Yes Ma’am you can be my commanding officer in the apocalypse. I love when she wears baseball caps sooo cute. Hotforprofits should wear a baseball hat sometime.
Question: If we didn’t have homonyms, would we still be talking about how to pronounce fort vs fort-tay?
I think most people have been impacted in some negative way due to hearing one thing when it was supposed to mean another. To prevent mis-heard speech, some people emphasize certain syllables, or in some cases people use affected speech. Here are examples of emphasized or affected speech, not necessarily homonyms. niner (nine), biatch (bitch), dayum (damn)
How about tort vs torte. We don’t say, “Give the children another piece of tor-tay”.
Many dictionaries have a usage note regarding the pronunciation of forte, pointing to the influence of the music term forte.
Marina, I messed up . I meant to post the above on the Forte video page. I’ve already re-posted the above on the Forte page. You can delete this and the above comment. Thanks.
I would also like to second the questions about “great” as well as “lefttenant”/”lieutenant”. In doing some research on the issue, it seems that the former may be a bastardization stemming from people mis-hearing the word, and assuming that the lieutenant was just the person who stood to the left of the commanding officer (from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant). Interesting, then that we refer to a second in command frequently as a “right hand man”. Seems like someone’s mixing their positions!
Since I started learning English, fairly long ago, I’ve been wondering why “great” is pronounced like that and not like meat or treat, but rather like fate or trade.
‘ten hut! from you just makes me want to smile and have more fun learning from you!!! You are definitely not my boot camp chief! you are a nice replacement for that &!*#^.
Hi honey,
Sorry to be the “French upset guy” here, but let me make an objection:
we don’t pronounce colonel as a “c-o-r-o-n-e-l”, but just like you do in the U.S…. we say it colonel. I found the answer to the question Major Chaos asked. Lieutenant means the person who is in charge while the commander is not here.
In french: lieu (place) tenant (the one who holds). In short, the lieutenant is the one who holds the place. For peeps who speak French: tenir lieu de means remplacer. In the French police classification, the lieutenant is the lowest superior officer grade you can hold.
Nice to see that such a cute girl like you is found of words and etimology.
Zavatta
zavatta, I was talking about many years ago with the pronunciation. The pronunciation AND the spelling have changed over the years… so you are correct in stating that you no longer pronounce it as
In keeping with a military theme, I have always been curious why “lieutenant” is often pronounced “left tenant”. I would be interested in any info you can find on this little language oddity.
I like these kind of videos. The new ones are cool too, but the older ones bring back such good memories.
HeaD of CLaSS is MARINAof H.O.T.for.W.O.R.D.S
Yes Ma’am you can be my commanding officer in the apocalypse. I love when she wears baseball caps sooo cute. Hotforprofits should wear a baseball hat sometime.
Question: If we didn’t have homonyms, would we still be talking about how to pronounce fort vs fort-tay?
I think most people have been impacted in some negative way due to hearing one thing when it was supposed to mean another. To prevent mis-heard speech, some people emphasize certain syllables, or in some cases people use affected speech. Here are examples of emphasized or affected speech, not necessarily homonyms. niner (nine), biatch (bitch), dayum (damn)
How about tort vs torte. We don’t say, “Give the children another piece of tor-tay”.
Many dictionaries have a usage note regarding the pronunciation of forte, pointing to the influence of the music term forte.
On a related note, Marina did a video on the word Colonel vs kernel. That video points out some interesting historical things regarding pronunciation.
http://www.hotforwords.com/2008/01/01/colonel-hotforwords-reporting/
Hey, if we didn’t have all these inconsistencies there might not have been a HotForWords site.
Marina, I messed up
. I meant to post the above on the Forte video page. I’ve already re-posted the above on the Forte page. You can delete this and the above comment. Thanks.
In Greek language there is also the work Κόλων (kolon), modern Greek: κολώνα (kolona) and it means exactly the same.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%89%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%AF
I don’t know which is the most ancient..
what again is dissimilation ?
I have a few: knife, knee gnat, if letters are silent why do they need to be there. we don’t say ka-nife, or ka-nee, or ga-nat.
New user to your site, love it!
I would also like to second the questions about “great” as well as “lefttenant”/”lieutenant”. In doing some research on the issue, it seems that the former may be a bastardization stemming from people mis-hearing the word, and assuming that the lieutenant was just the person who stood to the left of the commanding officer (from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant). Interesting, then that we refer to a second in command frequently as a “right hand man”. Seems like someone’s mixing their positions!
However, the Occam’s Razor explanation is that we simply do not know. See http://www.waywordradio.org/discussion/?forum=1&topic=60&page=1 for a brief discussion of this topic — especially for people who hesitate to cite Wiki articles.
Anyway, great site!
How great you are, Marina!
Since I started learning English, fairly long ago, I’ve been wondering why “great” is pronounced like that and not like meat or treat, but rather like fate or trade.
Shouldn’t it be spelt “grate”?
Thanks! Keep it up!
Marina Your “colonel” video has the ShadowSpear “seal of approval” :-]
http://www.shadowspear.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8843
The legal term indictment or to indict, to bring a formal accusation against, I’m wondering if it’s another example.
This is by far the hottest and most intelligent outfit that I have seen you in Marina! Quite amazing! Keep up the good stuff
This has to be my favorite episode to date
i love Marina, especially her clothing in this episode.
I’m here from the clean hotforwords’ apartment infantry division. Ten…..hut!
Always informative! I have enjoyed the cards, when is the next occasion!!?
John
I don’t know… Valentine’s day? I’m thinking about doing report cards. What do you think?
I’m next to my mailbox as I type.
Hi honey,
I found the answer to the question Major Chaos asked. Lieutenant means the person who is in charge while the commander is not here.
Sorry to be the “French upset guy” here, but let me make an objection:
we don’t pronounce colonel as a “c-o-r-o-n-e-l”, but just like you do in the U.S…. we say it colonel.
In french: lieu (place) tenant (the one who holds). In short, the lieutenant is the one who holds the place. For peeps who speak French: tenir lieu de means remplacer. In the French police classification, the lieutenant is the lowest superior officer grade you can hold.
Nice to see that such a cute girl like you is found of words and etimology.
Zavatta
zavatta, I was talking about many years ago with the pronunciation. The pronunciation AND the spelling have changed over the years… so you are correct in stating that you no longer pronounce it as
“Schedule” in English is most often pronounced as: \?ske-(?)j
Happy New Year Marina!
In keeping with a military theme, I have always been curious why “lieutenant” is often pronounced “left tenant”. I would be interested in any info you can find on this little language oddity.
Your devoted student,
Major Chaos