Pronouncing KAPEX

[Stone Message]

That's what makes this country so great and interesting. It's called culture. 20 miles north of me in Dundee they have some completely different words and likewise with us in Fife. It often comes from the different industries in each area.

Of Britain and America Oscar Wilde said "two nations divided by a common language"

I agree completely... And this country, the same. If I ever tried to understand someone from the back woods of Alabama yelling at me in the hold of a ship or on the deck of an oil rig, I really needed to have some context. Without a starting point, there's no way to know what they are saying. I think that's exactly what Tinker was stating a couple of posts earlier.

Tom

Yes, when I can't understand what someone is saying I refer to it as being unable to get crypto sync - it is all gibberish otherwise.

Peter

 

[sancho57]

I just smile ad give them dumb looks

 

[Tinker]

Back in the early 1950's, i had occasion to take a two year vacation and ended up with a trip to the Orient at my Uncle's expense.  Two of my best friends while I was in Korea were another GI from Georgia and a Korean sergeant.  I had lived all of my own life, up until "vacation time", in various parts of New England.  The most formative part of my life had been in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.  Smitty and I had both been farmers by experience.  Kim had been somewhat of a schollar and was quite fluent in something like seven languages, verbally, and could write in somewhere around eleven languages.  Sometimes, when the suds got to go down in rather copius quantity, Kim would get a little confused as the chatter might increase proportionally.  He would caution me by saying, "Doc, (I was a medic attached to a combat engineering battalion)slow down.  I can't understand you.  Smitty I can understand.  He talks nice and slow and easy.  You get going yabityyabityyabity and I can't understand."  I think between the three of us, Kim probably spoke the better English from an enunciation standpoint.  He had the book learning and had experienced a lot of time in classrooms.  Smitty and I had spent most of our time learning in the fields and barns of our youths and had not a lot of use for the books. 

Many moons later, our daughter had occasion to leave my wife and I to attend university in Virginia.  By the time she had spent four years in that area, she had accumulated, not only a lot of friends from "down South", but she had learned a new language.  Oh, she still spoke English, but not like she useta.  I often would kid her, saying she "...kinda spoke funny."  Now, even tho she has stayed in the same area, her professional life has sorta forced her to get back to speaking more clearly.  When she comes back to visit, she has now become more understandable once again. Of course, even tho my friend Kim used to kid me about my poor English, I KNOW my English has always been absaluutely purfic.  : : 8)
Tinker

 

[Stone Message]

Okay Tinker - we need to help you a bit here. Try saying this as fast as you can - when you have it perfect then let us know....

I am not a pheasant plucker
I'm a pheasant plucker's son
and I'll keep on plucking pheasants
'till the pheasant plucking's done

Peter

 

[shed9]

The irony here is that whilst most people believe that the English language has changed as it has travelled the world, the reality is that most of the world speaks English in its original form whereas it's the Brit's that have morphed the original.

Admittedly the aluminium / aluminum thing is a bit messed up but you get the point.

 

[wow]

Peter's post reminds me of this old (1960's) Smothers Brothers routine:

 

[Stone Message]

The irony here is that whilst most people believe that the English language has changed as it has travelled the world, the reality is that most of the world speaks English in its original form whereas it's the Brit's that have morphed the original.

Admittedly the aluminium / aluminum thing is a bit messed up but you get the point.

You are right... things like faucet and side walk are good examples. Then there are the place names which opens up a whole bag of worms (or even a city in the Rhineland-Palatinate region). The small village of Pennsylvania is just north of Bath in the UK but it did not give its name to the US state. I have no knowledge of whether William Penn had anything to do with the naming of the UK village.

Peter

 

[Tinker]

Okay Tinker - we need to help you a bit here. Try saying this as fast as you can - when you have it perfect then let us know....

I am not a pheasant plucker
I'm a pheasant plucker's son
and I'll keep on plucking pheasants
'till the pheasant plucking's done

Peter

Still phrying,

Tinker

 

[JonSchuck]

What is the proper way to pronounce granat?  My local pusher says grah-naht with the emphasis on the second syllable.  To me it's so much easier to say granite.  Is granat the German word for granite?  When I pronounce it his way I feel like a French aristocrat with my nose in the air talking down to the peasants.

 

[jmac80]

I say Kay-pex  [big grin]

 

[AlexThePalex]

What is the proper way to pronounce granat?  My local pusher says grah-naht with the emphasis on the second syllable.

As a German and English speaker I can confirm this pronounciation is pretty correct

To me it's so much easier to say granite.  Is granat the German word for granite?

Nope, it means Garnet, the gem stone. "Granit" is German for Granite.

When I pronounce it his way I feel like a French aristocrat with my nose in the air talking down to the peasants.

It is always difficult for speakers of one language to get the pronounciation of another language right. Through years of habituation the jaw muscles are trained differently. But trust me, "granat" is one of the last things a French aristocrat would say to his peasants.

 

[Scott B.]

You say playnex I say plahnex.

 

[semenza]

You say playnex I say plahnex.

And there is always Plan-X as a back up  [big grin]

Seth

 

[wow]

You say playnex I say plahnex.

And there is always Plan-X as a back up  [big grin]

Seth

Cute!

 

[Tinker]

When i was at U-Conn Ag school, one of my hort professors when we tied to remember and say the latin names for some of the grasses we had to learn about, and invariably would mess up would tell us we ..."put the em-phah-sis on the wrong si-lah-ble."  I still can't remember those latin designations to any of the plants I deal with all the time.
Tinker

 

[mouppe]

I'm from England and over dinner tonight, my 8 year-old Canadian son told me that he would teach me proper English.

 

[HowardH]

If you really want to see the English language butchered, come to Texas.  We have some very interesting ways to saying things round these parts.  Words like "ya'll", "fixin'", "yonder".  Here's a good reference manual.  Lyndon Johnson, our 36th president, was full of them. 

 

[Gary in Texas]

Two comments.  My father could never say aluminum correctly, he would get tongue tied and stutter num-num-num at the end.  As a young adult (24) living in Scotland, when I first heard how the locals pronounce aluminium, I relayed this on to my father the next time we spoke.  He could pronounce it perfectly, was soooo pleased with himself, and used that pronunciation til his passing. 

At that same time in life, I'm from the southern USA, trying to converse to a bloke from the Ilse of Skye.  There was a third Scotsman (Bob) in the conversation, and after 2-3 minutes, Bob started chuckling and we both looked at him, and he replied "I never thought I would see the day that I had to translate English for two English speaking blokes".  [eek]    Totally true, I COULD NOT understand a word this guy from up north of Scotland was saying, and he likewise.  We both kept looking at Bob to translate for us.  With time, my accent changed, and I developed a better ear for the different Scottish accents.....

 

[Tinker]

When in the service, we got thrown in together with men from all areas of the US.  We even had a few lads from Canada who had been raised in the US.  I had a good buddy from Toronto area who, altho he spoke very good English, his pronunciation was just enough off from anywhere else, i could tell for years afterward, any strangers talk would indicate he was from the same part of Canada.  The guys who i really loved to listen to were the ones who came from the bayou areas of Louisiana.  They were just plain musical in the way they talked.  Another area of US who seemed to have a way of talking I loved to listen to were the guys who came from Appelacia.  A lot of those boys were uneducated and could neither read nor write. (Yes, we did have illiterates in the good ole US of A as late as the 1950's) They were not influenced by much from the outside world and had their very own language. I spent a lot of time reading letters from the friends who took time to write to their soldiers.  I had to work especially hard to write back to home for those pals.  When they would tell me what to write, it was especially difficult as they would try to sort out their own tongue and make their thoughts understandable to a Yankee.  I could get to understand the "Hill Billies" (and I do not use the term as a form of insult.  i hardly started to live my own life until i became a Hill Billy Plow Boy") when talking naturally.  When they tried o be a bit more formal to send their thoughts back home, that was when deciphering words became unfathomable. When I was in Korea, there were about five of my friends who regularly asked me to read their mail and to send replies back home.  there were a few others from different platoons who, when the word spread, would occasionally bring their letters to me.  As time went on, they became a bit more understandable in every day talk, but those letter sessions were sometimes almost painful as I could barely understand some without really prying the lingo from their heads. Those were actually great experiences.

Perhaps, and very probably, my experiences with those young pals helped me to understand my wifes very unsure English when I first met her some years later. She had learned to speak english from another German who had learned her English from a Welsh lady.  Even now, after being together for nearly 50 years, I still need to ask her to repeat some words several times until i can figure out what she is saying.  I do not complain.  I like to eat.  :  Besides, I like her accent.
Tinker