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#53341 01/26/02 11:35 PM
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not quite as gutteral

"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses" ~
And the pig got up and slowly walked away!


Oh, I see. Pardon me, Maverick. I really didn't mean any disrespect to the Welsh language or the Welsh. All I meant to imply is that the pronunciation of some words in Welsh are harsher in some instances than other languages and I was stuck for a way in which to describe these differences. Perhaps gutteral is not the correct term. Could you suggest a more correct description??

Peace,

Rubrick


#53342 01/27/02 05:04 PM
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Perhaps gutteral is not the correct term. Could you suggest a more correct description??

Hey, absolutely no offence taken! [/keiva]

I was just pulling your leg with one of my favourite old music-hall tags, brought to mind by your previous post – may I suggest, in honest reply, the alternative “guttural”?

But you should immediately © gutteral – “He swore at me in gutteral® tones!”



#53343 01/27/02 08:16 PM
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"Perhaps gutteral is not the correct term"

Interesting how many words used to describe accent are meaningless xenophobic putdowns

In particular the use of "gutteral" to describe a distaste for German. When I was studying German I remember a leading authority pointing out that English has sounds more gutteral than any in German.


#53344 01/28/02 03:29 PM
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a leading authority pointing out that English has sounds more gutteral than any in German.

Not true, by my understanding of it. Guttural is no longer used as a technical term in linguistics, but if it refers to any sound made in the throat or back of the mouth, German has a lot more than English.

Both languages have [ h ].

German has [ x ] as in nach, doch.

German also has the glottal stop [ ? ] before any word beginning with a vowel, as in eins = [ ?ains ].

Added. Also German has a guttural R, a uvular approximant to be exact.

Further, German speakers typically have greater throat constriction; I think their vowels are pharyngalized (the root of the tongue presses closer into the pharynx as a secondary articulation), though I won't swear as to the exact nature of this articulation.

I agree that 'guttural' is usually bandied about as a meaningless derogatory term, but I think in this case it's accurate in its literal meaning.


#53345 01/28/02 03:41 PM
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"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses" ~
And the pig got up and slowly walked away!


This is the second cryptic reply I've received this evening. Care to explain it to me??

Even I got it and I'm usually the last one.


#53346 01/28/02 03:54 PM
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"You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses" ~
And the pig got up and slowly walked away!

This is the second cryptic reply I've received this evening. Care to explain it to me??

Even I got it and I'm usually the last one.


No, no. I got it (eventually and thanks to many references from other board members, admittedly). Just a bit slow on the uptake these days. Put it down to my inherited Irish thicko genes!


#53347 01/28/02 04:03 PM
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So have you copyrighted gutteral yet?

If you don't have one handy, you can borrow this one:

©


#53348 01/28/02 04:09 PM
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So have you copyrighted gutteral yet?

If you don't have one handy, you can borrow this one: ©


Thanks for that, Faldage. I was wondering how to get it up in markup!

Funny how a Freudian typo © (patent pending) can become a newly coined word!


#53349 01/30/02 02:46 PM
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To preplete the poem referenced by mav:

JUDGED BY THE COMPANY ONE KEEPS

One night in late October,
When I was far from sober,
Returning with my load with manly pride,
My feet began to stutter,
So I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came near and lay down by my side;
A lady passing by was heard to say:
"You can tell a man who boozes,
By the company he chooses,"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.


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