IntenseDebate - allthingslinguistic

11 years ago @ The Toast - Toast Mission: Accompl... · 0 replies · +5 points

Dammit Jaya, that was going to be my comment! Congrats, proud, small part, amazing, etc etc.

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 2 replies · +6 points

I say it like McCullock, but I have cousins who say McCulla, so I pretty much accept either from people.

But! There's actually a linguistically interesting reason for the difference. The Scottish pronunciation actually ends with the "ch" as in "loch" or German "Bach", what's known in the biz (linguistics is a biz, right?) as a voiceless velar fricative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fri...

However, since this sound isn't really found in any really native Englishy words, many English speakers have trouble with it and end up either making it into /k/ (a voiceless velar stop) or /h/ (a voiceless glottal fricative). Since /h/ at the end of a word isn't something that English does, that becomes just the vowel sound.

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 1 reply · +20 points

Hey, if anyone wants to start a buddy cop show with a heavy dose of historical linguistics, I am SO ON IT. Or really any type of show.

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 0 replies · +2 points

Ah, I saw that recently and was pleasantly surprised at how reasonable it was! (Until the last couple lines, but I suppose one can't have everything.)

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 11 replies · +16 points

Well, there were some American-specific changes in the intervening centuries (for example, the whole transcontinental accent) just not as many of them as in Britain.

Interestingly, speakers who don't contribute to the first wave of school-aged children to an area don't actually influence its dialect that much: kids tend to get their accent from their peers rather than their parents, so these influences mostly only happen in areas where speakers of a single other language formed a majority of the school-aged population. There's a nice explanation of the process in this charming documentary about Canadian English: http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/71458437151/t... (you can start around the 9 minute mark if you're pressed for time, but the whole thing is great).

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 1 reply · +19 points

Aww, thanks!

(whoops can you tell I'm just sitting here in the comments section refreshing every few minutes)

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 0 replies · +18 points

Well, um, if you insist, I do have a blog...

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 3 replies · +15 points

Much as I would love to take credit for those, I'm afraid all the images were chosen by Nicole. I did pick the video clips and I'm happy to have provided her with an excuse to look up the pics though!

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 0 replies · +17 points

A linguistics BA still makes you more qualified than most of the people making these things, unfortunately.

11 years ago @ The Toast - A Linguist Explains Wh... · 2 replies · +21 points

Here's a follow-up post with some more links about these topics! (Including the entire text of A Midsummer Night's Dream in original pronunciation, because you know you want it.)
http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/80067476348/a...

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