as ''flurrish'' and ''nurrish'', they wouldn't.>>
That was a typo. ''equal'' should be ''equally''. |