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Carpal Tunnel 
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Dale, if you would edit your post (#185940) to delete the end of the link so that you leave only  http://wordsmith.org/board/ubbthreads.php/topics/185767, it will still take us to the page but will also reduce this thread so it's not w-i-d-e any more.  I hope.  Thanks.  
 
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I'd like to hear more if you don't mind.It's been just over thirty years since I read parts of it for a classics class in college, but I found an English translation online at Gutenberg ( link). If you want we can both read it and discuss.  
 
  
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Schoolbooks are often wrong.  I've always heard it as ROW BOT' or less often as ROW' BUTT.    Recently I heard an audio file on the onion website in which the word was consistently pronounced ROE BIT. The OED has only ({sm}r{schwa}{shtu}b{rfa}t)  and no mention of an alternate pronunciation with a silent t. Nor does Merriam-Webster and googling for 'robot pronunciation silent t' turns up only this thread as mentioning the existence of such a variant.  
 
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 The OED has only ({sm}r{schwa}{shtu}b{rfa}t)  I got just one question: Huh?  
 
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 The OED has only ({sm}r{schwa}{shtu}b{rfa}t)  I got just one question: Huh?  sorry. I copied and pasted the pronunciation entry and that was how it came out. It lookes like this:   
 
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old hand 
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If you want we can both read it and discuss. 
  Ta! I'll let you know when I've finished. 
 
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Carpal Tunnel 
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Carpal Tunnel 
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I'd like to hear more too! Love Sci Fi. 
 
  
 ----please, draw me a sheep----
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old hand 
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aside, re: sf.. scifi.. skiffy.. scientifiction
  what do you make of the scifi channel changing their logo to SYFY? 8-P   I HATE IT!!!! It looks like "siffy" to me. YUK!!!! 
 
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And just because I've always wondered: I know a "tesseract" is a "real" thing, but does anybody "get it"? It's so weird!    
 
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I HATE IT!!!! It looks like "siffy" to me. YUK!!!!
  Sifffy. Hmm. I like it. It rolls right off the tongue into the mud puddle below. Syfy on the other hand I would pronounce as ßűḟů. 
 
  
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand 
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ßűḟů I would pronounce as "bufu"... ;0)
  So how would you pronounce the name "Sydney"? The one I know says "sid nee", not "side nee". That's why it looks like "siffy" to me... 
 
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So how would you pronounce the name "Sydney"?
  Sir Philip Bleeding is how I pronounce it.
  And I pronounce Syfy as ßűḟů, with the first grapheme pronounced as the the ß in German Straße 'street', the second one as the ű in Hungarian tűz /tyːz/ 'fire', the third one as the f in Japanese 富士山 fujisan /ɸɯꜜdʑisaɴ/ 'Mt Fuji', and the final one as the ů in Czech nůž /nuːʃ/ 'knife; shiv'. 
 
  
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Hmm... seeing this #@65%()##_(&^$94 I think I'll just say : "Sinny" 
 
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And just because I've always wondered: I know a "tesseract" is a "real" thing, but does anybody "get it"? It's so weird!    What you have there is two-space projections of three-space projections of four-space objects.  Back in the day we made a three-space projection of a tesseract.  
 
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a tesseract is a Wrinkle in Time!!  -ron o. 
 
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Hmm... seeing this #@65%()##_(&^$94 I think I'll just say : "Sinny"  That is too funny! I copied and pasted Z's word, which looked fine when I did it, but apparently wasn't fine after the "postmaster" got done with it!  
 
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That's not my word, I never use language like that. [polishing tarnished halo-e]
  What I meant to post here was: Back to SciFi (which incidentally I remember hearing as SciFic somewhere in my distant past) words.  It always amused me to see what was invented as swearing; frac, smeg and the like.
  On a tangent, does anyone remember the Tom Swift series.  No invention of new words there.  They just prefixed everything with space.  "Look Tom, the space explosion of space fuel turned that space rock into space dust!!!"  Yeesh. 
 
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But twosleepy, that is a beautiful thing! This tesseract. "Look Tom, the space explosion of space fuel turned that space rock into space dust!!!" Yeesh. Yes, that how we used to make our space trip as kids. No fancy words, just rock solid space dust. And catering in the space craft was just "longlife" pills . Crashes were survived by "longlife" pills. Right, as food it was really boring.  
 
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You and I have differing opinions about when science fiction began as a genre. I trace it back at least to Lucian's True History (2nd century CE,A wee bit before Azimov's time.  Kia ora Z,           I'm still not convinced of Lucians intent. He states in his intro, Accordingly I hereby declare, that I sit down to relate what never befell me ; what I neither saw myself, nor heard by report from others ; aye, what is more, about matters that not only are not, but never will be, because in one word, they are absolutely impossible, and to which therefore I warn my readers (if by the by I should have any) not to give even the smallest degree of credit.After having read the tale I had trouble fathoming whether even the science of the day would find any room for plausibility. It was a great read though, I loved the enormous scale and sense of wonderment he created. Maybe if his ship had wings, that would sway me. I do feel privilleged for having read it. A good yarn. But hey, mine ain't the be all and end all of what skiffy is and what it is'nt.  
 
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