Pronunciation watch

[french frank]

they would say Londond'ry. Of course, some of us would just say Derry, but that would be a political matter, that will not go away.

This is why it always seemed insulting to say Londond'ry - whereas you seem to be treating it as two separate words, each having its own stress. I think I would probably treat the initial as the primary, the third as the secondary, so giving the vowel of the third its full value. Not just stress, but possibly even a matter of pitch?

On Trafalgar, trust the English to get it completely wrong, stressing the one syllable that has no stress. Cornish proper name, I suppose, like Trefusis or Trelawn[e]y.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... a lazy assertion, and one you have used before.

It doesn't make it any less true though.

[jean]

No more (or less) true than when the word's applied to the speech of the young and/or poor.

[vinteuil]

It doesn't make it any less true though.

... there are so many different kinds of accents used by what might be termed 'posh' people, from the clipped enunciation of Bertrand Russell and the strangulated tones of Brian Sewell, the precise articulation of the younger Queen, that to say that the way posh people speak is lazy - is meaningless - a lazy insult.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... there's always a stress on the first - London - the question is whether you also put a stress on the first syllable of the second element - derry.

But wasn't Padraig suggesting that this is not so: "Londonderry" ...

Oh pruddle! Ignore me - I've just worked out that the stressed syllables in Padraig's post are those not in italics!

[french frank]

that to say that the way posh people speak is lazy - is meaningless - a lazy insult.

I was very young and looked up to posh people as my betters …

But to consider language as 'the way I was taught' or 'the text book way' or 'the way I've always used it' or 'the way our family always used it' is a recipe for apoplexy. Looking, perhaps, for such a concept as 'anti-linguistic' I found:

"The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other humans can do that.”

[ferney - I bet you made up, 'Oh pruddle' a moment ago' :-P ]

[Richard Tarleton]

Which reminds me, one used occasionally to hear people stressing the first syllable, which I thought was the posh person's way to pronounce it (as in the Bettle of TRAffulgah). But this isn't like Spanish Tárrega. On checking, there's no accent, so (RichardT will correct me if necessary) it would be stressed on the final syllable (not the middle one) - Tràfalgár. So I wonder whether the 'posh' way was simply making the initial, secondary stress too strong, and thus the primary stress (and English-like swallowing the unstressed syllable)?

Indeed. Spanish rule: If a word is stressed regularly, no written accent is required. If a word is stressed irregularly, the position of the stress must be shown by an acute accent on the stressed vowel. Stress is regular if:
a) the word ends in a consonant other than n or s and the stress falls on the last syllable
b) the word ends in a vowel, n or s and the stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

(Butt & Benjamin)

Thus Trafalgar is regular - stress on last syllable, no accent required. Tárrega is irregular - stress on first syllable, accent on first syllable. [Renata] Tarragó (heard on Record Review the other day) also irregular, ends in vowel, stress on last syllable, therefore accent.

I would pronounce it TrafAlgar in English, e.g when referring to the battle, Trafalgar Day....but the Spanish way in, er, Spanish, obviously. Went to Cabo de Trafalgar in mid-80s, hire car broken into (nothing stolen) - lovely low-lying area with sand dunes, parasol pines and azure-winged magpies







if a word is stressed regularly,

[vinteuil]

"The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other humans can do that.”

... you will, won't you? - supply us with the name of the author?

I'm not sure I understand it.

"The world can ... cause us to hold beliefs". What is meant by "the world" here?

"... once we have programmed ourselves with a language". Is the metaphor from computers helpful here? Do we programme ourselves? Surely we acquire a language thro' contact with a society acting on any deep-structure innate neural networks we have?

"[The world] cannot propose a language for us to speak". Well, I'm not clear what is meant by "the world", but it is the surrounding verbal society which, I suppose, does 'propose [ = put forward]' a language for us to speak.

"only other humans can [propose a language for us to speak]". How are 'other humans' different from 'the world (as understood by the writer)'.

No, I remain baffled...




.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[ferney - I bet you made up, 'Oh pruddle' a moment ago' :-P ]

[Oldcrofter]

Different pronunciation again as in London derrière !

[Serial_Apologist]

Different pronunciation again as in London derrière !

I'm afraid you're a little behind, OC!

[Oldcrofter]

Just bringing up the rear, then - lanterne rouge comme d'habitude.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... there are so many different kinds of accents used by what might be termed 'posh' people, from the clipped enunciation of Bertrand Russell and the strangulated tones of Brian Sewell, the precise articulation of the younger Queen, that to say that the way posh people speak is lazy - is meaningless - a lazy insult.

The evidence is there.
Shaw's Professor Higgins made Eliza Doolittle speak with marbles in her mouth to prevent her from opening it, in order to crush the vowel sounds.
Watch any RP newsreader or politician speaking, and see their lips barely moving. The first one I noticed with this kind of speech was Bamber Gascoigne, because he was more extreme than most, but I think it's becoming more common.

The French and Germans, in contrast, open their mouths when they speak.

[vinteuil]

... I think it's becoming more common.
.

... the posh people I know mainly complain that the younger generation of 'posh' people have lorst the characteristic RP speech pattern to replace it with something more Estuarine.

or as my ma wd have said - they are becoming more 'common'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English

.

[french frank]

The French and Germans, in contrast, open their mouths when they speak.

But they are usually speaking French and German, not English.

Mr Vinteuil - I thought I understood it until you queried it. And in the context in which I found it, I thought it was referring specifically to language (I was looking for 'antilinguistics'). I can't immediately locate the website I found it on, but it seems the quote is from the philosopher Richard Rorty, a linguist in the Wittgensteinian sense.

I was thinking of the [wide] world as all we experience in a general way, about which, once we possess language, we can think, describe and form our personal beliefs (including about language). But it's other human beings who indicate to us what language is, by using it. So in this sense how people use language IS 'language'.

But I don't think Rorty meant that