Pedants' Paradise

[LeMartinPecheur]

Or cough; or rough; or dough

The web gives an audio clip for pronunciation in modern Dutch https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verlof

This goes against what I suggested above, that the stress is on the first syllable. BUT the O in the second is notated phonetically as the 'murmur' vowel(*) so not very strongly emphasized. 'Cough' is probably closest of the above but have a listen.

(*) The standard phonetic symbol for very many unstressed English vowels, a barely heard grunt noise. As in the underlined examples here if you read the sentences out fast! And of course, murmur itself contains two examples, stressed and unstressed.

[greenilex]

That’s the right kind of word...we’re all eating out of their hands now.

Like a spell.

[LMcD]

Dear Georgia Mann:
IMHO, the title of that song wot Richard Strauss wrote is not pronounced ABENDROTT or ARBENTROT(T), it's pronounced ARBENTROTE!

[gurnemanz]

Dear Georgia Mann:
IMHO, the title of that song wot Richard Strauss wrote is not pronounced ABENDROTT or ARBENTROT(T), it's pronounced ARBENTROTE!

Achtung! A Deutschlehrer (retd) writes. I agree. There's an easy pronunciation rule which any R3 announcer could learn very easily if they could be bothered to find out or someone enlightened them.

Long vowel before a single consonant. (eg Not, Brot, rot, tot etc). Short vowel before a double consonant. (eg Gott, flott, Lotte etc).

[LezLee]

Some people have no ‘feel’ for language. My husband’s Spanish teacher, when trying to explain, used to hold his hand on his heart and declaim: “I feel it here”. The class was split into those who didn’t need telling and those who looked blank.

[Pulcinella]

From the ROH website information about the streaming of Gloriana.

Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign.

Did her reign not start on 6 February 1952, the day of her accession?
Or did it not officially start till the coronation on 2 June 1953?

[LMcD]

From the ROH website information about the streaming of Gloriana.

Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign.

Did her reign not start on 6 February 1952, the day of her accession?
Or did it not officially start till the coronation on 2 June 1953?

It started on 06.02.1952.

[Pulcinella]

It started on 06.02.1952.

I always knew that news of my birth (at 10pm on 05.02.1952) was too much for the poor old king to bear, and that I heralded the new Elizabethan era!

[LMcD]

BBC News reports keep referring to the National Arboretum (which is in Gloucestershire) when the reports are clearly coming from the National Memorial Arboretum, which is just over 100 miles away.

[Serial_Apologist]

BBC News reports keep referring to the National Arboretum (which is in Gloucestershire) when the reports are clearly coming from the National Memorial Arboretum.

Someone at the Beeb has clearly forgotten!

[LMcD]

Someone at the Beeb has clearly forgotten!

Sometimes the newsreader gets it right and the reporter gets it wrong and sometimes vice-versa. I would hate to think that folks inspired to visit Staffordshire might end up in the West Country!

[cat]

BBC News reports keep referring to the National Arboretum (which is in Gloucestershire) when the reports are clearly coming from the National Memorial Arboretum, which is just over 100 miles away.

If they're clearly coming from the National Memorial Arboretum, surely there's no need to specify which particular national arboretum they are coming from?

I doubt reporters on The HitMix 107.5FM: Newcastle-under-Lyme's truly local radio station feel the need to continually clarify that the Newcastle they refer to so often to is actually Newcastle-under-Lyme rather than Newcastle upon Tyne, because it's clearly the former.

[Serial_Apologist]

Today, on the BBC London & Se TV News:

"In Lambeth they're restricting vehicles to residential areas".

This, in response to reported increases in air pollution as lockdown is eased.

I was of the initial impression that the above opening statement from the news item meant that only the established vehicles of residents in given areas would be permitted to be within those areas. In the end it turned out that residents are not permitted to bring their own vehicles back into their streets, because during the downturn in traffic period many side streets were bollarded off, with access only allowed to pedestrians and cyclists, leaving resident's vehicles stranded. Two women residents were on complaining of no prior notice to this effect from the local authority.

[oddoneout]

Today, on the BBC London & Se TV News:

"In Lambeth they're restricting vehicles to residential areas".

This, in response to reported increases in air pollution as lockdown is eased.

I was of the initial impression that the above opening statement from the news item meant that only the established vehicles of residents in given areas would be permitted to be within those areas. In the end it turned out that residents are not permitted to bring their own vehicles back into their streets, because during the downturn in traffic period many side streets were bollarded off, with access only allowed to pedestrians and cyclists, leaving resident's vehicles stranded. Two women residents were on complaining of no prior notice to this effect from the local authority.

My first reading conjured up visions of delivery trucks etc parked up in residential areas because they're not allowed to the commercial addresses...
Should have said "...vehicle access in residential areas"?

[Serial_Apologist]

My first reading conjured up visions of delivery trucks etc parked up in residential areas because they're not allowed to the commercial addresses...
Should have said "...vehicle access in residential areas"?

Or even into...