Category: English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featherstonhaugh Not getting an answer online, or in Patrick Hanks’ The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland . I do get this from Wells, J. C. (2000), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary: Odd pronunciations of proper names – examples: there are four recorded pronunciations of Featherstonhaugh: /ˈfɛð ərst ən hɔː/ (Featherstonhaw) /ˈfiːst ən heɪ/ […]

Vote #1 Audrey Ackerman: Audrey Ackerman’s answer to What is the closest masculine equivalent of “temptress” and “seductress”? A comprehensive answer I will not hope to top. Audrey has missed one term. She would reject it as a culture specific, literary reference. But hands up; who knew that Lothario was a character in Don Quixote? […]

Writing this so that lots of other people can correct me. And because I keep passing on Mehrdad’s A2As. 🙂 English is neither the official language of UK, US or Australia. Indeed. The notion of an official language seems to have been ignored in the Anglosphere, simply because they took it as given that the […]

There’s some critical nuance being missed in answers so far (though I strongly suspect it’s come up elsewhere here). The closest is in the sources mentioned by Mark A. Mandel, and the answer given by Matthew Carlson. The old use of singular they is with reference to an non-specific entity, where the use of gender […]

Not yet in my speech, but you’re pointing out something interesting. If you pronounce them as a single word, cuzall, cuzawesome, yeah, that’s a proclitic, and that’s grammaticalisation. I don’t. I do pronounce ’cause as a single syllable often, many do. That’s a reduction, but I think it’s still independently stressed for me, and it’s […]

OK, here’s one. ’ve after modals has already been reanalysed to of; not just as a written form, but in spoken English: would of, could of, should of. Prediction: this gets expanded further by analogy, to link other modals and auxiliaries, now that the of is no longer analysed as a verb. can of, had […]

Yes, it is impossible to tell, for reasons my learnèd colleagues have touched on. Allow me to expand one angle. As I was saying to Martin Silvertant just before (wat de neuk?), I predicted the death of Dutch in 200 years as a postgrad, when I found out that university courses were being lectured in […]

Here’s one. Chie Hama. She was doing an MA in my linguistics department, under A/Prof Janet Fletcher. I’ve googled Chie; she’s now tutoring down the road at RMIT, but RMIT doesn’t give its casual tutors much of a web presence. Chie Hama came to Australia from Japan. Chie swore to us blind that she did […]

A2A by Z-Kat. Marc Ettlinger’s is the definitive answer: Marc Ettlinger’s answer to Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell? —but I was a research assistant for a guy who worked on labiovelars, and I’ve mentioned it here. (No doubt Z-Kat saw the comment.) So supplemental […]

OP, but the question comes from Jason Blau, at https://www.quora.com/Why-Arabic… Fascinating question! Reposting his full question: If the Confederacy had become independent, would their english eventually be considered a different language? (Very similar of course, like the relationship between Dutch and Afrikaans). One could assume the prestige dialect would be as distinct as possible from […]