TV channels in English
Well, two points :
1) Think of an Irish accent operating on the -i- in "tighten" (the influence on "tout" which I was positing)
2) If we take the writer's handle at face value -- "Tallguy 95" -- then this chap, born in 1995, is all of fifteen years of age !
>>It would be like a Hispanic person writing "talk-o" instead of "taco">>
Not really, because "taco" is already a Spanish word familiar to your hypothetical Hispanic writer.
By contrast, "tout" is an English word, yet not so familiar or common that an English speaker mightn't have trouble spelling it in a pinch.
In furnishing an Irish precedent for Tallguy's fractured prism of a writing style and garrulous quality, Finnegans Wake might have been a more telling comparison than Tristram Shandy.
<<Think of an Irish accent operating on the -i- in "tighten" (the influence on "tout" which I was positing) >>
I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean "Think of how Irish people pronounce the *letter* i", or do you mean "Think of a word that standard English speakers would consider to have an 'i' sound, and then think about how Irish people pronounce that word"?
Naturally enough, here in the UK everybody receives English Language TV channels, both from the non-commercial BBC sources or all the independent commercially backed versions such as Freeview, Sky and all the rest of them.
Not so long ago everybody here in the UK had to retune their TV sets, with fully instructions in how to accomplish this being widely publicised and explained in detial so that even the most non tech minded viewers such as 92 year old great grannies in Budleigh Salterton or Frinton-on-Sea would be able to follow them all down to the last letter.
By early next year 2011 there will no longer be any analogue channels still in operation, and many parts of Britain have already reached that stage.
However, some people living in areas such as North Devon and Somerset and other areas of England close to the border with Wales found to their profound dismay and disappointment that some of the commercial English language channels had vanished from their TV screens and left them with Welsh language channels, which meant that had found themselves having to listen to the latest news bulletins and certain soap operas being broadcast in Welsh. For these English viewers in places such as Barnstaple or Bridgwater or Shrewsbury or Ross-on-Wye it might just as well have been in Swahili or Gujurati or Treble Dutch as far as they were concerned.
Much to their relief this problem was soon sorted out and now only viewers in Wales can sit back and watch TV programs conducted in the Welsh language, well at least the 15% to 20% of the population of Wales who chooses to do this and who can either speak or understand the Welsh language in the first place, and generally speaking the majority of them live iin areas of Wales which are the furthest removed from the border with Big Bro England anyway.
The %age of people in Barnstaple or Bridgwater or Shrewsbury or Ross-on-Wye is pretty much zilch - and any that do are probably "immigrants" or tourists anyway. ;-)
Don't you just love the linguistic and accentual mix we have here in these islands? I do.......I always make sure I have my phrasebook close at hand whenever I pop over to Glasgow.
HAPPY MAY DAY HOLIDAY!