Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- RSRICHMOND@a... wrote:
>
> Hi Dshep and all!
>
> > Did your parents use the "New England short-o"
> > in words such as "stone"?<<

> No, they didn't, or at least I don't (my parents would
> celebrate their centenaries this year). Like most North
> Americans, I have one less vowel phoneme than
> his late majesty George V.
>
> Bob Richmond


The reason I asked is that until some time ago all the various
versions of Webster's, still unashamedly in prescriptionist mode,
openly promoted "correct" pronunciation, which was defined as
the speech of the educated -- though it was phrased somewhat
more diplomatically. Departures from this standard, such as the
cot/caught merger west of the Alleghanies were considered
uncouth and Southernisms were beneath mention. Vallyspeak
had not yet appeared and so escaped excoriation. No regionalisms
were admitted, with two exceptions: the intermediate /a/ of
"can't" still used by Senator Kennedy and by Senator Kerry until
he ran for President, an /a/ similar to the European /a/, midway
between the British and American and perhaps intended as a
compromise, and the special short-o used in words such as
"stone" and "home" in New England. To other Americans these
words sounded like "stun" and "hum". I know of at least one film
wherein one may hear a small sample, an old feel-good movie
with Cary Grant called "Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House",
in which the house in question is built in the (then) wilds of
upstate Connecticut and where our hero must deal with the local
rustics.

This bias was a result of the simple fact that New England and in
particular Boston was, to begin with, the home of the American
publishing industry, especially of dictionaries, for at least the first
hundred years of the country's existence, until New York gradually
took over. Noah Webster himself was of course a New Englander,
as were the Merriam Brothers who acquired his name and copyrights.
And then there were Harvard and Yale, and more importantly all the
exclusive prep schools in the area that together determined what
was meant by educated. That particular, well-endowed areas take
it upon themselves to provide cultural leadership of a country is
nothing new, it is what the Oxbridge community did for England
and Paris for France. It is a natural process, but may not always be
appreciated.

All this may well fall into the realm of trivia. However, on a radio
seminar I heard some months ago this very fact, that American
education and culture (dictionaries were mentioned) has its roots
in New England, was actually put forth by a sociologist as a likely
factor fueling the Red-State resentment, even rage, against the
effete, over-educated, (fill-in-the-blank) presumptions of the
Northeast Blue-State literati and (especially) political leaders who,
somehow, are able to always thwart the heartland's intentions.
Hurt feelings can be translated directly into a political force, I believe
he was trying to say. Unfortunately I was driving at the time and
didn't catch the name of this particular person, but other members
who had similar things to say were a California linguist named, I think,
Geoffrey Nunberg, who has published a book entitled "Going Nucular
(sic); American Discourse Today", and Thomas Frank, who wrote
"What's the Matter with Kansas?", an interesting study of current
shifts of sensibility in his home state.

Where one finds oneself in the great carousel of life makes a great
deal of difference in how the rest of the world is perceived, often
according to the principle

I am a person of firm preferences,

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- RSRICHMOND@a... wrote:
>
> Hi Dshep and all!
>
> > Did your parents use the "New England short-o"
> > in words such as "stone"?<<

> No, they didn't, or at least I don't (my parents would
> celebrate their centenaries this year). Like most North
> Americans, I have one less vowel phoneme than
> his late majesty George V.
>
> Bob Richmond


The reason I asked is that until some time ago all the various
versions of Webster's, still unashamedly in prescriptionist mode,
openly promoted "correct" pronunciation, which was defined as
the speech of the educated -- though it was phrased somewhat
more diplomatically. Departures from this standard, such as the
cot/caught merger west of the Alleghanies were considered
uncouth and Southernisms were beneath mention. Vallyspeak
had not yet appeared and so escaped excoriation. No regionalisms
were admitted, with two exceptions: the intermediate /a/ of
"can't" still used by Senator Kennedy and by Senator Kerry until
he ran for President, an /a/ similar to the European /a/, midway
between the British and American and perhaps intended as a
compromise, and the special short-o used in words such as
"stone" and "home" in New England. To other Americans these
words sounded like "stun" and "hum". I know of at least one film
wherein one may hear a small sample, an old feel-good movie
with Cary Grant called "Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House",
in which the house in question is built in the (then) wilds of
upstate Connecticut and where our hero must deal with the local
rustics.

This bias was a result of the simple fact that New England and in
particular Boston was, to begin with, the home of the American
publishing industry, especially of dictionaries, for at least the
first hundred years of the country's existence, until New York
gradually took over. Noah Webster himself was of course a New
Englander,as were the Merriam Brothers who acquired his name
and copyrights. And then there were Harvard and Yale, and more
importantly all theexclusive prep schools in the area that together
determined what was meant by educated. That particular,
well-endowed areas take it upon themselves to provide cultural
leadership of a country is nothing new, it is what the Oxbridge
community did for England and Paris for France. It is a natural
process, but may not always be appreciated.

All this may well fall into the realm of trivia. However, on a radio
seminar I heard some months ago this very fact, that American
education and culture (dictionaries were mentioned) has its roots
in New England, was actually put forth by a sociologist as a likely
factor fueling the Red-State resentment, even rage, against the
effete, over-educated, (fill-in-the-blank) presumptions of the
Northeast Blue-State literati and (especially) political leaders who,
somehow, are able to always thwart the heartland's intentions.
Hurt feelings can be translated directly into a political force, I
believe he was trying to say. Unfortunately I was driving at the
time and didn't catch the name of this particular person, but other
memberswho had similar things to say were a California linguist
named, I think,Geoffrey Nunberg, who has published a book entitled
"Going Nucular (sic); American Discourse Today", and Thomas Frank,
who wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?", an interesting study of
currentshifts of sensibility in his home state.

Where one finds oneself in the great carousel of life makes a great
deal of difference in how the rest of the world is perceived, often
according to the principle

I have rational preferences,
you are biased,
he is prejudiced.

I am firm-willed,
you are obstinate
he is pig-headed.

etc, etc,
dshep

I think this may have been sent before I was quite finished.

Departures from this standard, such as the
> cot/caught merger west of the Alleghanies were considered
> uncouth and Southernisms were beneath mention. Vallyspeak
> had not yet appeared and so escaped excoriation.

Nice use of the word "excoriation." Five points.

--Star

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--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@y...> wrote:


> Nice use of the word "excoriation." Five points.


That's only one point per syllable.
I request a reconsideration.

dshep

sori abQt Ha rapIt pOst.

it iz YlweZ best tM pUS

Onli Ha rFt butanz.

-----
dSep

The Apple i-Tunes music store lists an album by a
rock group, obviously a literate one, named Ghoti Hook.

I'm sure everyone wanted to know that.

always amazed,
dshep

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- "paul vandenbrink" wrote:
>
> Hi Scott
> I agree wholeheartedly.
> These spelling conventions ensure that some of the most used words are
> written consistently and with a minimum number of letters.
> Shavian was designed to require less effort to write, having many of
> the benefits of a Shorthand, while preserving clear easily recognizable
> letter shapes.
> As well as the four standard Shavian abbreviations below, there are an
> increased number of single letter words.


I don't.

The use of abbreviations, well, these aren't even abbreviations, they are,
what is the word?--logograms, like the ampersand (&), and in my opinion
they deter, detract, and diverge from the basic phonemic structure of Shavian,
where every word can or should be quickly and easliy identified by its vocalic
components, and for what? A savings of one letter per word, a mere key-stroke.
A loss of clarity for a marginal gain in efficiency. To my eye they are as crude
as birds + bees or I (heart) U. If something more like a shorthand is wanted
then surely Quickscript/Kwikskrip would be the better choice.

heretically,
dshep

> > Hi Scott
> > I agree wholeheartedly.
> > These spelling conventions ensure that some of the most used words are
> > written consistently and with a minimum number of letters.
> > Shavian was designed to require less effort to write, having many of
> > the benefits of a Shorthand, while preserving clear easily recognizable
> > letter shapes.
> > As well as the four standard Shavian abbreviations below, there are an
> > increased number of single letter words.
>
>
> I don't.
>
> The use of abbreviations, well, these aren't even abbreviations, they are,
> what is the word?--logograms, like the ampersand (&), and in my opinion
> they deter, detract, and diverge from the basic phonemic structure of
> Shavian,
> where every word can or should be quickly and easliy identified by its
> vocalic
> components, and for what? A savings of one letter per word, a mere key-
> stroke.
> A loss of clarity for a marginal gain in efficiency. To my eye they are as
> crude
> as birds + bees or I (heart) U. If something more like a shorthand is
> wanted
> then surely Quickscript/Kwikskrip would be the better choice.
>
> heretically,
> dshep

With most phonemic alphabets, I would agree, but Shavian's no.1 guiding
principle was EFFICIENCY, not absolute phonemic consistency. The four most
common words given single letters in Shavian are used so much in English
writing that there can be a considerable space saving by abbreviating them.
You only have to look at "txt spk" to realise that people love abbreviations
for efficiency's sake.

Hugh B

Hi Dshep, the heretic in training
I agree with Hugh in this matter.
Roman English has enumeral abbrev., some Latin based. Shavian has only 4.
These 4 abbrev. have the additional benefit of simplifiing spelling as
otherwise :
"and" would sometimes be spelt An, an or And.
"the" would sometimes be spelt Hu, Ha, Hi, HI
"of" would sometimes be spelt av, uv, ov
See the chaos you would have without these 4 simple abbrev.
Are you ready to recant your Heresy and approach the light.
Regards, Paul V.
P.S. Lost Shep are always welcomed back to the fold.
___________________attached___________________________________
>From: "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@...>
>Reply-To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
>To: <shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: RE: [shawalphabet] Re: Shavian Spelling Conventions
>Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 11:55:26 -0000
>
> > I don't agree.
> >
> > The use of abbreviations, well, these aren't even abbreviations, they
>are,
> > what is the word?--logograms, like the ampersand (&), and in my opinion
> > they deter, detract, and diverge from the basic phonemic structure of
> > Shavian,
> > where every word can or should be quickly and easliy identified by its
> > vocalic
> > components, and for what? A savings of one letter per word, a mere key-
> > stroke.
> > A loss of clarity for a marginal gain in efficiency. To my eye they are
>as
> > crude
> > as birds + bees or I (heart) U. If something more like a shorthand is
> > wanted
> > then surely Quickscript/Kwikskrip would be the better choice.
> >
> > heretically,
> > dshep
>
>With most phonemic alphabets, I would agree, but Shavian's no.1 guiding
>principle was EFFICIENCY, not absolute phonemic consistency. The four most
>common words given single letters in Shavian are used so much in English
>writing that there can be a considerable space saving by abbreviating them.
>You only have to look at "txt spk" to realise that people love
>abbreviations
>for efficiency's sake.

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Hello All. I am a graduate student researching Shaw's linguistic
background. Obviously, he is very influential in this field, however,
I cannot find any information regarding any formal training Shaw may
have recieved in the subject. I am also searching for any letters,
articles, etc. that may give an insight into Shaw's view of his play
Pygmalion and his views of the linguistically based social
stratification in England.

Thanks& Cheers

Lee J.