The #%@! word is pronounced "NEE-AN-DER-THAL" dammit! [Archive]

chance

1st June 2006, 08:09 PM

There may be some justification as there are two acceptable spellings, from the wiki The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal

In addition, my Collins dictionary has the following:

Neanderthal (-tal).

from the talk origin site http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/spelling.html
'Neanderthal' can be pronounced with either a 't' or a 'th' sound - both are acceptable and widely used in English. The German pronunciation, however, has always been 't' (German has no 'th' sound).

The Central Scrutinizer

1st June 2006, 08:51 PM

NOT "Ne-an-der-TAL." :boggled: :mad:

Friggin Discovery Channel dorks! I don't know when how or why someone snuck this completely retarded alternate pronounciation into the dictionary, but it needs to go. Now.

Wrong as usual. It's Nee-an-der-TALL.

Wudang

2nd June 2006, 12:38 AM

From the Neanderthal Museum website http://217.160.110.111/neanderthal/
"Welcome to the Neanderthal Museum
In the Neander Valley (the Neandertal in Germany) in the summer of 1856 quarrymen discovered the fossilised remains of a skeleton - which has since achieved world-wide fame."

Zep

2nd June 2006, 03:16 AM

Neen-DERtle

TragicMonkey

2nd June 2006, 04:17 AM

"Cave men".

Darat

2nd June 2006, 04:26 AM

OED pronunciation guide (for anyone who understands it) can be found here - I think the link will work for the next three days:

http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/display/00321876?keytype=ref&ijkey=wzWcUX2TPwvHw

tkingdoll

2nd June 2006, 04:56 AM

Or go to http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/neanderthal and click on the little red audio link next to the word, and a nice American lady will say it out loud.

That's the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and they have both versions.

Zep

2nd June 2006, 05:53 AM

I suspect they themselves would have pronounced it "Ogg?".

UndercoverElephant

2nd June 2006, 05:55 AM

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Neanderthal,_Germany

Neanderthal, Germany
The Neanderthal (Neandertal) is a small valley of the river German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, near the city of Mettmann. It is best known for the fact that in 1856, fossils of the Homo neanderthalensis were found there.
In 1901 an orthographic reform in Germany changed the spelling of Thal (valley) to Tal. The scientific name and the English spelling of the Neanderthal man were not affected by this change.

The Neandertal was originally a scenic limestone canyon with waterfalls and caves. However, industrial mining during the 19th and 20th centuries removed almost all of the limestone and dramatically changed the shape of the valley. It was during such a mining operation that the bones of the original Neandertal man were found in a cave. Neither the cave nor the cliff in which it was located exist anymore.

The valley was named after Joachim Neander, who lived nearby and loved the valley to give him the inspiration for his compositions. The former name was "Das Gesteins" ("The Rocks").

HarryKeogh

2nd June 2006, 06:47 AM

Don't we have more important things to discuss? Like those ESPN dorks saying "Bonds had two RBI on the night". It's RBIs!!! Sure, I know it's grammatically incorrect but c'mon!

bigred

2nd June 2006, 06:49 AM

The scientific name and the English spelling of the Neanderthal man were not affected by this change.

..until a bunch of German dorks stuck their nose into it - and the much bigger dorks making these documentarties decided to try and sound "enlightened" by using this moronic pronounciation. :mad: People have been shot for less.

Zep

2nd June 2006, 06:50 AM

Name them.

:D

alfaniner

2nd June 2006, 08:01 AM

I remember Harlan Ellison stating that people saying "-thal" was one of his top 10 irritations. And he never gets irritated about anything. :D

The Central Scrutinizer

2nd June 2006, 08:47 AM

..until a bunch of German dorks stuck their nose into it - and the much bigger dorks making these documentarties decided to try and sound "enlightened" by using this moronic pronounciation. :mad: People have been shot for less.

Or maybe you're just stupid? :confused:

bigred

2nd June 2006, 09:44 AM

Or maybe you're just stupid? :confused:
or maybe you're just a German dork.

Charlie Monoxide

2nd June 2006, 11:16 AM

This neanderthal/neandertal pronounciation is small potatoes compared to the word "aluminum" vs "aluminium". How come North America and Europe/Australia need a different spelling for this word? Where the heck did that extra "i" (ee sound) come from? I had a friendly argument with my aussy friend over the correct way to say it.

Charlie (I was right, of course) Monoxide

HarryKeogh

2nd June 2006, 12:07 PM

jimlintott

2nd June 2006, 01:06 PM

What about:

Lieutenant

Charlie Monoxide

2nd June 2006, 01:36 PM

What about:

Lieutenant
Good one Jim. How the heck does a Brit find an "eff" sound in that word?

I'm slowly losing my Brit/Canadian spellings of colour, labour, humour etc....

Charlie ("ieut" u) Monoxide

jimlintott

2nd June 2006, 01:46 PM

Good one Jim. How the heck does a Brit find an "eff" sound in that word?

I'm slowly losing my Brit/Canadian spellings of colour, labour, humour etc....

Charlie ("ieut" u) Monoxide

Maybe because the loo is a place for different business.

I say leff because it's cool.

:cool:

Wudang

2nd June 2006, 02:57 PM

Sheesh! You colonials probably say "nucular" and "ooranus"!

I'll leave it Germans to decide how the German word for "valley" should be pronounced.

And any British NCO will tell you the correct pronunciation of lieutenant is "rodney".

Zep

2nd June 2006, 05:58 PM

Floyt

2nd June 2006, 06:05 PM

Thank you.

Therefore, I decree it to be pronounced "Neh-AN-der-TAHL", as being a composite of a double-vowel non-descriptive word (which tend to be stressed on the second vowel) and the addition of "valley", which gets its own accentuation.

In return, you lot get to cuss out all those benighted Germans around me who insist on pronouncing "predator" as "pre-DAY-tor". *smackity-smack*

HarryKeogh

2nd June 2006, 06:23 PM

oh and Cannes is pronounced "can" not "kahn".

Zep

2nd June 2006, 07:00 PM

In return, you lot get to cuss out all those benighted Germans around me who insist on pronouncing "predator" as "pre-DAY-tor". *smackity-smack*Unless it predates the verb "to predate", meaning to prey on another. ;)

NobbyNobbs

2nd June 2006, 07:12 PM

"Bones"

tkingdoll

2nd June 2006, 07:29 PM

Good one Jim. How the heck does a Brit find an "eff" sound in that word?

I'm slowly losing my Brit/Canadian spellings of colour, labour, humour etc....

Charlie ("ieut" u) Monoxide

Because it's derived from the French.

Rat

2nd June 2006, 07:49 PM

So presumably we're going to go back to the "thaler" pronunciation of "dollar" as well? Do we change the spelling to fit (some people's) pronunciation, or change the pronunciation to fit (some people's) spelling.

What about pther German places in "-thal"? Do I have to pronounce all of them like an American? Or can I pronounce American words/places like they look? Loss Anjeleez? Surely Loss Angelezz? Baton Rooj?

I recognize (what I hope is the) quasi-humourous intent of the OP, btw, and my reply is made in the same spirit.

Cheers,
Rat.

Polaris

2nd June 2006, 08:55 PM

Good one Jim. How the heck does a Brit find an "eff" sound in that word?

I'm slowly losing my Brit/Canadian spellings of colour, labour, humour etc....

Charlie ("ieut" u) Monoxide

Don't forget all those "r"s that disappear in words like "winter", "treasure" and "Hitler", but show up again in words like "Santa" and "placenta".

With Aluminum - the spelling I just used was the original spelling, the Brits just added that extra "i" to make it jive with existing elements like cadmium and helium.

Rat

3rd June 2006, 04:32 AM

With Aluminum - the spelling I just used was the original spelling, the Brits just added that extra "i" to make it jive with existing elements like cadmium and helium.
I seem to remember it being a little more involved than that, and I'd need evidences to believe otherwise. As far as I recall, it had several different spellings initially, and we settled on aluminium while you settled on aluminum. You make it sound as if there was an established name that we tinkered with for the sake of neatness. Which doesn't even make sense with the existence of elements like tantalum.

Cheers,
Rat.

Polaris

3rd June 2006, 07:20 AM

I seem to remember it being a little more involved than that, and I'd need evidences to believe otherwise. As far as I recall, it had several different spellings initially, and we settled on aluminium while you settled on aluminum. You make it sound as if there was an established name that we tinkered with for the sake of neatness. Which doesn't even make sense with the existence of elements like tantalum.

Cheers,
Rat.

"The confusion over the aluminum/aluminium spelling arose because of some uncharacteristic indecisiveness on (Humphrey) Davy's part. When he first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he thought better of that and changed it to aluminum four years later. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked aluminium, pointing out that it disrupted the -ium pattern established by sodium, calcium, and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable." (original italics)

From A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson, page 104n.
Broadway Books, 2004, NY.

Psi Baba

6th June 2006, 02:33 PM

How do you pronounce Orangutan? I prefer to say it as two words, with the accent on the first syllable of each: OR-rang OO-tan, not or-RANGuhTAN (and I don't want to catch anyone putting a 'g' on the end of it either). That reminds me: It's Yin and Yang, not YING and Yang! I hate that. :mad:

Luke T.

6th June 2006, 06:28 PM

Growing up, all I heard was "Nee-an-der-THal". It is only recently I have heard "tal". And it annoys me as well.

Sort of the way "ka-tar" was recently changed by Geraldo Rivera to "gutter".

Mercutio

6th June 2006, 09:16 PM

Don't we have more important things to discuss? Like those ESPN dorks saying "Bonds had two RBI on the night". It's RBIs!!! Sure, I know it's grammatically incorrect but c'mon!
Lobby for RsBI as the plural.

jk143

6th June 2006, 11:26 PM

I vote for "nee-and-der-thal" as well. Now I am hungry, can someone make me a "sandwich"? or should I say "samwich"? - I hate that...

Darat

7th June 2006, 05:24 AM

And never mind the pronunciation how do you even spell Boadicea/Boudica/Boudicca/Buduica/ Bonduca?

a_unique_person

7th June 2006, 06:31 AM

Why does the BBC world service always say "President Boosh"?

pgwenthold

7th June 2006, 11:03 AM

Lobby for RsBI as the plural.

Since RBI stands for runs batted in, it already is plural.

Jon.

7th June 2006, 11:50 AM

Since RBI stands for runs batted in, it already is plural.

What is the singular, then? As in "Casey needs one more RBI to become the first Mudville Nine player to reach 100 in a season."

Dark Jaguar

7th June 2006, 02:40 PM

Aluminium sounds uptight and pretentious, LIKE ALL ENGLISH! :D

But seriously, colour? Do you say it all drawn out like that too? "Colouououor"? Color! At least Japan agrees! I have a Gameboy COLOR, not Colour.

I'll agree on one thing. Herb is one of those words that's said two different ways but only spelled ONE way. So either we drop the H or we say it like it's spelled! "Erb" my arse!

And yeah, neanderthal is the popular usage, so it WINS. Isn't language decided on by popular vote anyway?

Luke T.

7th June 2006, 03:18 PM

.
And yeah, neanderthal is the popular usage, so it WINS. Isn't language decided on by popular vote anyway?

是

Dark Jaguar

7th June 2006, 04:32 PM

That's an odd looking building.

Psi Baba

8th June 2006, 07:21 AM

I saw a commercial for The Sharper Image the other day featuring the CEO, Richard Thalheimer. He pronounced his name TALL-heimer, not THal-heimer. I'd say that settles it. NeanderTAL it is, then.

HarryKeogh

8th June 2006, 07:52 AM

Sort of the way "ka-tar" was recently changed by Geraldo Rivera to "gutter".

From the Qatar Support Office (an international program at Texas A&M)

http://qatarsupportoffice.tamu.edu/QSO_AboutQatar.htm (http://qatarsupportoffice.tamu.edu/QSO_AboutQatar.htm)

One hears at least two ways to pronounce “Qatar.” The closest approximation of the native pronunciation falls between “cutter” and “gutter,” but not like “guitar.” Once you have listened to Arabic speakers intone that name, your pronunciation will become more nearly correct.

I once found a .wav file of an Arabic man pronouncing it but can't seem to find it. Here's a lady (who sounds like the mayor of Whiteville...not a native Arabic speaker) saying it...when she says it it sounds like Kotter.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ggqata01.wav=Qatar (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ggqata01.wav=Qatar)

But anyway...it def. doesn't rhyme with guitar.

pgwenthold

8th June 2006, 08:32 AM

What is the singular, then? As in "Casey needs one more RBI to become the first Mudville Nine player to reach 100 in a season."

"run batted in"

Or R-SBI :)

Luke T.

8th June 2006, 11:09 AM

From the Qatar Support Office (an international program at Texas A&M)

http://qatarsupportoffice.tamu.edu/QSO_AboutQatar.htm (http://qatarsupportoffice.tamu.edu/QSO_AboutQatar.htm)

I once found a .wav file of an Arabic man pronouncing it but can't seem to find it. Here's a lady (who sounds like the mayor of Whiteville...not a native Arabic speaker) saying it...when she says it it sounds like Kotter.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ggqata01.wav=Qatar (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?ggqata01.wav=Qatar)

But anyway...it def. doesn't rhyme with guitar.

How do you suppose the Chinese pronounce "China"? How do you think they pronounce our country's name?

How about Missourians and "mi-zur-uh"?

HarryKeogh

8th June 2006, 11:50 AM

How do you suppose the Chinese pronounce "China"? How do you think they pronounce our country's name?

How about Missourians and "mi-zur-uh"?

I certainly know what you're saying. Obviously we pronounce "France" different than a Parisian. But there is a correct way for Americans to pronounce "France" in our language. There is a correct way to pronounce Missouri in the English language (and ironically it's not the way most Missourians say it). There is a preferred way to say these things and a dictionary tells us how.

Not knocking accents. My Minnesotan girlfriend busts my balls (I'd probably say "bawls") everytime I ask for a cup of "cawfee" at Starbucks but I understand I don't pronounce it the way the dictionary says it should be.

ETA: hmmm, perusal of dictionary.com's pronounciation of Qatar has pretty much shot my argument down.

Luke, you say Kah-Tar, I'll say Cutter, Kah-Tar, Cutter, Cutter, Kah-Tar...Let's call the whole thing off.

slingblade

8th June 2006, 02:07 PM

or maybe you're just a German dork.

I'm German. Wanna bully me? I hear I make an excellent target.

Mason

8th June 2006, 04:33 PM

Sort of the way "ka-tar" was recently changed by Geraldo Rivera to "gutter". There was a girl in my class back in grammar school who was from Qatar (she was a baby when she came to the US). During a birthday party for one of us kids, her mother was telling us stories about her country. She told us it was pronounced gutter, like the edge of the road (being kindergarden students, we were confused about how Qatar could have a Q with no u following it...). So, to her, the way we pronounce gutter sounds enough like the way she pronounces Qatar that she uses that word as a reference to teach us to say her country's name.

Not perfect for anecdotal support, but it's good enough for me. Gutter it is ;)

kevin

9th June 2006, 07:39 PM

I remember Harlan Ellison stating that people saying "-thal" was one of his top 10 irritations. And he never gets irritated about anything. :D

Totally off-topic, but this is one of the funniest Harlan Ellison stories I've seen (scroll down past the first part, it doesn't start 'til later):
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26

there's bad language on that site.

Piggy

9th June 2006, 07:47 PM

In English, words are pronounced the way people pronounce them. If there are widely used variants, then there are widely used variants. No one has any authority to declare that one widely used pronunciation is somehow correct and another one wrong. There is no basis for this in English -- not spelling, not etymology, not dictionaries, not textbooks. None of these are ultimately authoritative. You might as well say that a fashion trend is "correct" or "wrong".

kevin

10th June 2006, 06:07 AM

In English, words are pronounced the way people pronounce them. If there are widely used variants, then there are widely used variants.

Yeah, is it "coke", "soda", "pop" (or as my grandfather used to say) "sodie"?

delphi_ote

11th June 2006, 12:31 PM

I remember Harlan Ellison stating that people saying "-thal" was one of his top 10 irritations. And he never gets irritated about anything. :D
Got that right.
So Tycho and I are up in front of the audience with Harlen, and Hank (the con organizer) presents us with some jester hats (“Fool’s caps”). Tycho and I put ours on because we are polite, but Harlen - who is apparently too cool for school - refuses to wear his. I turn to him and say, “Don’t you want your hat?” and he tells me to **** off. This caught me off guard, I mean I have no clue who this ****ing coot is. Then he points to a pad of paper he has and asks if I’m aware that his paper is also called foolscap. Now, I’ve never heard that term before, I pretty much just call it paper so I shake my head “no.” This really isn’t a fair question. I mean, it would be like me asking him about Photoshop or if he can remember what he had for lunch. The guy was essentially setting me up to look stupid in front of all these people. So then he asks me if I even attended college and I say “No, I did not.” Then, he says “did you at least finish high school?”

I said that I had, but you couldn’t really hear me because the audience is laughing at me along with Harlen. So once they stop, I turn to him and I say, “While I’ve got you here I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Star Wars stuff you wrote.”
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26

I love Gabe. :D

chance

12th June 2006, 04:17 PM

Any Northern Europeans here? not sure of the source but as we are discussing the ‘th’ sound. I’m fairly certain that the “Kon-Tiki man” Mr Thor Heyerdahl (Norwegian) pronounces his name “tor”.

fuelair

12th June 2006, 04:47 PM

I remember Harlan Ellison stating that people saying "-thal" was one of his top 10 irritations. And he never gets irritated about anything. :D

He certainly has been observed being irritated at SF cons - --Hand him- or just have in your hand - a copy of the Belmont(I'm pretty sure) double novel (really novelette) including Doomsman the next time you see him (unless he has changed a lot). He certainly is fun - and intelligent -though!!!

ahirst

13th June 2006, 09:45 AM

A mine of useless information:

Lieutenant

In early medieval British feudal society there were a number of distinct gradings or classes of people. One of the in-between ones, i.e. lower than a lord, but higher than a peasant, was that of a free-tenant. This describes a person who did not pay rent to their land-lord, but who still had ties of military duty when required. Usually the land was granted from part of the Lord’s estate as a reward for some act or other.

The Old English word for ‘free’ is (via the Old Norse) ‘leif’, whereas the Norman French version is ‘lieu’. So the lower classes would pronounce the term ‘leif-tenant’, whereas the educated clergy and upper classes would write, and probably say ‘lieu-tenant’.

Aluminium, Aluminum

In 1761 the French chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau proposed the name ‘alumnie’ for the base of the materials then known as alums. It is unclear exactly where this word originates from but it was widely used in Roman times, ‘aluta’ being the Latin word for whitened skin. Numerous 18th and early 19th Century scientists in Europe and America struggled with both smelting and chemical techniques in an attempt to extract the new element without success.

In the middle 18th C it was suspected that there was a metal to be extracted from the rich, red clay found near a place called Les Baux, in the Provençe region of France. From this place-name originates the name of the primary ore from which aluminium is obtained - bauxite.

Sir Humphrey Davy prepared an iron-aluminium alloy in 1809 and named the new metal constituent of the alloy aluminum. The name was subsequently modified to aluminium in Britain, and several other countries, to conform with majority endings of -ium in metal element names. In 1925 the American Chemical Society, for some reason, decided to revert to the aluminum spelling, although both names had been in common use until then. The name aluminium (or aluminum) is therefore derived from the metal being obtained from the compounds known as alums.

The metal was first isolated, in an impure form, by Hans Christian Øersted in 1825, by reducing a sample of aluminium chloride with a potassium amalgam. The German chemist Friedrich Woehler is generally credited with producing the first pure metal sample in 1827.

gumboot

30th June 2006, 02:28 AM

The Old English word for ‘free’ is (via the Old Norse) ‘leif’, whereas the Norman French version is ‘lieu’. So the lower classes would pronounce the term ‘leif-tenant’, whereas the educated clergy and upper classes would write, and probably say ‘lieu-tenant’.

"lieu tenant" means "place-holder" in French ("tenant" being prp. of "Tenir" - "to-hold"), and "lieu" meaning "place" (as in the phrase "in lieu of").

"Lieutenant", as first used, meant "one who takes the place of another".

The spelling reflecting the "lef" pronunciation dates back to the 14th C but there's no definitive explanation for why it was pronounced that way...Wikipedia offers a few interesting explanations, but they are all speculation.

The English pronunciation was prevalent during the 14th and 15th centuries with the word being variously spelled as lieftenant, lyeftenant or luftenant. It may have originated from a mistaken reading of the 'u' as a 'v' (u and v originally were written as the same letter), with v eventually assimilating in voice to /f/. Some sources state that the original French word lieu had an alternative form spelt and pronounced lieuf, and that the modern standard English form retains the former spelling 'Lieutenant' and the latter pronunciation, 'Leftenant'.

It has also been speculated that it may have come from a fanciful etymology which associated it with the verb 'to leave', as the lieutenant only took up his duties once his superior officer had 'left'.

Another theory comes from the fact that in typical propriety the person or persons standing to the rear-left of a gentleman held power and were typically those directly second to him. The person or persons standing to the rear-right were considered to have no or less standing than those to the rear-left, such as aides, bodyguards, wives, etc., often holding this position for simple facility rather than societal importance. This tradition remains in military parades, with lieutenants standing to the rear-left of the commanding officer (when facing the advance).

For the Americans wondering about the "ou" spelling (colour, etc) it's a simple case of pronunciation.

-Andrew

RandFan

1st July 2006, 01:08 AM

That's German for ya. No, that's Deutsch for ya. Deutsche sprechen Sie Deutsches, they don't speak German.

Polaris

1st July 2006, 04:07 PM

Yeah, is it "coke", "soda", "pop" (or as my grandfather used to say) "sodie"?

When in Texas long enough, you'll have this conversation at a restaurant.

"What kind of drink do you want?"
"Coke"
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

HarryKeogh

2nd July 2006, 02:34 PM

When in Texas long enough, you'll have this conversation at a restaurant.

"What kind of drink do you want?"
"Coke"
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

I'll never understand that. Pop, soda, tonic...all generic names. But Coke? A specific brand name? Weird.

"What would you like to eat?"
"A Big Mac"
"What kind?"
"A Whopper."

Polaris

2nd July 2006, 05:51 PM

I'll never understand that. Pop, soda, tonic...all generic names. But Coke? A specific brand name? Weird.

"What would you like to eat?"
"A Big Mac"
"What kind?"
"A Whopper."

Especially when Dr. Pepper is a Texan creation. I'm already used to regional dialects from Appalachia, home of pop, sacks, cricks, panthers (meaning cougars), whirlpools (meaning jacuzzis), etc.

richardm

3rd July 2006, 03:24 AM

And never mind the pronunciation how do you even spell Boadicea/Boudica/Boudicca/Buduica/ Bonduca?

It's probably "Boudicca" if you want to be strictly correct. Unless it's "Boudica", which has been proposed but it's all a bit speculative; the Iceni didn't write much down themselves. The whole "Boadicea" thing probably came about because of a mediaeval scribe screwed up his spelling while making a copy of Tacitus. That was one tenacious typo.

For the Americans wondering about the "ou" spelling (colour, etc) it's a simple case of pronunciation.

Actually it seems that the "Colour" spelling was as a result of a vogue for Frenchifying words that came up in England in the 18th (I think) Century, along with mispronouncing words like "Herbs" and "Hotel" to omit the H. The spelling of "Colour" is one of a few survivors; the pronunciation is the same in either case. The missing "H" returned in about the 1920s. I conjecture with no real evidence that this was a result of the First World War, where suddenly French words stopped conjouring up Continental glamour and started to bring to mind words like "Somme" and "Passchendaele" instead.

Interestingly, Americans still use many quaintly outdated phrases and spellings, such as "Color", "Fall" (for Autumn), and "Write me" when they mean "Write to me". These and quite a few others went out of fashion centuries ago in England. You Yankee stick-in-the-muds ;)

Tricky

3rd July 2006, 06:48 PM

What about:

Lieutenant
Not meaning to pull rank, but this pales to the travesty of pronouncing 'colonel' as "kernal". I can't even figure out what language that would come from.

kevin

3rd July 2006, 08:33 PM

Interestingly, Americans still use many quaintly outdated phrases and spellings, such as "Color", "Fall" (for Autumn), and "Write me" when they mean "Write to me". These and quite a few others went out of fashion centuries ago in England. You Yankee stick-in-the-muds ;)

Daniel Webster, father of American spelling, dropped the u in color and honor after the British had adopted them so I'm not sure how we're stick in the muds on that one. He also made some rather arbitrary changes, just to seperate us from the British (gray instead of grey).

And, of course, we know the proper pronunciation of schedule and the right way to wear pants.

RandFan

3rd July 2006, 10:19 PM

And never mind the pronunciation how do you even spell Boadicea/Boudica/Boudicca/Buduica/ Bonduca?Danny's last name is Bonaduce

richardm

4th July 2006, 03:55 AM

Daniel Webster, father of American spelling, dropped the u in color and honor after the British had adopted them so I'm not sure how we're stick in the muds on that one.
You're stick in the muds partly because I'm kidding but also because, as you say, Webster dropped the U after we had adopted it - so he reverted to the "Old" spelling.

Edited to add: And he probably grumbled about the young people today and their newfangled made-up spellings as he did so.

Meffy

4th July 2006, 06:46 AM

Just to return to the topic: I have consulted with a well-known professional cartoon character (Yosemite Sam), who reports that the #%@! word is pronounced "sassenfrackin' rickety-rack." Print 'toons use the #%@! form, animated talkies use the vocal form.

Darat

4th July 2006, 07:31 AM

You're stick in the muds partly because I'm kidding but also because, as you say, Webster dropped the U after we had adopted it - so he reverted to the "Old" spelling.

Edited to add: And he probably grumbled about the young people today and their newfangled made-up spellings as he did so.

According to the OED colour has quite a varied past history:

Forms: 3-6 colur, 4 colure, coulur, 4-7 coloure, 3- colour, 5- color. Also 4-7 collor, 5-6 colowr(e, 6 cooler, -ore, coulor(e, coullour, -or, cullor, -our, 6-7 coulour, -er, collour, culler. [Early ME. colur, later colour, color, a. OF. color, culur, colur, later colour, coulour (retained in AFr.), couleur (= Pr., Sp. color, It. colore):L. colr-em. Latin long passed in OF. into a very close sound intermediate between and , both of which letters, and subsequently the digraph ou, were used to express it; in an accented syllable the sound at length changed to ö written eu, whence mod.F. couleur. The OE. word was híw, HUE. Colour, corresponding to the late AFr., has been the normal spelling in Eng. from 14th c.; but color has been used occasionally, chiefly under L. influence, from 15th c., and is now the prevalent spelling in U.S.]

The oldest references they quote for it is:

c1290 Lives Saints (1887) 216 And axede him of wuch colur were heuene op-rit ere.
1297 R. GLOUC. (1724) 24 In e World hire pere nas, So whit, ne of such colour.