Author Topic: Pronunciation that makes you cringe  (Read 147243 times)

Davef

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #675 on: 24 September, 2020, 11:09:15 am »
Odd word that. I would have thought intumescent was the opposite of tumescent.

It's a different in-, as in information, which isn't the opposite of formation.
Hmmm, so “tumescent” has meant “swelling” for centuries. In the 1950s someone comes up with “intumescent” meaning swelling caused by heat or fire. If I was making up a new word I would have gone for “pyrotumescent” or “thermotumescent”, maybe with a hyphen.

ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #676 on: 24 September, 2020, 11:23:16 am »
Intumescence doesn't have to be caused by heat, it's just come to be used that way. There's something about fire that leads to an urge to add an in- to the front of words. You have intumescent paint but a tumescent penis. Hopefully not at the same time, it'll get in the way.

Weirdly, no one uses tumescent paint and intumescent penises are rarely sighted.

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #677 on: 24 September, 2020, 11:29:39 am »
Ralgex deep heat anyone ?   Ewwwwww.
Rust never sleeps

ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #678 on: 24 September, 2020, 11:35:47 am »
I like your thinking. So slathering on Deep Heat to inflame one's singular passion is the distinction between tumescence and intumescence.

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #679 on: 24 September, 2020, 11:41:31 am »
Odd word that. I would have thought intumescent was the opposite of tumescent.

It's a different in-, as in information, which isn't the opposite of formation.
It's the in- that means in!
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Davef

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #680 on: 24 September, 2020, 12:21:43 pm »
Intumescence doesn't have to be caused by heat, it's just come to be used that way. There's something about fire that leads to an urge to add an in- to the front of words. You have intumescent paint but a tumescent penis. Hopefully not at the same time, it'll get in the way.

Weirdly, no one uses tumescent paint and intumescent penises are rarely sighted.
As I said. Odd word. Tumescent, the adjective, means swollen. Intumescence the noun derived from it, meaning “a swelling” used in medicine. The very rare adjective “intumescent” meant “marked by swellings” but I cannot find a real example of it being used. Since the 1950s intumescent has been used an adjective applied to paint the swells under heat or fire. If you look up “intumescent” in the dictionary that is what it says as the main meaning.

So “intumescent” means marked by swellings or a paint the swells on heating.

A swollen penis and a penis marked by swellings are quite different things.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #681 on: 24 September, 2020, 12:31:57 pm »
Inflammable is not the opposite of flammable...
Prompted me to check Merriam-Webster. I'm not sure how representative it is of the President's English, but they list inflame and inflammatory but not "flammatory". Although they do, logically, have flammation. They also say:
Quote
In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think inflammable meant "not able to catch fire," so they adopted flammable and nonflammable as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, flammable is now the preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but inflammable is still occasionally used with that meaning as well.
Firefighters, bold in action but worried about words.

Now you’ve got me wondering why Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew et all didn’t complain about Stiff Little Fingers' debut album…
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ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #682 on: 24 September, 2020, 12:36:20 pm »
...

A swollen penis and a penis marked by swellings are quite different things.

Well, yes, that's what she said...

Intumescence doesn't just mean marked by swellings though (they'd probably be intumescences). Older medical texts refer to the 'intumescence of pregnancy' which is basically the bulge. Seems popular (along with womb and uterus in older copies of the Lancet, probably because they've digitized their back archive).

A couple of examples:

The intumescence of the uterus continued about the same and Jules Verne: Here, an intumescence which was to become a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean or a sea.

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #683 on: 24 September, 2020, 12:55:18 pm »
I'm not sure that this is the best thread for this, but anyway: my husband made a cake and informed me that he had used up the last of the "dissected" coconut to do so.
Known as desecrated coconut here.
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Davef

Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #684 on: 24 September, 2020, 12:57:30 pm »
...

A swollen penis and a penis marked by swellings are quite different things.

Well, yes, that's what she said...

Intumescence doesn't just mean marked by swellings though (they'd probably be intumescences). Older medical texts refer to the 'intumescence of pregnancy' which is basically the bulge. Seems popular (along with womb and uterus in older copies of the Lancet, probably because they've digitized their back archive).

A couple of examples:

The intumescence of the uterus continued about the same and Jules Verne: Here, an intumescence which was to become a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean or a sea.
I am referring to the adjective “intumescent”. Those are a fine couple of examples of the noun “intumescence” which means swelling. My (old) paper dictionary has “intumescence” and “tumescent” but does not have “intumescent”. Looking on line I see the adjective intumescent means swollen by heat or fire (since 1953) or before that “marked by intumescences”. I was saying that I could find no real world examples of the word “intumescent” other than referring to paint. It is the specific word “intumescent” I cant find in action using its original meaning and as fine as your examples of the noun are, they have not changed that.

Edit: ok I have found a reference to an “intumescent cataract” which does reference a swollen lens. Not sure 100% whether it is being used as “marked by swellings” or “is swollen”.

Edit: an “intumescent cataract” could of course be a waterfall of special paint.

ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #685 on: 24 September, 2020, 02:04:24 pm »
Intumescent seems to have been co-opted by the fiery infammatorialists for reasons unknown (the OED doesn't say). Medicine seems to revert to tumescent tissues.

Tumescent is ascendant everywhere else. Much Victorian prose can also be described as tumescent too, all that clausal, orotund language, burdened with tumid description and sesquipedalian sentences.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #686 on: 03 October, 2020, 02:10:50 am »
I do not know on which planet the word goujons is pronounced “goo-joes” but I hope never to have to go there.
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Giraffe

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #687 on: 03 October, 2020, 10:11:31 am »
Probably on Usanus.
2x4: thick plank; 4x4: 2 of 'em.

citoyen

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #688 on: 03 October, 2020, 10:25:40 am »
Probably on Usanus.
Yes, almost certainly.

I’ve heard their natives say goo-jones but never with the silent n before.

Not that English pronunciations of French words are any better, as I’m sure we’ve discussed before.
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T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #689 on: 03 October, 2020, 10:33:13 am »
This made me flee:  https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lesson/

Needs more work.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #690 on: 25 October, 2020, 11:18:01 pm »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?
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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #691 on: 26 October, 2020, 08:28:41 am »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?

All the time they've been producing Aisle of Negra, IM(W)E. :facepalm:

ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #692 on: 26 October, 2020, 09:18:11 am »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?

Is this the US pronunciation that always makes it sound like they're making fun of Mexicans with a hilarious comedy accent?

I've been to Chile and they really don't pronounce it Chee-lay.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #693 on: 26 October, 2020, 10:52:45 am »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?

Is this the US pronunciation that always makes it sound like they're making fun of Mexicans with a hilarious comedy accent?

I've been to Chile and they really don't pronounce it Chee-lay.

This was a BBC news reader and a the BBC's South American Correspondent, though the latter slipped up mid-report and switched to “Chilly” for a couple of sentences before reverting.
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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #694 on: 26 October, 2020, 11:33:54 am »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?

Is this the US pronunciation that always makes it sound like they're making fun of Mexicans with a hilarious comedy accent?

I've been to Chile and they really don't pronounce it Chee-lay.

This was a BBC news reader and a the BBC's South American Correspondent, though the latter slipped up mid-report and switched to “Chilly” for a couple of sentences before reverting.
Chilly-challying.
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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #695 on: 26 October, 2020, 01:05:00 pm »
How long has that long thin country on the left hand side of South America been pronounced “Chee-lay”?

Is this the US pronunciation that always makes it sound like they're making fun of Mexicans with a hilarious comedy accent?

I've been to Chile and they really don't pronounce it Chee-lay.

They don't pronounce it Chilly either.

But really, if you're speaking English it should be pronounced the English way, even if it's not the way the locals pronounce it. All languages have their own versions of other countries, no Chilean would pronounce E.E.U.U. as "America" or even "United States" when speaking Spanish. When I went to Poland, all the Poles pronounced Warszawa as "Warsaw" when speaking to me, even the ones that didn't speak English.
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ian

Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #696 on: 26 October, 2020, 01:25:27 pm »
I've griped about false foreign pronunciation before, say it in English, though the Chill-lay things is an odd-one, but seems the insistence of the Americans. I once spent an amusing hour in a São Paulo restaurant with an American who was claiming to an audience which included several Chilians that it was, in fact, the proper pronunciation. It wasn't a war he won.

I did once hear a Canadian refer to New Delhi as New Del-HIGH which tickled.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #697 on: 26 October, 2020, 01:35:53 pm »
It doesn’t rhyme with “aisle” either, unless you’re Jimi Hendrix.
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Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #698 on: 26 October, 2020, 01:45:22 pm »
Context is all. "Gay Paree" is not the same as "gay Paris".
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hellymedic

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Re: Pronunciation that makes you cringe
« Reply #699 on: 26 October, 2020, 03:26:18 pm »
My partner plays a Kawai piano.
We usually pronounce this ka-why as do British videos that feature this brand.
American videos seem to pronounce it K-Y which is rather slimy...