Posts by David Haywood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I'm glad to see that my comedy connects with a couple of people, at least.
Charles Mabbett wrote:
My favourite Slovenian electro-industrial rockers...
Wow, I had not seen the video to 'Live is Life' before -- completely outstanding, and brilliantly funny! By the way, in case Southerly readers haven't heard the original song (sort of a sing-along Bob Marley rip-off by German band 'Opus') then I can direct them here:
I once met a Greek woman who told me that she wished Greece would invade Slovenia, because "Slovenia isn't a proper country". She also said that the Greeks would never get around to it because "there is too much democracy in Greece". Later on she told me that it was illegal to use the word 'Britain' -- you had to say 'United Kingdom'.
-
Emma:
Hadn't quite looked at it this way before, but maybe you're onto something.
-
Jonty wrote:
I think you need EST before you can learn the bagpipes anyway.
I think you need EST and a lobotomy...
Don Christie wrote:
... welcome back from whatever hiatus has been keeping you from PA this time...
Cheers, Don. Two not-quite-finished-as-yet blogs on the story behind my hiatus are coming up soon.
Ukeleles have featured prominently in Wellington over the last few days, they demonstrate this song in honour of John Peel, ex-DJ.
Ah, what a splendid version of 'Teenage Kicks"!
By the way, I should have mentioned that this blog is dedicated to Gemma Gracewood from The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, who has kindly been helping me with my questions about the physics behind ukulele intonation.
Colin Granger wrote:
WTF?
Dude, haven't you ever been lying in bed thinking how over-rated Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will' is -- really a very distasteful propaganda flick -- and then started thinking, hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone watched this movie under the impression that it was a guide to learning how to play the volkszither?
-
Now, here's one I'm sure someone here will have insight on:
Mondee, Tuesdee, Wedsdee....etc.
I don't know if this is a very profound insight, Rob, but the Queen also pronounces the days of the week that way...
-
Jessica S wrote:
... my father can be quite pedantic in correcting me. I say 'paradise' rhymes with 'mice', he would say it rhymes with 'lies'.
I've just checked the RP pronunciation of 'paradise' in the both the 2002 and 1932 OEDs. In both cases the OED says that 'paradise' rhymes with 'mice', and DOES NOT rhyme with 'lies'.
Unless your father is currently living in a year substantially before 1932 (for example, the seventeenth century or earlier), I'd say that he's well wrong -- and that you're well right. You can annoy him by suggesting that his pronunciation is a case of hypercorrection.
Jackie Clark wrote:
... the difference is quite significant to me, and to my colleagues in the public sector. No part of Kiddicorp or ABC or Kindercare or other spuriously insulting named organisation are we. So if you could keep those two concepts different please?
Apologies for the error, Jackie. I haven't had anything to do with kindergarten and/or playcentre for 30 years or so, and have obviously become confused about the terminology. It was an honest mistake, I swear! Certainly no offence intended to you or your colleagues, who do very valuable work (my sister's just begun training as a kindy teacher, so I'm sure she'll have something to say on the subject, as well.)
-
Yer 'avin' a larf, innit?!
I can't help myself... some dialect related humour from Armstrong & Miller (takes second for the video to start working, for some reason):
Now... must do work...
-
Michael Stevens wrote:
There is a significant class aspect to this...
The whole language and class thing does my head in -- all that processing going on subconsciously inside people's heads.
But I believe Assoc-Prof Hay has done some work that suggests you can predict someone's NZ accent from the type of bread they eat (white or brown).
English is a glorious soup of a language...
I agree!
-
Robyn Gallagher wrote:
That clip is brilliant. Even though it's just Glennis from Foxton reciting a list of words, by the time she gets to the final word, there's a certain tone to her voice, as if to say, "These crazy academics. Why are they getting me to say all these words that sound the same? Doesn't everyone talk like this?"
Dude, I had exactly the same thought. I listened to all the words, and by the end of the list I was laughing to the point where I was having difficulty breathing. She has this increasingly incredulous tone in her voice as the list progresses. Priceless.
I don't think this shift is all that new: when I came to NZ from the UK over 30 years ago, I was already having to spell my last name for them, to distinguish it from "Baird".
The NEAR-SQUARE merger certainly isn't new. But what is comparatively recent is its place as the standard pronunciation for people under, say, 30. Nearly no-one over 60 would have the merger, and 30s-60s would fall somewhere in between.
Incidentally, other English dialects also have comparable vowel mergers. In many US dialects they have a LOT-THOUGHT merger, i.e. they pronounce the words 'cot' and 'caught' as if they were homophones. And some US-speakers also pronounce the words 'Mary' and 'Marry' the same.
Some mergers are already part of Standard English, of course. Almost all varieties of English treat 'toe' and 'tow' as homophones -- but in Norfolk they have kept the original distinction between the two.
Those who have an interest in NZ English will be pleased (or possibly horrified) to hear that a similar change to standard NZ pronunciation is also widely anticipated for 'TH fronting" (pronouncing the 'th' sound as either a 'v' of an 'f', i.e. "this and thing" becomes "vis an' fing"). It's already very widespread among NZ teenage girls -- and even some speakers in their 30s have it.
uroskin wrote:
Honestly, as a non-native English (or Nuzild-ish) speaker I cringe how English is mangled on these shaky isles.
On the one hand, I feel compelled to point out that there's nothing wrong with having a dialect. I hardly think that Irish people feel embarrassed about speaking like Irish people.
On the other hand, when I listened to Glennis on the University of Alberta's website, and reached the point where she attempted the word 'nuclear', my very first reaction was: "This is so embarrassing -- now everyone will think that all New Zealanders speak like this idiot".
A deeply unworthy thought -- and at an intellectual level I know that it's indefensible -- but that was, I'm afraid, my very first reaction.
-
You innocence sounds suitably convincing, K.J. I shall call off my lawyers.
1. The gravatar is the wee thumbnail image above your name in the top left-hand corner of each comment 'box'.
2. You can assign a gravatar to your email address by going to:
I assume the fact that my gravatar appears next to your name is a glitch in our system...
-
Full points to you, Emma! It's from 'Pnin'. And, yes, I totally agree -- isn't Nabokov's prose just stunning.
The weird buzzing in the back of your brain is probably just extreme boredom...