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Grant Barrett said:
ckc said:
Unfortunately, when I mention your show to my college students (I also teach high school), their eyes glaze over. How do we get them interested and excited about words?
CKC, don't try much! Seriously. It's like trying to convince someone that your favorite band should be their favorite band, too. It almost never works and all you've managed to do is to set the bar much higher. After the hype, they'll be expecting fireworks, sacks of gold, and hotties lined up at the door.
Hi — I have an update to this. I've started a new semester, and one of my assignments is that each week, one or two students listen to A Way With Words, either the current show or one from the archives, and report back to the class about 5 words they have learned. While this assignment was initially met with reluctance, now the students are reporting that they enjoy the show, learn a lot, and intend to listen to it for fun in the future!
Thought you might like to know. Keep up the good work.
Leo, to me, your surname (Kulonosen) looks Finnish or at least Uralic, am I right? (Go ahead and tell me even I'm wrong; I'd like to know its origin.)
And, Grant and Martha, speaking of orthoepy, when was the last time either of you talked with Lederer or Elster? I have some of their books and know that if they (R.L. and C.H.E., that is) ever visited the forums here they'd have alot of valuable insight.
And, Grant and Martha, speaking of orthoepy, when was the last time either of you talked with Lederer or Elster? I have some of their books and know that if they (R.L. and C.H.E., that is) ever visited the forums here they'd have alot of valuable insight.
Rich has been on the show a couple of times since he left and he's still giving speeches tours across the country. A very busy man, as always. Charlie's byline pops up every now and then in the popular press and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he's working on a new book.
What do you think about Chuck's Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations?
Personally, I found it a bit meandering. It has some very helpful things in there, but it also has some orthoepic prescriptions which I simply cannot follow; e.g., Celtic¹ with a soft [s]. True, the majority say “SEL-tick” when referring to the basketball team, but most linguists (myself included) pronounce it “KEL-tick” elsewhere.
One thing he seems to take for granted is that he happens to own (or at least have access to) numerous unabridged dictionaries, whereas the average American² is lucky to have a lonely desk dictionary. There is not one dictionary that Elster stands by consistently; they all have their flaws. All dictionaries and manuals on orthoepy do. Except, of course, BBoBM. I understand Elster's mother was a die-hard by-swearer³ of Websters II. There are even some pronunciations she used which were sanctioned by WII which Elster has decried (though these are admittedly a precious few). But with Charles' pronouncements, there are no two ways about it, are there? My main point is that it would've been nice to have at least one other person co-write the book with him; that way we'd be able to get a second opinion. It's just hard for me to trust a single author to keep a non-biased stance on such a broad area as the correct pronunciation of a dialect/language?.
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¹FWIW, it comes from Greek ?????? (with a hard [k]), and for a while English had Keltic as an alternate spelling. French say their version with [s], but Italians theirs with [?]. Whom should we follow?
²The book, as you know, deals mainly with American pronunciations.
³That is, she swore by it as an undisputable authority.
?The latter, if you consider American a separate language from British English (a.k.a. English-English).
Penny said:
A 12-year old had given a puzzle–what 4-letter common male name can change the first letter to the next letter of the alphabet and create another 4-letter common male name.
My husband and I thought it was Mick and Nick.
Did anyone else come up with something else?
How about Aaron and Baron.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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