World's worst software. What's decent?

[Clarence]

"Don Prescott" <DMBPrescott@aol.com> wrote in message
news:7fb54666.0410221102.2b3730bd@posting.google.com...

Well, style is also dictated. "Strunk and White" come to mind.

Clarence, I really don't know what you're on but you come out with
some statements that are impossible to understand. "Strunk and White"
- what on earth does that mean..?

"Strunk and White" in the standard "Style" manual used for a variety of formal
writing. You could just look it up. IF you have access to the Internet.
Don't you have a "Style" manual in Britain?

Gee. No wonder your confused! &gt

Just for the record, what country are you from...?
Prescott

There is NO record!
My family has been in America for over 400 years.
I've lived in several states. Never had a problem communicating with anyone.
Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Hawaii, and
California. I may have missed the states where I only had a contract job
there. Some of these states are larger than Britain. None as crowded.

By the way, what are you on?
Your goofy mannerisms are quite annoying. &gt

Do you really mean to try to be insulting? (You fall short if you do.)

 

[Don Prescott]

US pronunciation derived largely from

the still- current Cornish dialect.

Right. Not so much Cornish as West Country English. If you visit the
west of England counties: Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, you can detect
the faint echos of the modern American accent. This makes perfect
sense of course as Plymouth, from whence came the pilgrim fathers, is
in Devon.

Prescott

 

[Bill Sloman]

Chuck Harris <cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com> wrote in message news:<esidnTvqu-fXi-TcRVn-1A@rcn.net>...

Bill Sloman wrote:

Teenagers are are special case - they use aberrant language with the fixed > > intention of not being understood by the
previous generation. See also "thieve's cant".

Yes, their intention is to obscure, but look at how the teens quickly
change the language that THEY understand. That is evolution at work.

It isn't evolution, because teenagers go back to using standard
language when they grow up.

The fact that the U.S. is geographically bigger than England doesn't
signify in this context - England has more
different dialects than the US, and a greater variation between the
dialects, while Australia, which is about the
same size as the continental U.S.A. has hardly any perceptible regional
dialect variation.

It sounds like you are agreeing with me:

USA large -> few dialects
Australia large -> few dialects
England small -> many dialects

No, I'm not. Australian English has essentially no geographical
dialects, and presents a very different picture from the U.S.

As Paul Burke points out, the difference has to do with history. In
the UK the regional dialects reflect the languages that used to be
spoken in the various regions before English was imposed, and have
persisted for about a thousand years, because the population doesn't
move around much.

The U.S. dialects haven't evolved apart from an intially uniform
version of English, but rather reflect the dialects of the different
groups who migrated into the different regions of the U.S.

Australia's lack of geographical variation in dialect reflects a very
mobile population - something like 30% of the population moves
interstate at least once in their lives.

Regions with a large number of dialects are a brewing pot for language
change.

As Paul Burke points out, dialects are pretty stable and the
"isogloss" contour lines are equally stable.

Regions with few dialects are an indication of a stable language.

Can you produce a few examples to test this claim? It doesn't seem to
apply to Dutch or German, any more than it does to English.

That being so, it can be argued that what you speak in England is the aberration.


Not really. English is spoken in a lot of places beside England and the
U.S.A. and no single dialect has any
particular claim to pre-emminence.

England certainly has pre-eminence to the English language, they are where
the language developed. Do they *control* the language? No, in spite of
their former role in the spread of the language.

The only country that I am aware of that claims eminence over a language
is France. But then, they are the center of the known universe ;-)

They certainly act as if this is the case.

The aberrant spelling to which the OP was objecting, is a slightly
different case. Noah Webster "reformed" American
spelling in 1828

http://www.ctstateu.edu/noahweb/biography.html

while the rest of us have stumbled on using Dr.Johnson's spellings. Since > > English spelling embodies some six
different schemes for coding the phonetics of English into the Latin
alphabet, there is probably room for a lot more
reform than Noah Webster's idiosyncratic variations.

Noah Webster, and Benjamin Franklin wanted to make English spelling
phonetic. Their results failed and never gained popularity. I have
seen copies of their "reformed" dictionary, and I cannot recall even
one of their phonetic spellings that made it into the modern dictionary.
Well, that isn't exactly true, if you look at the pronunciation guides, they
are really close to what Webster and Franklin proposed.

Color, and sulfur have made it into modern U.S. dictionaries - I spell
them colour and sulphur.

In today's US English, 60% of the words in the dictionary
are pronounced differently from their phonetic pronunciation.

This assumes a single, specific grapheme to phoneme rule. There are in
fact six different sets of rules that show up in modern English
spelling.

Ample evidence that Webster and Franklin's idea failed.

Where Webster and Franklin did succeed, was in making spelling more
uniform. They took a language where spelling varied greatly depending
on where you were educated, and provide a reference of American
spellings. These spellings were not the simple phonetic spellings that
they wanted to have adopted, but rather, the spellings that were commonly
used by Webster, Franklin, Jefferson and others. It is interesting to
notice that the spellings used by Jefferson in his writings exactly match
those in the current American English dictionaries.

Have a look at Elizabethan spelling sometime - the modern habit of
spelling the same word the same way every time your write it is a
comparatively recent innovation. I'd be very surprised if Jefferson
spelled everything exactly the same way as current American
dictionaries do - can you post a URL for a web-site that supports this
claim?

-------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Charles Edmondson]

Bob Stephens wrote:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:00:53 -0400, Chuck Harris wrote:


Bob Stephens wrote:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:24:01 -0400, Chuck Harris wrote:

Television is having a dramatic affect on the English language.
It is standardizing the US on the Midwestern dialect of US
English.... and it has done so within my lifetime. When I was
a kid, we used to travel throughout the US and Canada quite a lot,
and I used to marvel at the way people in different parts of the
country talked, but now, they all sound mostly the same.

-Chuck


Really? When's the last time y'all traveled down south? Or Minnesohwtah for
that matter.

Well, I have been in Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio,
Ontario, Wisconsin, Maryland and Virginia so far this year. My mother is
from Minnesota. And I have traveled in the South quite extensively over
the last couple of years. And some would say that I live in the south.

-Chuck


Just picking communities from three of those areas that I am familiar with.
Don't you think it would be pretty easy to distinguish between natives of
Brooklyn, Minneapolis and Memphis blindfolded?


Bob
Memphis might be a little hard to pick out, if the speaker is caucasian.

One of the lighter southern accents. I know, I was raised there!

--
Charlie
--
Edmondson Engineering
Unique Solutions to Unusual Problems

 

[Pooh Bear]

Don Prescott wrote:

Paul Burke <paul@scazon.com> wrote in message news:<2trrg6F23ektkU1@uni-berlin.de>...
Clarence wrote:

Been to India, they have a British accent, but there are a lot if differences.
The Telephone service people are sent to school to learn to speak so someone on
a phone can understand them.


Have you ever HEARD a "British accent"? One of the newest things the
Devil has invented to plague us with is the outsourced Indian cold sales
call. It must do wonders for race relations in the UK when you KNOW that
an Asian accent means that they aren't trying to sell you anything, no,
they just want you to take part in a survey.

Paul Burke

Oh no! Not Clarence! Who IS this guy..? Indian people do NOT have
British accents Clarence. People fom Britain do.... yes, Britain -
that's the largeish island off mainland Europe on the map. People
from India have Indian accents. Yes, I know it's difficult for you to
understand, but just try to remember: people from a given country that
speak English tend to have the accent associated with that
country..... If you say it over and over it just might stick....!

The Indians speak English with a largely unmistakeable accent. It can be *very* 'broad'
to the extent that I've had trouble following some Indian speakers clearly.

On the other hand, a few Indians speak English with a virtually neutral accent.

Graham

 

[Bill Sloman]

"Kevin Aylward" <salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk> wrote in message news:<yOned.6288$i02.2640@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk>...

Don Prescott wrote:
US pronunciation derived largely from
the still- current Cornish dialect.

Right. Not so much Cornish as West Country English. If you visit the
west of England counties: Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, you can detect
the faint echos of the modern American accent. This makes perfect
sense of course as Plymouth, from whence came the pilgrim fathers, is
in Devon.

Ahmmm... Plymouth is a *port* where people *went* to board ships. Its
not very likely that many on the Mayflower actually *came* from Plymouth
or that area, so it makes no sense at all that they would have west
English accents.

The first link I got on this was
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/discovering/famous/pilgrim_fathers.shtml

Where it is stated that that many on the Mayflower were transfers from a
Southampton ship, and that some weren't even English.

Some of them were certainly Dutch, according to Jonathon Israel's "The
Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806".ISBN:
0198207344

--------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Charles Schuler]

Here we go again. Those pretentious F*&*ing Americans that that seem to
think that they are not American because that have some extremely remote
connection outwith the US. ROTFLMAO.

That ... that (repeated word). "They" instead of "that"? Outwith doesn't
work here (USA) either. Work on your English before you bash us.

 

[Charles Schuler]

"Clarence" <no@No.com> wrote in message
news:7_Wed.34276$QJ3.31953@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...

"Charles Schuler" <charleschuler@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:JdednQfq3_Z7qeHcRVn-rw@comcast.com...

Had nothing of value to add to the topic.

Just Kill file the jerk!

You can kill his posts, but I enjoy them. His off-the-wall stuff is
entertaining and occasionally educational. Also, he has responded to
several of my posts and helped me out. To each his own. I like his website
too.

 

[Clarence]

"Charles Schuler" <charleschuler@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:GY-dnT3nYYp42eHcRVn-og@comcast.com...

"Clarence" <no@No.com> wrote in message
news:7_Wed.34276$QJ3.31953@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...

"Charles Schuler" <charleschuler@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:JdednQfq3_Z7qeHcRVn-rw@comcast.com...

Had nothing of value to add to the topic.

Just Kill file the jerk!

You can kill his posts, but I enjoy them. His off-the-wall stuff is
entertaining and occasionally educational. Also, he has responded to
several of my posts and helped me out. To each his own. I like his website
too.

Hey, if he is entertaining, go for it. Nothing much on TV anyway.

 

[Don Prescott]

Here we go again. Those pretentious F*&*ing Americans that that seem to
think that they are not American because that have some extremely remote
connection outwith the US. ROTFLMAO.


Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Interesting to see a guy who runs his own company using a term like
"F*&*ing Americans". Don't you sell your products to Americans
Kevin..?

Prescott

 

[Clarence]

"Jamie" <jamie_5_not_valid_after_5_Please@charter.net> wrote in message
news:10nqm2si5s1320a@corp.supernews.com...

Clarence wrote:

"Don Prescott" <DMBPrescott@aol.com> wrote in message
news:7fb54666.0410250935.3f3e7dee@posting.google.com...

Here we go again. Those pretentious F*&*ing Americans that that seem to
think that they are not American because that have some extremely remote
connection outwith the US. ROTFLMAO.


Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.


Interesting to see a guy who runs his own company using a term like
"F*&*ing Americans". Don't you sell your products to Americans
Kevin..?

Prescott


Not any more!

the feeling is mutual.

Why, Thank you!

 

[Don Prescott]

Any American reading my comments, usually takes it that it is those
*other* daft Americans that are so silly to believe that they are
German-Welsh-Belgium. They don't consider that my comments are referring
to them because they are not so stupid to believe such nonsense. Why
would they? Only the ones that actually believe that they are not
Americans have an issue. Are you one of those daft buggers to which my
comments apply to?

Kevin Aylward

Other than the American Indians who came across the Baring Straights a
few thousand years ago just about everyone else arrived from somewhere
else in the last few hundred years - mostly from Europe. So why are
these Americans "daft"?

Prescott

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Don Prescott wrote:

Any American reading my comments, usually takes it that it is those
*other* daft Americans that are so silly to believe that they are
German-Welsh-Belgium. They don't consider that my comments are
referring to them because they are not so stupid to believe such
nonsense. Why would they? Only the ones that actually believe that
they are not Americans have an issue. Are you one of those daft
buggers to which my comments apply to?

Kevin Aylward

Other than the American Indians who came across the Baring Straights a
few thousand years ago just about everyone else arrived from somewhere
else in the last few hundred years - mostly from Europe. So why are
these Americans "daft"?

Oh dear. Look, dude, when someone says "where are *you* from?", the
answer is "I was born in []". Insert country of birth for the brackets.
Not, well, I have a great great grand papa that came from Switzerland.
Jesus wept. Contrast this with the *other* question "where does your
family ancestry derive from?"

People who don't realise this are seriously in need of help.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Charles Edmondson]

Bob Stephens wrote:

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:37:35 -0700, Charles Edmondson wrote:


Bob Stephens wrote:


On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:00:53 -0400, Chuck Harris wrote:



Bob Stephens wrote:


On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:24:01 -0400, Chuck Harris wrote:

Television is having a dramatic affect on the English language.
It is standardizing the US on the Midwestern dialect of US
English.... and it has done so within my lifetime. When I was
a kid, we used to travel throughout the US and Canada quite a lot,
and I used to marvel at the way people in different parts of the
country talked, but now, they all sound mostly the same.

-Chuck


Really? When's the last time y'all traveled down south? Or Minnesohwtah for
that matter.

Well, I have been in Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio,
Ontario, Wisconsin, Maryland and Virginia so far this year. My mother is

from Minnesota. And I have traveled in the South quite extensively over

the last couple of years. And some would say that I live in the south.

-Chuck


Just picking communities from three of those areas that I am familiar with.
Don't you think it would be pretty easy to distinguish between natives of
Brooklyn, Minneapolis and Memphis blindfolded?


Bob

Memphis might be a little hard to pick out, if the speaker is caucasian.
One of the lighter southern accents. I know, I was raised there!


I spent a year living there - loved it BTW - and I used to try to emulate
the accent of the "Memphians" and came up with a couple of rules.
1) Every syllable is actually at least two.
2) Each syllable has a "Y" in it somewhere.

I never got very good at it, but here is on example I annotated.
There is a great brew pub near Overton Sqaure in Midtown called "Bosco's
Squared". One of their signature beers is "Flaming Stone" ale. I got very
close to being able to say this in a mid south accent as follows:

"Fillay May-ing Stay-own"

Not perfect, but I preferred the IPA anyways


Bob
Yeah, and of course, you have to know that Memphis is pronounced as 4

syllables... Me-em-phy-es



--
Charlie
--
Edmondson Engineering
Unique Solutions to Unusual Problems