English questions

[Travis B.]

Also I'm from New Jersey and I've never heard any example of someone distinguishing all three of merry-marry-Mary, regardless of which dialect region in New Jersey they are from. On the other hand Wikipedia tells me New York City and Philadelphia both contrast all three, so I guess I just have a bad ear for these things. I personally merge all them but my English is distincly foreign.

Except for one of the examples, I had a hard time telling apart the speakers' merry, marry, and Mary, and I merge all three, and since perceptions of others' speech can be influenced by one's own lect, you likewise could be influenced in your perceptions by your own lect.

[Travis B.]

NCVS notably never started in some parts of the Midwest. I wonder if people from Kansas City today speak identical to GA or did they have a separate divergence?

I tend to think of modern Midland dialects as being closer to GA than modern Inland North dialects myself. Note that Kansas City is a bit far south for the NCVS - the only area that far south that received the NCVS is a strip of land from Chicago to St. Louis.

[anteallach]

Also I'm from New Jersey and I've never heard any example of someone distinguishing all three of merry-marry-Mary, regardless of which dialect region in New Jersey they are from. On the other hand Wikipedia tells me New York City and Philadelphia both contrast all three, so I guess I just have a bad ear for these things. I personally merge all them but my English is distincly foreign.

Except for one of the examples, I had a hard time telling apart the speakers' merry, marry, and Mary, and I merge all three, and since perceptions of others' speech can be influenced by one's own lect, you likewise could be influenced in your perceptions by your own lect.

I struggle to hear the Virginian's as different, but the New York and Massachusetts ones are clear as day.

What I also struggled with is hearing some of the differences between the various LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT vowels; I think part of the problem is that the presenter's CLOTH/THOUGHT is really pretty close to my LOT.

The most strikingly unusual vowels to me were the Virginian's in about and house. Would you still hear that in that area today?

[Linguoboy]

The most strikingly unusual vowels to me were the Virginian's in about and house. Would you still hear that in that area today?

I’ve only heard raising that extreme from Tangerines and other Chesapeake islanders.

[Travis B.]

The most strikingly unusual vowels to me were the Virginian's in about and house. Would you still hear that in that area today?

I’ve only heard raising that extreme from Tangerines and other Chesapeake islanders.

That is stronger raising than anything I have heard myself. There is weak /aʊ/ raising here, to [ʌo̯] (unraised /aʊ/ is [ɑɔ̯]), nothing resembling the Virginian's.

[Qwynegold]

I hope this thread is allright to post this in. I'm trying to find the right lyrics to Courtney Love - Mono. Different sources write it slightly differently, but many say something like this:

Oh god I'd give you anything to hear you say that I was right and you were wrong
Oh god before I leave this life
No and eight-ball isn't love

However, there's a lyrics video (NSFW) that write that last line as "Now enable us a lover". Which one do you think is right?

[quinterbeck]

I hope this thread is allright to post this in. I'm trying to find the right lyrics to Courtney Love - Mono. Different sources write it slightly differently, but many say something like this:

Oh god I'd give you anything to hear you say that I was right and you were wrong
Oh god before I leave this life
No and eight-ball isn't love

However, there's a lyrics video (NSFW) that write that last line as "Now enable us a lover". Which one do you think is right?

I think a more likely line is Now unable as a lover, repeated later as Unable as a lover (3:13)

Other possibilities:
now enable us to love / a
no-one able as a lover
?? lose a lover

[Travis B.]

Does anyone else have trouble distinguishing can't and can in other English varieties? I ask because I often have trouble telling the two apart when spoken by people not from here - to me can't is very short, has a markedly nasal vowel (and no nasal consonant), and ends in a glottal stop (unless followed by a vowel), while a lot of people pronounce can't longer, with less nasalization (and with a nasal consonant), and without a glottal stop, which to me makes it sound to me like can. Oftentimes I can only tell other people's can't and can apart by context.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

For me, I think "can" (the auxiliary; the food storage container is [kʰæn~cʰæn]) is usually a very short something like [kʰən] or [kʰŋ], while can't waffles between [kʰæ̃(n)ɂ] and [kʰæən(t~ɂ)]. I've never had difficulty telling them apart in other people, however.

Edit: Aspiration derp.

[Travis B.]

For me, I think "can" (the auxiliary; the food storage container is [kæn~cæn]) is usually a very short something like [kən] or [kŋ], while can't waffles between [kæ̃(n)ɂ] and [kæən(t~ɂ)]. I've never had difficulty telling them apart in other people, however.

I also have the [kʰn̩(ː)] pronunciation of can (the auxiliary), but I do frequently pronounce it as [kʰɛ̃(ː)(n)~kʰɛ̃(ː)ə̯(n)], so as to be homophonous with can (the container).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

A very emphatic pronunciation of auxiliary "can" could be [kʰæ(ə)n~cʰæ(ə)n] for me, too, now that I think on it, but I only somewhat rarely use it in that context.

[Raphael]

Why is "mouth breather" used as an insult? It strikes me as rather mean to people who have a cold.

[linguistcat]

Why is "mouth breather" used as an insult? It strikes me as rather mean to people who have a cold.

Because many people find the sound of (obvious) mouth breathing either gross or creepy, and also a lot of our insults are ableist in some way.

[Linguoboy]

Why is "mouth breather" used as an insult? It strikes me as rather mean to people who have a cold.

It's even worse than that. It's based on a stereotype of mentally-challenged folks walking around with their mouths open all the time.

[Travis B.]

Why is "mouth breather" used as an insult? It strikes me as rather mean to people who have a cold.

It's even worse than that. It's based on a stereotype of mentally-challenged folks walking around with their mouths open all the time.

This. It is similar to the old insult "slack-jawed" used to describe people as being mentally-challenged.

[Raphael]

Oh. Wow. Worse than I thought. Thank you for enlightening me, folks!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I regularly cringe at the number of ableist slurs in general usage — the proverbial r-word being, in my mind, the worst among them.

[Kuchigakatai]

I regularly cringe at the number of ableist slurs in general usage — the proverbial r-word being, in my mind, the worst among them.

Interestingly, that word is not so bad in my mind, because I have never heard it used for a person with Down's syndrome or a similar condition. So for me it's about as bad as "idiot", which was etymologically a scientific word borrowed from Greek for the same sort of syndromes. In fact, "the proverbial r-word" also originates from a scientific euphemism, as a late 20th-century clipping from "retardate" /ɹɪˈtɑɹdɪt/, a borrowing from Latin, < retardātus/a/um. In the English I'm familiar with, in the social environments I've been mostly in, "the r-word" is pretty much completely ameliorated in this respect, and is not an ableist insult anymore, but just an insult... Unlike "mouth-breather", which definitely has ableist connotations IMO. See also "motherfucker", which I don't think people have interpreted in terms of incest or adultery for a long time now, except in jokes about adultery, or jokes about the tension between a single mother's boyfriend (or a stepfather) and the mother's children / the stepchildren.

I am aware, though, that young, highly-political types on the Internet seem to be currently turning the r-word into an ableist insult again, both leftists and right-wingers, by discussing and emphasizing the etymology as a term for people with medical conditions of that sort, which I consider a very interesting development. (The Anglo-leftists do it in the context of a word that must be censored for good moral reasons.)

Curiously, these English speakers online aren't doing that for "dumb" and "idiot", which they happily use all the time, even though these insults also have ableist origins. See for example this guy, who I'm sure wouldn't think of using the r-word. "Dumb" in fact wasn't originally an insult either, like "idiot", but a neutral term for people who can't articulate language (muteness), similar to the use of "mute" today.

Good luck getting people to be consistent about how they apply their views of morality to language though. Languages, politics and religion don't strive for logic, but are shared social conventions, practices and beliefs more than anything else. Conventions that are also necessary, I would add. And useful (we criticize and make fun of prescriptivists, but try asking a student of ancient Greek what they think about the multitude of ancient Greek dialects sometime, to see what happens when descriptivism / variation is widely allowed).

[Travis B.]

I have always perceived retard as ableist and associated it with the use of retarded to describe the mentally challenged, and this includes before I actually really cared about things such as ableism, whereas dumb and idiot are so bleached as to have lost any ableist connotations and to me are safe to use as general insults. (I always find it curious when I watch period pieces and they use dumb or idiot with their original meanings.)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I regularly cringe at the number of ableist slurs in general usage — the proverbial r-word being, in my mind, the worst among them.

Interestingly, that word is not so bad in my mind, because I have never heard it used for a person with Down's syndrome or a similar condition.

It very frequently was still when I was younger.

So for me it's about as bad as "idiot", which was etymologically a scientific word borrowed from Greek for the same sort of syndromes. In fact, "the proverbial r-word" also originates from a scientific euphemism, as a late 20th-century clipping from "retardate" /ɹɪˈtɑɹdɪt/, a borrowing from Latin, < retardātus/a/um. In the English I'm familiar with, in the social environments I've been mostly in, "the r-word" is pretty much completely ameliorated in this respect, and is not an ableist insult anymore, but just an insult... Unlike "mouth-breather", which definitely has ableist connotations IMO.

This may die out with my generation, but I'm far from ready to call it ameliorated. I'm also aware of its element (retard is also the French word for "lateness, tardiness"; also note "tardy", and I think also "tardigrade").

...See also "motherfucker", which I don't think people have interpreted in terms of incest or adultery for a long time now, except in jokes about adultery, or jokes about the tension between a single mother's boyfriend (or a stepfather) and the mother's children / the stepchildren.

This word is usually still seen as quite obscene, however.

I am aware, though, that young, highly-political types on the Internet seem to be currently turning the r-word into an ableist insult again, both leftists and right-wingers, by discussing and emphasizing the etymology as a term for people with medical conditions of that sort, which I consider a very interesting development. (The Anglo-leftists do it in the context of a word that must be censored for good moral reasons.)

Or perhaps it never stopped being one? The amelioration clearly didn't spread through all of society, and I think quite a few people of my generation and earlier will likely be offended by it.

Curiously, these English speakers online aren't doing that for "dumb" and "idiot", which they happily use all the time, even though these insults also have ableist origins. See for example this guy, who I'm sure wouldn't think of using the r-word. "Dumb" in fact wasn't originally an insult either, like "idiot", but a neutral term for people who can't articulate language (muteness), similar to the use of "mute" today.

Recall which is most likely to have been used with its actual ableist meaning in living memory. It has been used as a fairly severe term of abuse for children with learning difficulties, or who were simply awkward but reasonably intelligent, within the past 20-30 years, while idiot was, during that same period, already watered-down enough to be a fairly banal insult. I'm not saying its use as an insult was ever a particularly good or nice thing (and I don't often use it myself), however a word with a troubled recent history is more likely to be bothersome than a word with a troubled old one.

Good luck getting people to be consistent about how they apply their views of morality to language though. Languages, politics and religion don't strive for logic, but are shared social conventions, practices and beliefs more than anything else. Conventions that are also necessary, I would add. And useful (we criticize and make fun of prescriptivists, but try asking a student of ancient Greek what they think about the multitude of ancient Greek dialects sometime, to see what happens when descriptivism / variation is widely allowed).

Description and prescription are tools with different uses, however somebody being unaware of what I would argue is a much lesser etymological offense does not justify any other far more recent term of abuse one might like to use. It clearly isn't wholly ameliorated (this is, as far as I can tell, descriptively true), so I would (prescriptively) continue to advise against its use. I don't personally like using such words as "idiot", "luntatic", or "gyp" for that matter. Conventions are necessary, certainly, but human beings are capable of consciously shaping them. We do not have to keep those that are somehow harmful.