deanb Posted February 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Not really. Not everyone who subscribes to the Gregorian calender is Christian, and on top of that those who don't use Gregorian calender tend not to for religious reasons. So, in this multi-cultural free communication world of ours, it kinda helps to go with a neutral ground and BCE/CE fills the gap. That'd be why it's system of choice for the UN. Also there's no dispute on when CE started (since it's not really hinged on much), whereas even today Christian scholars still debate on when exactly "anno domino" was. Still when using a dating system founded on the movement of planetary bodies through space it's a bit odd to attach on the end the religious naming scheme from the religion that condemned the guy who dared suggest we might be going round the sun each year and not the other way around. Though I fear at this point we may be encroaching onto a different thread.... Anywho toodle pip I'm off for a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 14, 2011 Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan argued, "[T]he Christian calendar no longer belongs exclusively to Christians. People of all faiths have taken to using it simply as a matter of convenience. There is so much interaction between people of different faiths and cultures - different civilizations, if you like - that some shared way of reckoning time is a necessity. And so the Christian Era has become the Common Era." How'd Americans even say 02/14/2011 in regular speech anyway? For it's the fourteenth day of the second month twenty eleven. Or just fourteenth of February, since we tend to not forget the year 2 months in. Like Battra said, people here almost never say "fourteenth of February", we say "February fourteenth". 2/14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr W Phallus Posted February 14, 2011 Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Well if you think about it 'February fourteenth' doesn't even make grammatical sense. It would be like saying 'America President' instead of 'the President of America'. Without the preposition 'of' there is nothing to denote that the fourteenth belongs to February. The only way to make that grammatically correct would be to say 'February's fourteenth'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sindo Posted February 14, 2011 Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Well if you think about it 'February fourteenth' doesn't even make grammatical sense. It would be like saying 'America President' instead of 'the President of America'. Without the preposition 'of' there is nothing to denote that the fourteenth belongs to February. The only way to make that grammatically correct would be to say 'February's fourteenth'. That probably comes from the date format February 14, 2011. Wait, we seems to be going in circles here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 14, 2011 Report Share Posted February 14, 2011 Well if you think about it 'February fourteenth' doesn't even make grammatical sense. It would be like saying 'America President' instead of 'the President of America'. Without the preposition 'of' there is nothing to denote that the fourteenth belongs to February. The only way to make that grammatically correct would be to say 'February's fourteenth'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr W Phallus Posted February 15, 2011 Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 Very serious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 So here's something I didn't know until...last night. Many of the spellings in US English, primarily things taking the U out or making things more phonetic like sulfate, are just shy over a hundred years old. Basically some dude put together an advisory board type deal to officially change the spellings of a few hundred words (I'd imagine the intention was for everything) These new words were formally rejected by congress who declared that folks "should observe and adhere to the standard of orthography prescribed in generally accepted dictionaries of the English language." You still ended up using a chunk of them. At the end of the advisory boards life its founder wrote: "I think I hav been patient long enuf... I hav much better use for twenty thousand dollars a year." It reads like one of my brothers facebook updates. In other words, without this guy interfering, modern American English would probably be very much the same as modern English. colourful sulphates included. The one I like is Melville Dewey (aka decimal system) disliked the ways English words are spelt too. He had a health club later in life and served: Hadok, Poted beef with noodles and Parsli & Masht potato with letis. And last but not least: ghoti pronounced "fish" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 15, 2011 Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 And last but not least:ghoti pronounced "fish" ... wtf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 Rough Women Mention what do those bits pronounce as? Oh those words are examples of where those sounds in those letters appear. ghoti isn't based on any specific phrase. Tough has the same sound on the end too for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 15, 2011 Report Share Posted February 15, 2011 Ah, I thought you were saying that was a real word... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battra92 Posted February 17, 2011 Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 This is a roof: The plural of roof is what: Roofs? Rooves? Here in New England I always hear people say the latter and yet Dictionary.com and other web sources say that "roofs" is correct and that Rooves is the older version still used in Australia and New Zealand ... and New England I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 One roof, lots of Roofs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 17, 2011 Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 The real question is, is the "oo" in roof pronounced like "too" or "took"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 too. Took would sound more like rough than roof. Though accent can change it a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 17, 2011 Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 Around here it's more like "took", though that isn't uniform throughout America. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battra92 Posted February 17, 2011 Report Share Posted February 17, 2011 One roof, lots of Roofs One hoof, two hooves. :-/ But enough MLP :googly: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 That brings up another question: how do you pronounce "hoof"? Is the "oo" like "too" or "took"? Around here people pronounce it like took. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr W Phallus Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 Same as roof; with the 'too' sound. There's a reason why hoof and huff are spelt differently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 Well I pronounce "hoof" like "took", but it still sounds different than "huff". "Huff" is pronounced like "tuck", not like "took". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 You know that sound you make when you watch a matador get kicked in the balls or something. ooohhh. Well it's H(kicked in the balls)f And I'll huff n I'll puff and I'll prance around town, is Rough. Do you just want to make a list of words you want us to say and I'll record them for you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sindo Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 Or we could all get on skype at some point. Would make this much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 Not everyone is on skype, and a recording can be shared for folks who want to listen rather than organising a single time for us all to be on and doing accents at each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 I was actually planning on recording "roof", "hoof", "too", "took" and "tuck" when I get home this afternoon. Because here "too", "took", and "tuck" are 3 distinct sounds, but it sounds like to you "took" and "tuck" sound the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 I know that your pronunciation of 'roof' and 'ruff' would be different, so I'll just put forward the vote that 'I don't give a fuck'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted February 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 I know that your pronunciation of 'roof' and 'ruff' would be different, so I'll just put forward the vote that 'I don't give a fuck'. But is that fuck as in took, or fuck as in too 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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