English questions

[Herra Ratatoskr]

I'd probably say "first... second... etc." but "firstly... secondly..." doesn't sound too weird, though I think there would be semantic distinctions I can't really put into words atm.

[Travis B.]

On that note, should it be regarded as a criterion for phonemicity that a hypothetical form should be able to be borrowed, coined, or created via onomatopoeia as long as it fits into a variety's phonotactics? This is a big part of why I presently am hesitant to regard things like vowel quantity and nasality as phonemic in my dialect because they cannot be created de novo but rather can only be derived from historical underlying forms, and borrowed and coined words behave like such historical underlying forms.

An elaborate enough set of phonotactics could capture whether something could have an underlying historical form. And such rules are probably useful in making sense of what is heard.

The processes of monosyllabicisation and tonogenesis in Thai and Lao have had similar effects. For Thai, which has been influenced by massive Chinese immigration, the effect is that the phonetic co-occurrences are highly non-random, and led Zsiga and Zsiga to give a theoretical analysis of Thai tone which explained the non-existence of several extant combinations, not just the oft-denied falling tone on short checked syllables. For Lao, Enfiled ended up claiming (but not explicitly) that in the Lao of ordinary L1 Lao speakers, every monosyllabic word fitted in the Gedney box. (For Thai and Lao, tone-splitting did not apply to words beginning with what are now unaspirated oral stops.) I thought he was being lazy, but perhaps the Lao do regularise the exceptions away. Certainly the Lao tone marks introduced to handle exceptions are extremely hard to find, though tone-marking does have a history of breaking down. By contrast, the similar marks in Thai are stable, perhaps due to the much stronger Chinese influence. Even in Thai, the marks are largely optional on loans from English.

Another note is that at least personally I don't have real phonemic consciousness of vowel quantity and nasality ─ even though I am very aware of them these days, I don't normally think of vowels as short, long, or overlong or as unnasalized or nasalized. Rather, what is intuitively phonemic to me is the surrounding consonant phonemes, with vowel quantity and nasality only being a side effect of them and their surface elision.

Furthermore, what I am intuitively phonemically conscious of patterns very well with how words actually behave. For instance, take the word drink ─ in isolation it is [tʃɹ̠ʁɪ̈̃ʔk], but when you add -ing it becomes [tʃɹ̠ʁɪ̈̃ŋ.kɘ̃(ː){0,n,ŋ}] ─ this is consistent with my intuitive analysis of it as /dʒrɪŋk/ and is not consistent with a naive analysis with a nasal vowel in the place of a nasal consonant.

[Travis B.]

This isn't a question but rather an observation -- today I noticed in Teams chat with one of my coworkers who, from how he speaks, I suspect is from southeastern Wisconsin, that he very regularly uses ya rather than yeah or yes. This is probably the first time I have specifically noticed a coworker using ya/yah in writing.

[Glass Half Baked]

The pronunciation Appa-LATCH-a appears to be the original form. So what and when is the origin of the pronunciation Appa-LAY-cha?

[Raphael]

Do I get this right that there's no common "ordinary" English name for the mushroom taxonomers call Amanita muscaria? I'm asking because I've got the impression that when people mention that mushroom in English language texts, they usually use the taxonomic name. And that sounds a bit unusual to me. After all, when people writing English language texts talk about cows, they usually don't write "Bos taurus".

[Lērisama]

I didn't recognise the name, but Wikipedia suggests ‘fly agaric’ and ‘fly amantia’, and it's picture matches my mental idea of fly agaric, so I'd assume that is its common name.

[Raphael]

I didn't recognise the name, but Wikipedia suggests ‘fly agaric’ and ‘fly amantia’, and it's picture matches my mental idea of fly agaric, so I'd assume that is its common name.

Thank you! Any idea why using the taxonomic name appears to be so common?

[Lērisama]

Any idea why using the taxonomic name appears to be so common?

I didn't recognise the taxonomic name, so I may not be the best person to ask. In what kind of places were you reading about it?

[Raphael]

In what kind of places were you reading about it?

Some of zompist's writings (not sure which ones), and the Wikipedia page itself.

[jal]

Some of zompist's writings (not sure which ones), and the Wikipedia page itself.

English Wikipedia pages always use the latin name for plants, unless they're a) very common and b) don't have conflicting/different names across the Anglo-speaking world. That's why the first sentence is "commonly called X or Y".


JAL

[Travis B.]

Do I get this right that there's no common "ordinary" English name for the mushroom taxonomers call Amanita muscaria? I'm asking because I've got the impression that when people mention that mushroom in English language texts, they usually use the taxonomic name. And that sounds a bit unusual to me. After all, when people writing English language texts talk about cows, they usually don't write "Bos taurus".

I'm used to the common name fly agaric myself.

[Travis B.]

The pronunciation Appa-LATCH-a appears to be the original form. So what and when is the origin of the pronunciation Appa-LAY-cha?

I'm not sure of its origin, but I am used to in the dialect here the pronunciation /ˌæpəˈleɪʃə/. Note though that in many placenames here in the Upper Midwest ⟨ch⟩ signifies /ʃ/, as in Chicago and Michigan.

[anteallach]

The pronunciation Appa-LATCH-a appears to be the original form. So what and when is the origin of the pronunciation Appa-LAY-cha?

I'm not sure of its origin, but I am used to in the dialect here the pronunciation /ˌæpəˈleɪʃə/. Note though that in many placenames here in the Upper Midwest ⟨ch⟩ signifies /ʃ/, as in Chicago and Michigan.

In those cases though the <ch> represents [ʃ] in the Native American names they are derived from, with the use of <ch> due to French influence, whereas in the case of Appalachian the Native American name it is derived from has an affricate (and an [a]-like vowel). I suspect we may be looking at a similar phenomenon to hyper-foreignisms like "Beizhing": "<ch> represents /ʃ/ in Native American names", even where it doesn't.

It may also be relevant that, as I understand it, in much of the Appalachians the mountains were not in fact locally known by that name until relatively recently, with other names such as "Alleghenies" and various more localised names being used instead. So the name may have been prone to spelling pronunciation.

[Raphael]

What does "the quad" mean in the context of political protests?

[Starbeam]

I grew up saying "Appalaychan", not "Appalayshan". To be honest, i didn't know that pronunciation existed until today. The "Appalatchan" short a stuff is familiar, but always has sounded a bit folksy. And i learned of the specific ranges a little after i learned of the mountain range as a whole

[Glass Half Baked]

This isn't a question, but a follow-up for anyone interested.

For the mountains, AppaLATCHan and AppaLAYCHan both have about the same pedigree; they are common in the region as far back as we have clear evidence. AppaLAYSHan seems to be common in western Pennsylvania, but I have yet to get confirmation on that. So there is no "correct" or "incorrect" form, even in the prescriptive sense.

Appalachia, the region, is more complicated. The term wasn't in common use until the mid twentieth century, and it has always been highly politicized, which means people will inevitably have Opinions about how it is properly pronounced. The pronunciation AppaLATCHa seems to be highly preferred in most parts of the region, with some people getting very strict about it. I have heard people compare the name AppaLAYCHa to the name Londonderry, which falls flat as a comparison, but gives you an idea how much people invest in this.

The term Appalachia, as far as I can tell, was popularized in parts of West Virginia and east Kentucky where AppaLATCHan was the dominant pronunciation of the name of the mountain range, so that's the vowel that carried over to the name of the region. AppaLAYCHa is probably an analogy for people who say AppaLAYCHan, not an invention by interlopers.

One interesting result of this is that the term AppaLATCHa has a wider geographic reach than AppaLATCHan when describing the mountain range. I grew up in north Georgia saying the AppaLAYCHan Mountains, but the region of AppaLATCHa.

[Travis B.]

I've noticed that my daughter often pronounces sorry with [ɒː], as opposed to both the typical-for-southeastern-Wisconsin [ɔː] and General American [ɑː]. This is without a general shift in my daughter's speech of START, of LOT plus /r/, or of NORTH/FORCE to [ɒːʁˤ] too. In my own speech, [ɒːʁˤ] primarily comes from /ɔlr/, as in already and all right, and does not occur without a consonant elision, so it is interesting that my daughter has a case of [ɒːʁˤ] that cannot be analyzed as having an underlying or historical elision.

[keenir]

What does "the quad" mean in the context of political protests?

my assumption is that it has to do with the location of a protest or a gathering (for a protest? during? before? only one, or several of those?)....stemming from how many protests were taking place on the grounds of a university or other school.

disclaimer: I've only ever heard "quad" used in one context: the schoolyard one given above...sometimes during a political discussion/recounting (like talking about Kent State), or talking about places on a school grounds.

[Raphael]

What does "the quad" mean in the context of political protests?

my assumption is that it has to do with the location of a protest or a gathering (for a protest? during? before? only one, or several of those?)....stemming from how many protests were taking place on the grounds of a university or other school.

disclaimer: I've only ever heard "quad" used in one context: the schoolyard one given above...sometimes during a political discussion/recounting (like talking about Kent State), or talking about places on a school grounds.

Yes, I've seen the term used in contexts like "occupying the quad", usually written in a way that made me think that the writer assumed as a matter of course that everyone would understand what "the quad" is. It's kind of annoying how many people who went to North American universities assume that everyone they'll ever talk to will, of course, know the basic terminology of North American universities.

So, it means, basically, a kind of schoolyard?

[keenir]

What does "the quad" mean in the context of political protests?

my assumption is that it has to do with the location of a protest or a gathering (for a protest? during? before? only one, or several of those?)....stemming from how many protests were taking place on the grounds of a university or other school.

disclaimer: I've only ever heard "quad" used in one context: the schoolyard one given above...sometimes during a political discussion/recounting (like talking about Kent State), or talking about places on a school grounds.

Yes, I've seen the term used in contexts like "occupying the quad", usually written in a way that made me think that the writer assumed as a matter of course that everyone would understand what "the quad" is. It's kind of annoying how many people who went to North American universities assume that everyone they'll ever talk to will, of course, know the basic terminology of North American universities.

So, it means, basically, a kind of schoolyard?

I think, yes. more a field for athletics, at least in that original sense.