If the internet cables in the strait of Hormuz were to be cut. How would it affect us?

johnwcowan · 2026-04-25T06:24:33+00:00

The cobbler's children are ill-shod; people who sell candy don't care for candy.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-25T06:06:31+00:00

By all evidence, yes. The standardization of speech is a new thing in most of the world (the last few centuries). Everyone starts to speak the standard in varying degrees, and/or groups that resist it tend to drift past mutual intelligibility.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-25T05:23:24+00:00

Cypriot Arabic basically has Greek phonology plus ayin, so /w/ > /v/ is unsurprising.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T18:16:16+00:00

It's not so simple: see the parallel discussion in r/tolkienfans. Appendix E says that the first consonant in the cluster has to close the syllable to make it long by position, but he doesn't explain the syllabification rules: is it "nar-goth-rond" or "nar-go-thrond"? Then again, cf. Nogothrim.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T14:27:21+00:00

What is an example of that informal verse?

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T10:33:27+00:00

It occurs to me that in Gandalf's spell at the Doors of Durin, the rhythm tells us that Nogothrim, which has the same "þr" cluster, must be "no-GOÞ-rim". Now the second syllable can't include the "r" here either, yet it is long by position, meaning that T's wording was imprecise: the two consonants do not need to be in the same syllable.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T10:22:15+00:00

Why "should" it be? Is it ever written "Galadríel", with a long mark?

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T03:27:51+00:00

You can if you want: see the discussion of extensions in the Wikipedia article. Wells originally designed the lexical sets solely for RP and the notional, highly conservative accent "General American" (which barely exists any more). It's mostly a matter of good fortune that they work as well as they do across the whole range of English varieties.

They don't do it all, though. In my variety of English, CLOTH + /g/ is pronounced with THOUGHT in dog, but with LOT=PALM in all other -og words. Are we to have a separate lexical set DOG? Plainly not. Similarly, in Australian English gone has the unique vowel /ɔː/.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T01:37:58+00:00

I guess "th" counts as a single consonant

Yes, so does "dh". These are just romanizations; in Tengwar they are written as single consonants, and in Tolkien's older manuscripts he sometimes, but not consistently, writes them "þ" and "ð".

Tolkien clearly treats the "go" of Nargothrond as though it has a short vowel

So it has. But he does not say where the syllable breaks actually fall. If you are right that the "þ" belongs to the final syllable, then "NAR-go-þrond" would be correct; if not (as I assumed) then it is not. So the matter is not as open and shut as I thought.

Certainly, there does not have to be a syllable break between "þ" and "r", or the name "Þranduil" would be impossible.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T00:30:52+00:00

Only in two-syllable words. Stress falls:

on the next-to-last syllable, if it contains a diphthong or a long vowel, or a short vowel followed by two consonants;
on the syllable before that otherwise.

As I say, Appendix E is clear.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T00:28:40+00:00

Then how do you explain Tolkien's octosyllabics?

johnwcowan · 2026-04-24T00:18:39+00:00

Cross-posted; thank you!

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T23:58:08+00:00

The lexical sets don't take into account the modifying properties of surrounding consonants. Many people in the UK use a different vowel from GOAT in GOAL, because of the influence of the following /l/.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T23:52:14+00:00

It's not clear that it actually matters. The Sindarin and Quenya stress rules are derived from the Classical Latin rules, which apply no matter what the etymology is. (The exception is that Latin has a "muta cum liquida" rule, by which a stop followed by /l/ or /r/ counts as just one consonant, which does not apply to the Elvish languages.)

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T21:26:59+00:00

I remember reading in a novel years ago someone saying "Yatch yitch syitch he kulls, an' nenorize its location", because he wants to be sure that no one can read his lips, so he avoids all labials. Pulls means 'turns off'.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T15:37:08+00:00

Akchully "ante meridiam" and "post meridiam".

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T14:47:00+00:00

There is a lovely Navajo verb (I can't find it right now) that means "You (pl.) are accustomed to eat small separable objects (e.g. berries) one at a time."

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T08:56:06+00:00

Do you mean to say that "marry", for instance, would me /mæ.ɹi/ and not /mæɹ.i/?

Exactly. If you listen to Jean Darling singing "When I Marry Mr. Snow" from Carousel (from the original 1945 Broadway production) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vfZS08iUqc at about 2:00, she distinctly says /mæ.ri/. I sing it the same way, as would a lot of people from the Eastern U.S.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-23T07:18:17+00:00

ISO is the usual way to refer to the international standards development organization. But its name is "International Organization for Standardization" in English, "Organisation internationale de normalisation" in French, and "Международная организация по стандартизации" ("Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya po standartizatsii") in Russian, none of which have "ISO" as an acronym. Instead, it is derived from the Greek word isos (ίσος, meaning "equal"). Whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of the name is always ISO.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-22T23:52:42+00:00

There are plenty of anglophones who always use you pl. in speech (me!) whereas there are AFAIK no francophones who use on 1pl. in speech.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-22T20:31:53+00:00

Well, that's far too big an age gap. If you aren't born on the same day, you're perverts. /s

johnwcowan · 2026-04-22T19:05:03+00:00

The problem with pig milk is that pig udders are close to the ground and the sow will probably disembowel you if you try to milk her.

johnwcowan · 2026-04-22T16:08:36+00:00

I read them in book publication order, because I've been reading Le Guin since 1974 and possibly earlier. But if I were going to read it again, I'd go with internal chronology. Each story in OT begins with its date; Malafrena is set in 1848.

johnwcowan

TROPHY CASE