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Posts tagged "spelling"
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Lauren: I’m gonna be pro-the-wacky-spelling, even though it is a major hindrance to me in my daily life. It’s worth pointing out that the house of the Latin alphabet that English lives in wasn’t necessarily a given. English has been written at various times with runes and other writing systems.
Gretchen: That’s true. The Latin alphabet was much better at spelling Latin than it was at spelling English, for example, because Latin actually only has five vowel sounds, and so it has five vowel symbols. That makes it a pretty easy correspondence. Whereas, English has five vowel symbols but does not have five vowel sounds. It has 14-ish depending on the dialect.
Lauren: That’s a really important thing with early English manuscripts where everyone borrowed this Latin alphabet in, but they borrowed it in to fit their dialect. There wasn’t necessarily a standard of spelling. It means that there are four main dialects when you look at Old English manuscripts, where, if you read them, they give you a really good idea of what the sounds were in different regions of English. So, we normally think of the Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon, so there are kind of four large areas of English. You can see some of those sound distinctions still in modern English varieties. The difference is that we had them in the writing system as well as in speech, but the writing system became standardised.
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Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode ‘Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change’
Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about descriptivism and words.
Transcript Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change
This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 33 shownotes page.
[Music]
Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics. I’m Gretchen McCulloch.
Lauren: And I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about why spelling is so hard and also hard to change. But first, Gretchen, it’s almost time for your book to be out in the world, and I am very excited.
Gretchen: I am also very excited for people to finally get to read it. But you have already read my book about internet linguistics.
Lauren: I have. This is why I get to be excited, because I know people are in for a treat.
Gretchen: In fact, you are featured a little bit in my book about internet linguistics, which was very funny because as I was talking about everybody else in the book, I was referring to everybody by their last names, and when I got to you, I was like, “I’m guess I’m calling her ‘Gawne’ for this book.”
Lauren: Oh, my gosh. Really?
Gretchen: Despite the fact that, of course, I normally call you “Lauren.”
Lauren: That is gonna be so amazing. I may have to listen to the audiobook just to laugh at that.
Gretchen: Just so you can laugh at how I don’t have a cot/caught distinction and so I can’t actually do the vowel that you do in your name.
Lauren: That’s okay. I’m just really excited. The book is great. People can pre-order it now. And its out on the 23rd of July?
Gretchen: That’s correct.
Lauren: You were explaining to me why pre-orders were so important. I’m learning a lot about books from you. It’s an interesting world.
Gretchen: Pre-orders are really important because, first of all, they help the publisher decide literally how many copies to print because they have a sense of how much people are interested in the book. Also, because when they’re trying to count book sales for whether something ends up as a bestseller or is on some sort of list, all of the pre-order sales count towards that first week of sales. So, if you’re likely to end up on a bestseller list, it’s gonna be the first week, and the pre-orders all count towards that. It’s huge. If you’re excited for any book, really, you should pre-order it. And you should definitely pre-order mine!
Lauren: Excellent. There’ll be a link to that in the show notes.
Gretchen: It is called “Because Internet” and is available where good books are sold. But there’ll be a link to that.
Lauren: This month’s Patreon bonus episode is an interview with Alice Gaby, which is all about how we use directions in language and her work with an Australian language, Kuuk Thaayorre. It was from our November liveshow in Melbourne.
Gretchen: Alice’s research is so interesting. It was really fun to do in the liveshow because we got to have a whole room of people in an auditorium point where they thought north was and see how good people are at telling different directions, and whether linguistic or cultural factors affect how good you are at directions or what types of directions you pay attention to or you notice. I also got to quiz her on some Canadianisms.
Lauren: That was pretty great. We returned the favour by quizzing you on some Australianisms that Alice chose.
Gretchen: Yes. That was very fun. You can listen to that and many other bonus episodes by going to patreon.com/lingthusiasm, which we’ll also link to in the show notes.
[Music]
Gretchen: Why is spelling so hard, Lauren? Why do we spend years and years learning how to spell and then we still mess it up?
Lauren: When you say “we,” I think you mean me. I am definitely the more prone to misspelling out of the two of us. Let’s just get that out of the way.
Gretchen: I misspell things, but then I also notice them before the post goes up. Whereas, you put a post up and then I message you being like, “Hey. I wanna reblog your post. Can you just fix this typo?”
Lauren: I would like to just say that I have a medieval manuscript approach to spelling, which is gonna be really important, and we’ll explain why in this episode. But part of the reason that English spelling is hard is that it is a long and storied history. Every word is like this great little time-capsule nugget of linguistic information.
Gretchen: I like to think of English spelling not so much as a phonetic approach to spelling – we don’t spell based on how something sounds – we spell based on where a word comes from. So, if a word comes from Old English versus if a word comes from French, or from Latin, or from Greek, or from one of the many other languages that English has borrowed words from, English tends to keep each word’s original spelling conventions or older spelling conventions, and then those come into conflict with each other. That’s what makes it really difficult.
Lauren: But it makes it so great as well.
Lingthusiasm Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change
Why does “gh” make different sounds in “though” “through” “laugh” “light” and “ghost”? Why is there a silent “k” at the beginning of words like “know” and “knight”? And which other languages also have interesting historical artefacts in their spelling systems? Spelling systems are kind of like homes – the longer you’ve lived in them, the more random boxes with leftover stuff you start accumulating.
In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about spelling, and celebrate the reasons that it’s sometimes so tricky. We then dive into quirks from some of our favourite spelling systems, including English, French, Spanish, Tibetan, and Arabic.
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here
Announcements:
This month’s bonus episode is about direction words! When you’re giving directions, do you tell someone to go north, left, or towards the sea? In this bonus episode, e talk with Alice Gaby about how different languages use different direction words. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to gain access to the directions episode and 27 previous bonus episodes.
Because Internet, Gretchen’s book about internet linguistics, is coming out next month, and if you like the fun linguistics we do for Lingthusiasm, you’ll definitely like this book! You can preorder it here in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (read by Gretchen herself) – preorders are really important because they signal to the publisher that people are excited about linguistics, so they should print lots of copies! We really appreciate your preorders (and you can look forward to a special Q&A episode with behind the scenes info on Because Internet once it’s out!)
Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- Dialect variation in Old English (Wikipedia)
- The Great Vowel Shift (OED)
- Vowel Gymnastics (Lingthusiasm Episode 17)
- William Caxton (Wikipedia)
- Baltimore/Voldemort (All Things Linguistic)
- Arabic Alef (Wikipedia)
- Tibetan Script (Wikipedia)
- Ænglisc Ἐτυμολογικal Speling Réforme - Etymology based spelling proposal for English (All Things Linguistic)
- Make English spelling less logical (BAHfest)
You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.
To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.
You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.
Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our editorial manager is Emily Gref, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
Transcript Episode 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 26 show notes page.
[Music]
Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.
Lauren: And I’m Lauren Gawne, and today, we’re getting enthusiastic about palatalisation. That is to say, “What the heck is going on with G and C?” But first, thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic recommending during our November Recommend-A-Thon.
Gretchen: Yes, thanks so much for all your tweets, and posts, and shares, and all of the new people that you’ve brought in with you to listen to Lingthusiasm.
Lauren: We will be thanking every one of you who made some kind of public declaration about their love of Lingthusiasm. We’ll give you until the end of the month to add yourself to that esteemed group of people, so we can thank you all in our annual anniversary post.
Gretchen: Yes, so you have till the end of November 2018 to be part of this year’s Recommend-A-Thon thank you post, which will live in perpetuity on our website. Last year we thanked 100 people. This year, I think we can thank even more. I’m really excited by what we’ve seen so far.
Lauren: I’m feeling very confident about that. And of course, you can continue to recommend us to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life any time of the year.
Gretchen: I also want to thank everybody who came out to the live shows.
Lauren: Yay! I’m not gonna lie, we’re recording this before the live shows.
Gretchen: So we’re really hoping people actually come.
Lauren: We are just going to have to assume that they were an absolute rolling success.
Gretchen: We’re recording well in advance at the moment to make sure that we have episodes for when Lauren’s on leave. We’re very excited about those live shows. I assume they were great. Thanks so much to everyone who came out in Melbourne and Sydney. It was so fun to get to see those cities. We also want to remind you that if you’re thinking about getting Lingthusiasm merch for any linguists or language enthusiasts in your life, if you want to get someone a scarf with the International Phonetic Alphabet, or tree symbol diagrams on them, or a tie with the IPA on it, or various baby outfits, or T-shirts that say, “Not judging your grammar, just analysing it,” or many other things, now is a great time to place an order so that arrives towards the end of the year.
Lauren: Remember, it’s also totally okay to use this as a list of suggestions for other people to buy you, or if you enjoy doing a bit of holiday shopping for yourself, we’re not gonna stop you.
Gretchen: We definitely noticed from last year that RedBubble typically runs some sales this time of year, so hopefully, you can take advantage of those to get you and/or your friends and family some great Lingthusiasm swag.
Lauren: Speaking of the holiday season, it’s a very important holiday season coming up that’s the Northern Hemisphere winter conference season, which I’m usually excited about. Not doing so much travel this year.
Gretchen: Well, the Australian Linguistic Society is also having its annual meeting in Adelaide in December, which I’m going to be at because I’m still in Australia. Our latest Patreon bonus episode is all about the academic conference circuit and how to make it work for you.
Lauren: I had a lot of fun in this episode. This is all of mine and Gretchen’s favourite survival tips for navigating academic conferences. If you’ve never been to one before, or you’ve only been to a couple, they’re lots of fun, and they can be even more fun.
Gretchen: Yes, so you can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to check those out, or lingthusiasm.com/merch for the merch. We’ll repeat those links at the end of the episode, so you don’t have to write them down now.
[Music]
Gretchen: So, G and C are really weird letters because they’re these two letters that, in a whole bunch of languages, often come with multiple sounds. You have the sounds in their names like /dʒ/ and /s/, and then you have other sounds like /g/ and /k/, and then even more sounds. These letters are so weird.
Lauren: I’m not known for being the most reliable when it comes to a spelling bee, and I feel like it’s often letters like G and C that trip me up because they have so many different pronunciation disguises that they put on.
Gretchen: They really do. They especially do that in different languages. You can do a brief sample of this through different languages’ words for “cheese.”
Lauren: Ooo, let’s do a cross-linguistic cheese platter!
Lingthusiasm Episode 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization
A letter stands for a sound. Or at least, it’s supposed to. Most of the time. Unless it’s C or G, which each stand for two different sounds in a whole bunch of languages. C can be soft, as in circus or acacia, or hard, as in the other C in circus or acacia. G can be hard, as in gif, or soft, as in gif.
Why can C and G be hard or soft? And why don’t other letters come in hard and soft versions?
In this episode of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about the group of sounds that are pronounced with the back part of the roof of your mouth, aka the palate. When one sound in a word is produced at the palate, it tends to pull neighbouring sounds towards the palate as well, and this palatal attraction explains so many weird mismatches of sound and spelling. Why can C and G be hard and soft? Why do T and D sometimes get different pronunciations as well, as in nation and didja? Why are Irish and Scottish Gaelic names spelled that way? Why is it so hard to spell the clipped forms of “usual” and “casual”? How are cheese and cacio e pepe and queso and Käse all related?
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here
Announcements:
This month’s bonus episode was about how to have fun at (or just survive) academic conferences. Whether you’re new to academic conferences, or have never been to one and want to know how they’re different from other large gatherings like conventions, this episode has all the info! Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to gain access to this and 20 previous bonus episodes.
This is also our anniversary episode! Whether you’ve been with us for the whole two years or you’ve joined us more recently, we’re glad you’re here. Thank you to everyone who has helped bring the show to more language fans in honour of our anniversary. There’s still a bit of time to get your name on the special thank you post and help more people get a fun language thing in their ears by recommending Lingthusiasm on social media before the end of the month.
Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- cheese (Etymonline)
- The letter C (Wikipedia)
- The letter G (Wikipedia)
- Hard and soft G (Wikipedia)
- MRI International Phonetic Alphabet
- pronouncing Celtic (Stan Carey on Mental Floss)
- Why Mexico is spelt that way (David Bowles on Twitter)
- Palatalisation (Wikipedia)
- Bantu language names
- Scottish Gaelic given names
- pronouncing Scottish Gaelic
- Lingthusiasm episode 6: All the sounds in all the languages
- Lingthusiasm episode 17: Vowel gymnastics
You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.
To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.
You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.
Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are Emily Gref and A.E. Prévost, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
About Lingthusiasm
A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Weird and deep conversations about the hidden language patterns that you didn't realize you were already making.
New episodes (free!) the third Thursday of the month.
