Someone got a new job.

[Ingmar]

Same with forte.  I've never heard it pronounced /fort/.  But, I've never been to France, either, so anything is possible.

You should dash off a letter to L'Académie française, I'm sure they will give it all due respect!  

(You are actually right about how cache should be pronounced, btw. No accent on the e, so it is silent.)

[Teleku]

As the article I linked mentioned, almost everybody pronounces it /For tay/, so thats pretty much become the correct way to say it now.  For tay is much more fun to say as well.  Hurray for evolution!

[Ingmar]

Incidentally this cache/forte thing is a good example of why English is so damn hard to learn for people who don't grow up with it; we take two perfectly good words from French, that both have silent trailing e's, then take one of them and start pronouncing the e for no particularly good reason! Something to think about the next time you're QQing while on hold on a support call to India about not understanding what "Steve" is telling you.

[IainC]

The other reason that English is so hard to learn is that part of the grammar is Latin via French, part of it is Norwegian, some of it is Old German and the rest has been made up from around 1000 years of neologisms.

[Cadaverine]

And all without adding in modern terminology to scramble things further.  Post, for example.  Depending on context has like 5 different meanings?  Horrible language, English.  I'm glad I learned it from birth.  And yet, I still don't speak it proper.   

[Xuri]

Hm. I found English much easier to learn than German as I grew up. Even though I watched both Kommissar Rex and Derrick regularly on TV. =P

[Zetor]

I had the same experience. English was very easy to learn compared to German; we actually had a saying in high school that went like "The #1 rule in German grammar is that there are no rules; there are a ton of exceptions, occasionally related to things that look like they're rules, but aren't."


BTW, if anyone was considering it (yeah, right) -- don't learn Hungarian. It's one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, it's not really related to anything except for Finnish -- and as an added bonus, it's completely useless!

[Sky]

we take two perfectly good words from French, that both have silent trailing e's, then take one of them and start pronouncing the e for no particularly good reason!

Except they explain that the Italian version is pronounced fortay and used in music. That's where I learned it, and given the amount of musicians in the world vs the amount of french, guess which pronunciation wins? Then there's piano :)

Also, this thread is a good example of why I love f13.

[Falconeer]

Except they explain that the Italian version is pronounced fortay and used in music.

Still, the Italian (and musical) "forte" is something between 'for-tay' and 'for-teh'. I'm not criticising, my English pronunciation is pure comedy anyway.

[Draegan]

I did not see this derail coming.  Well done.

[Simond]

The other reason that English is so hard to learn is that part of the grammar is Latin via French, part of it is Norwegian, some of it is Old German and the rest has been made up from around 1000 years of neologisms.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- James D. Nicoll

[Pennilenko]

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- James D. Nicoll
[/quote]

I love that quote.

[Ingmar]

we take two perfectly good words from French, that both have silent trailing e's, then take one of them and start pronouncing the e for no particularly good reason!

Except they explain that the Italian version is pronounced fortay and used in music. That's where I learned it, and given the amount of musicians in the world vs the amount of french, guess which pronunciation wins? Then there's piano :)

That's why I said 'no particularly good reason' instead of 'no reason'.  I'm a musician myself, it is hard to stop oneself from saying the other word wrong, it's true.

[Typhon]

Good to see that the concept that languages are living things whose primary purpose is to allow communication between two or more entities continues to be very hard to grasp for people who seemingly know a great deal about language.

In other words, if everyone says "for-tay" to communicate the concept of "something at which you're particularly adept" the snobbery of where the word came from and how they originally pronounce it is... yeah, fucking worthless.

I hope angry.bob adds you all to his list.

[Sky]

wat

[Signe]

I find it hard to believe that most people first come across the word "forte" when they learn to read music.  That just sounds strange.  I don't even believe that it's why most people say it wrong.  And I'm not implying that people have to say all words the same or even correctly.  I'm fine with people saying for-tay or fillet (as opposed to fil-lay) or whatever.  I've become used to nearly everyone pronouncing all my names incorrectly and I don't even bother correcting them.   The music excuse just sounds silly to me. 

[Lantyssa]

Still, the Italian (and musical) "forte" is something between 'for-tay' and 'for-teh'. I'm not criticising, my English pronunciation is pure comedy anyway.

As I tell many people who feel their English isn't good enough, "Your English is better than my [Italian]".  German is the only language where someone might have been able to dispute this at one time, and that was so long ago that it's certainly not true anymore.

I pronounced 'forte' as 'for-tah' because I had no idea of its origins and while I know what the written word stands for, my pronounciations are terrible.  I say a lot of words incorrectly, and even with help, continue to do so.  Teachers were frustrated with me to no end.

[IainC]

The weirdest mispronunciation of an English word by a native English speaker was from a guy I used to work with at Hotpoint who insisted that the word 'misled' was pronounced 'miss-uld'. He honestly thought we were winding him up when we corrected him.

[MikeD]

a teacher I had in college (an Indian woman) used to always pronounce ambiguity as "ambigwihtee."

after awhile, i came to agree with her that that would be a much better way to pronounce it.

[Ingmar]

The weirdest mispronunciation of an English word by a native English speaker was from a guy I used to work with at Hotpoint who insisted that the word 'misled' was pronounced 'miss-uld'. He honestly thought we were winding him up when we corrected him.

A friend of mine's father is a political science professor at a very famous local university, and he made the same (more or less - he was pronouncing it mize-uld) mistake for years himself - he'd never connected the spoken word 'misled' with what he heard in his head when he saw it written, apparently. So, I guess it is a pretty easy mistake to make.

[Lum]

Late to this thread, missed awesome derail much better than the original topic.

1) Yes, it pays, no, it's not a full time job.
2) Yes, they expect something once a week (I'm finishing up one on bugs right now which I'm sure LC will enjoy to DEATH) which I manage to file in between fielding job offers for cities I can never move to. I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.
3) Yes, I should update my blog more but I've been fairly busy.
4) English is the linguistic mutt of the world - has no particular lineage, is looked down upon by pseudointellectual snobs and is everywhere.

[Triforcer]

2) Yes, they expect something once a week (I'm finishing up one on bugs right now which I'm sure LC will enjoy to DEATH) which I manage to file in between fielding job offers for cities I can never move to. I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.

Congrats on having options!  Also, make sure it has space combat.

[Soln]

and permadeath!



I kid

[Ingmar]

And no grinding of any kind, but it needs to feel like an accomplishment to reach the endgame and it has to be HARD.

[Slyfeind]

Hard, but casual too.

[Sir T]

Box cover has to have hot Asian chicks, that are also European.

[Xanthippe]

Don't forget crafting.  Must be able to craft to max_level without also engaging in combat.

[UnSub]

2) Yes, they expect something once a week (I'm finishing up one on bugs right now which I'm sure LC will enjoy to DEATH) which I manage to file in between fielding job offers for cities I can never move to. I may accept something soon which will make everyone lol.

Only you can save WAR! 

[Stormwaltz]

Only you can save WAR! 

Five bucks says UO.

[Lum]

You all missed the part where I can't move.

(Plus, Mythic hiring someone after laying off half the studio would be in poor taste even for EA.)

[Merusk]

Oh you can move.. you just have to accept that you'll be in a financial black hole because you've sold your house for 1/2 of what you bought it for. 


So you're going to work on WWI online, eh.  (Wait, no.. you're in Austin not Dallas.) Hrm.

[Lum]

WWI Online would be 

Raids would be pretty short, and everyone would bitch about the Machine Gunner class being OP.

[LK]

Box cover has to have hot Asian chicks, that are also European.

British Asians. Ooooo.

[Le0]

I also found English way easier to learn than German. Having said that Swiss french people and Swiss german people have a little hate affair going against each other and that might explain why everyone hates the opposite language, even tho we have to learn it at school during many years.

I'm also 'trying' to learn Bulgarian, because my GF is from there and it's not that easy, learning a new alphabet does not help either.

[HaemishM]

You all missed the part where I can't move.

(Plus, Mythic hiring someone after laying off half the studio would be in poor taste even for EA.)

So you're going to work for SOE Austin? Or Bioware Austin?