Important notice from the GRAMMAR POLICE. Plz read. This means you.
Jelenedra:
Quote from: CheritaChen on 2009 July 13, 18:23:31
Some of these differences (lab'-ruh-tohr-ee vs. luh-bor'-uh-tree) I never perceived as poor usage but regional evolutions in pronunciation. Of course, I could be wrong. Most Americans do seem terribly lazy in all things requiring active thought.
I still occasionally hear a newscaster or statesman of some type on air say "noo-kyoo-lar" instead of nook-lee-er. Or "in-trig-al" instead of in-ti-gruhl. I want to punch them in the head.
Not going to argue the lazy Americans aspect, but we didn't we purposely change up a bunch of pronounciations and spellings of schtick to distance ourselves from the British? It would make sense that we would change the way to say a word without taking into consideration that "OR" in the middle of labortory. Or was that just us being lazy Americans and just like how we just dropped the extra "u" out of words so that we wouldn't have to remember to write them?
rufio:
Quote from: CheritaChen on 2009 July 13, 18:23:31
Some of these differences (lab'-ruh-tohr-ee vs. luh-bor'-uh-tree) I never perceived as poor usage but regional evolutions in pronunciation.
It has to do with the timing - it sounds better in English to have two-syllable feet, syllables sometimes drop out of three- and five-syllable words to make trochaic feet ala OP-ra or LAB-ra-TOR-y. la-BOR-a-TREE is iambic, so it's probably just a regional difference in preference for timing. The extra syllable is still dropped, though.
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I still occasionally hear a newscaster or statesman of some type on air say "noo-kyoo-lar" instead of nook-lee-er. Or "in-trig-al" instead of in-ti-gruhl. I want to punch them in the head.
I've only ever heard Dubya say "nukyuler", but it's standard (more or less) metathesis = /nu.kli.er/ -> /nu.ki.ler/ with the onset cluster simplifying from /kl/, and the /i/ getting palatalized to be /kji/. IIRC, we also had /thrid/ -> /third/ and /hros/ -> /hors/ in the past in English. /in.ti.gral/ -> /in.tri.gal/ doesn't really simplify anything, but it might just be more natural to have to more complex syllables closer to the front of the word. Then again, I've never actually heard anyone use that before.
It's interesting which changes people see as "regional evolutions in pronunciation" and which they see as laziness.
Quote from: Audrey on 2009 July 13, 18:36:52
I'm glad you had the sense to know better, but yes, it is worth a good weep. :'( 'Would of' and 'could of' are also becoming world standards because they are so widely used colloquially. It is so sad the language is being bastardised.
If you're talking about speech (and not writing) I don't think it's laziness - it's just another timing/stress-related effect. It'd be more correct to spell it "would've" and "could've" though they're pronounced the same way. In writing, though, most of that looks bad, even to me. :P
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Another thing I hear a lot is if someone happens to be in a car 'Get out the car' instead of 'get out of the car'. To me, the first sentence means 'Get the car out of the garage' or whereever it happens to be.
In speech, my "of"s often get abbreviated to "uh" so "get out of the car" turns into "get outta the car". Again, I think it just has to do with timing.
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Sometimes the preposition 'to' is omitted in an injunction such as 'write to me' - it becomes 'write me'.
Now, that sounds really old-fashioned. Maybe just because no one uses snail mail anymore?
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How often have I heard someone singing 'don' chew' instead of 'don't you'.
t + y regularly becomes ch in American speech, as well as d + y becoming j. In fact, you also get tr -> chr and dr -> jr, at least in my 'lect.
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Rufio, are you SA or from somewhere else and living here?
I'm not the person who's from South Africa, if that's what you're asking. I grew up in Arizona, and am currently living elsewhere in the states.
Roflganger:
I have to protest against differences in punctuation being attributed to laziness. After all, laboratree is no less "lazy" than labratory is. Pronunciations differ between countries, and even within countries, and despite age-old arguments to the contrary, there isn't one way that is more correct than another.
Just out of spite, though, I will now P&L at the South African pronunciation of "innovative". In-IV-uh-tiv. Not inno-vay-tiv. It makes me bonkers whenever I hear it, because I can't help but argue with the voices in my head about why it is so very wrong, especially since the word "innovate" is pronounced the same way as it is in the States (aside from accents, etc.).
Jelenedra:
I don't think it was a general beef with language laziness as it was a rib at Americans in general. =p
rufio:
Quote from: Roflganger on 2009 July 13, 19:02:52
Just out of spite, though, I will now P&L at the South African pronunciation of "innovative". In-IV-uh-tiv. Not inno-vay-tiv. It makes me bonkers whenever I hear it, because I can't help but argue with the voices in my head about why it is so very wrong, especially since the word "innovate" is pronounced the same way as it is in the States (aside from accents, etc.).
Interesting - in-IV-a-TIV is also iambic, contrasted to trochaic IN-a-VAY-tiv.
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