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I think the name you're after might be the Kuiper belt. Although I knew the name, a Google search came up with around 11,300 hits, so I couldn't be bothered checking them out. Given that you were exploring an asteroid belt, I would have expected the hits to demand your attention more than this, Max. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Given that you were exploring an asteroid belt, I would have expected the hits to demand your attention more than this, Max.You're right of course, but I was distracted by trying to work a pun in to the subject line. 
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addict
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You're right of course, but I was distracted by trying to work a pun in to the subject line.
And a good one, too! And I didn't even see it. Gotta pay more attention to those subject lines - head in the cloud again...
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
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We have ventured into an interesting synchronicity here, RhubarbCommando...since the root of Brontosaurus is "bronte," the Greek word for thunder, does that mean the Bronte Sisters are of Greek lineage? And what does that say for the temperament of these fine ladies? More importantly, what does it say about the flavor of those burgers? (By the way, it's curious that the "e" takes the umlaut in both the original Greek and the proper name...I'd have written it in, but I haven't figured out the Mark-up, yet.)
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Mr. O'Neill: It appears that you, w/ just a bit of help from others, have resolved the issue you raised. However this matter has prompted me to raise a related Q about the "thal" pronuciation in German. I am quick to say that I do not know German (and I know ICLIU) but I prefer merely to raise the issue and to obtain a fuller explanation from the Board scholars. My very sketchy impression is that German speakers (and perhaps speakers of other languages as well) often have initial difficulty w/ the "th" sound in English, e.g. rendering "he threw the ball through the door" as "he true de ball true de door." For purposes of illustration, the "sh" sound may present similar difficulties for certain others, e.g. "shibboleth/sibbolet" or, for many American English speakers, there are difficulties pronouncing a certain French "u", e.g. "menu" menoo/menyu. My Qs then are these: 1. Is my impression correct about the difficulties German speakers have pronouncing English "th"? 2. Is there a sound in German (Deutsch) similar to that of "Th" in English? 3. If not, does that fact shed any light on the "Neanderthal" discussion? 4. If the German language does not have such a sound, what is the value of the letter "h" in, e.g., "tHal"? Is it "silent" and there for some other linguistic or identifying purpose? NicholasW, I'm counting on you and others to straighten us out. TIA
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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No, there's no TH sound in German, and hasn't been for a thousand years. The TH spelling only ever was pronounced T, and only occurred in some words (Thal, Thier = 'animal', a few others). I have no idea why it was in there in the first place.
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"e" takes the umlaut in both the original Greek (Bronte) and the proper nameNo criticism intended at all in this question. Is there a "correct" usage of the terms umlaut, diaeresis/dieresis, trema (and probably others) for the two dots which modify the vowel sound, or keep two vowel sounds separate (as in noël)? For example, should umlaut refer to just German, or include the indicator when used in other languages? And what about "noël"; is that an umlaut or a diaeresis or some other name? As an aside, I had difficulty in tracking "trema" down in the normal online dictionaries, which surprised me as I know what it is and have seen and used it, though not very often perhaps. However, I found it via onelookup at http://phrontistery.50megs.com/t.html and was fascinated by some of the other entries on the same and surrounding pages, and no, not just the rude ones. Rod PS I copied the ë from character map. ALT+0235 produces the hash/number/pound (yet another thread?) symbol #.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Technically the word umlaut refers to the sound change in a front vowel such as a, o or u when the speaker is anticipating a following back vowel. Diæresis refers to the mark itself for whatever purpose it is used. Use of the word umlaut to refer to the mark is probably a little sloppy, but the word diæresis sounds too much like some sort of unspeakable and extremely unpleasant disease to the native English speaker and is therefore not as widely used as it should be.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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The TH spelling only ever was pronounced T... I have no idea why it was in there in the first place.
Possibly to indicate an aspirated t. There's no particular reason that th should represent the þ or ð sounds; it would be like using bh to represent the v sound.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Technically the word umlaut refers to the sound change in a front vowel such as a, o or u when the speaker is anticipating a following back vowel. Diæresis refers to the mark itself for whatever purpose it is used.
The history of the diæresis in German orthography is an interesting one. Before I get myself into trouble, perhaps I should amend that to say "the history...as I understand it." The German (individual) doesn't speak of a diæresis at all, but of a distinct vowel. To our a, o, u he pairs ae, oe, ue, respectively, where "e" is the "back vowel" represented by the diæresis. In fact, the back vowel was originally represented in print with a distinct character, "e." Perhaps for reasons of economy, as time went by, the e was joined to the vowel preceding it in a ligature, (as are a and e in "diæresis"). The e then became smaller and migrated to the top of the preceding vowel, facing upwards. This, in turn, was abbreviated to something resembling a tilde (~), but drawn with flourish--I believe the 'cups' each contained a dot. Finally the tilde-shape was dropped and all that remained were the dots.
On the matter of the three additional vowels, in fact they are, of course, diphthongs, and German has no more than the five vowels available to any language. It is therefore tempting to dismiss them as vowels, altogether. It is interesting to note, however, (and I speak as a singer, not as a linguist) that speakers of American English, at least, also refer to diphthongs as vowels. The common pronunciation of the series "a e i o u" is something like this: a=ei; e=i; i=ai; o=ou; u=ua (where the 'a' is very short). So that you might say-with a wink-that have only one vowel, and we misspell it.
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