Yosemite ! how do you pronounce it ?

[MBP17•David]

Quite so

I'd be well chuffed if verbal English wasn't so... Well, vague.

What ever do you mean?! It's remarkably precise ... one simply needs a decoder:

 

[chscag]

Very good David! I especially love that second one from the top. I'll have to remember to use that when responding to a member's complaint.

 

[pigoo3]

Nice one David! I think what the chart is highlighting (at least with some of the examples)...is the British way of understating things (whether good or bad).

- Nick

 

[harryb2448]

You forgot the most important one David.

When a lawyer says 'My instructions are' everyone knows lies lies and more lies!

 

[MBP17•David]

You forgot the most important one David.

When a lawyer says 'My instructions are' everyone knows lies lies and more lies!

Ah, but that's true in any language ;D

 

[MBP17•David]

Very good David! I especially love that second one from the top. I'll have to remember to use that when responding to a member's complaint.

Nice one David! I think what the chart is highlighting (at least with some of the examples)...is the British way of understating things (whether good or bad).

I came across this chart some time ago, and thought: "That's not bad ..." so I kept a copy ;D

 

[Dysfunction]

What ever do you mean?! It's remarkably precise ... one simply needs a decoder:

Somewhere, I have a similar chart for Yorkshiremen.

 

[DougStocks]

Quite so

I'd be well chuffed if verbal English wasn't so... Well, vague.

Touche'

 

[matey3]

I have heard it as Yoo-Semeteez but "You Semite" will do ( as in cursing at someone (in the news ))!

 

[toMACsh]

I still get perplexed when I think of how homophones like, read, read (past tense), fare, fair, affect, effect, desert, dessert, produce (vegetables), produce (bring forth), etc... have come to be. Did some one just say, "hey, let's use read as a past tense and pronounce it read (red)". lol

Yeah, fare and fair are. The others, not so much. But then their is right there, they're truly that. And the mispronunciation of you're causes people to right (ya, I no) it as your, but curiously not as yore. Same problem with then and than...

In the case of produce (fruits and vegetables, etc.) and produce (make or cause), the difference in pronunciation is strictly the placement of emphasis, at least in the common pronunciations, but not phonetically according to Webster. I know there are other words like that, but can't think of any at the moment.

 

[John F]

Another linguistic horror is the pronunciation of the Dutch painter van Gogh.

The UK-English pronounce him "Van Goff"

In North America he is pronounced "Van Go"

Presumably neither heard a Dutch person say it which (in English-Scots phonemes) is closest to "Fan Hoch" (ch as in Scots "loch"). For English speakers, "Fan Hoff" would be a about as close as you can get using familiar sounds and in my view, more respectful.

 

[Dysfunction]

Another linguistic horror is the pronunciation of the Dutch painter van Gogh.

The UK-English pronounce him "Van Goff"

In North America he is pronounced "Van Go"

Presumably neither heard a Dutch person say it which (in English-Scots phonemes) is closest to "Fan Hoch" (ch as in Scots "loch"). For English speakers, "Fan Hoff" would be a about as close as you can get using familiar sounds and in my view, more respectful.

Hrm, I've heard Brits pronounce it correctly, a few Americans too. Generally though (especially by Americans) non-English words are frequently slaughtered by English speakers.

 

[John F]

. That "mate" business really threw me my first few weeks in the UK.

Present in England for a long time but popuarized in recent years under Australian influence (along with "no worries").

 

[John F]

We Americans probably have an even harder time getting the correct pronunciation of UK geography. Leicester, Greenwich, even The Thames. As a teenager visiting UK, I remember worrying that I was making a fool of myself every time I uttered a street name or town.

Of course, we have Connecticut, Sault St. Marie and Arkansas.

It helps English people distinguish visitors from the U.S. and Canada (since they have a difficult time distinguishing the accents). Canadians are often closer in ancestry and family connections to Britain and grow up with a greater knowledge of UK placenames.

 

[John F]

Wouldn't local pronunciation trump foreign ones? I'm no linguistic expert but it would seem that people from an area are implicitly the authority on its naming

With the noted exception of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-gogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysilio-gogogoch (or even its more correct shorter form Llanfairpwll) which outsiders can be forgiven for pronouncing "Lanfair P.G.".

 

[chas_m]

Wouldn't local pronunciation trump foreign ones?

Not necessarily. For example, many of the place names here are influenced by the "original locals" or First Peoples as we call them here. So not far from me is a place called Esquimalt, for example. Likewise, Quebec was named by the French, not by locals.

 

[Sawday]

The word "raise" can have opposite meanings, did you know? You can raise the window upwards, but you "raise" the building into a mass of rubble. You wonder how these words ever came to be.

Except that the word is 'Raze' meaning to flatten building!

 

[Sawday]

Continuing the theme with two of my favourite English place names..

Belvoir (as in Belvoir castle) is pronounced 'Beaver'
In my home Yorkshire (that's Yorkshire - not York-Shire) is Appletreewick but it's pronounced Appt'wick.

 

[armpit44]

Wow! Are you guys actually filming season two of Silicon Valley, am I being punked? I'm going to ignore the silly suggestion (sorry that was judgmental, no offense), that The name of one of America's Greatest Parks along with Yellowstone, and The Grand Canyon, could be a mistake to name Apple's finest OS to date, is truly, not true. It's a Native American name. Miwok (a Penutian language) joṣ˙eʾ-HmetiH, lit., means; there are killers among them. But don't be afraid of this Park, be inspired because If the Earth has a church, this is it; Yosemite Nature Notes - Yosemite National Park (U.S. National Park Service) There are even WiFi kiosks!
But speaking of being fearless, and getting back to the original discussion; The Apple OS Beta; Yosemite, is BY FAR THE MOST AMAZING, MOST STABLE, OS BAR NONE, I HAVE EVER USED IN 25 YEARS! I've been really hard pressed to find anything for Apple to fix. So far the only thing I've run into is I can't pull up the force quit app, but i can force quit from the app bar at the bottom of my screen and I cannot get the OS to shut down, without a cold restart. Those are minor issues for a beta as far as I'm concerned. None of the real fears i had, like running into apps that wouldn't function in Yosemite, that worked in mavericks, or anything else that has in any way lost any of my data or interfered with my day to day use of my computer, in fact it's a huge improvement! If your a beta tester and you're afraid, I say go for it, you're missing a lot of fun!

 

[DougStocks]

you're missing a lot of fun!

First time I'v known that an OS can or should be 'fun."