Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Salinger and Gere

Dear dwellers of the Realm,
the kindness and readiness by which you answered to my previous message,
encourage me to ask again for your help. Once again my problem has to do
with pronunciation: in J.D. Salinger and R. Gere, is the "g" a soft
consonant or a hard one?
Is there a way to determine the right pronunciation?
Well, I can just say thank you for the moment (hoping to be helpful one
day),
my warm regards,
                    Claudia

There's quite a nice poem called "The Chaos" about pronunciation pitfalls;
Perche' "pitfalls" e non "traps"?


I'm afraid not. That's one of the drawbacks of the English language.
There's quite a nice poem called "The Chaos" about pronunciation pitfalls; I
seem to recall that it's already been posted on this group - does anyone
remember?
Mary
(remove "spamoff" to reply)
--
LAPD:  More hitters than catchers.

 remember?
L'avevo conservato, eccolo qui:
G.Nolst Trenito a.k.a. Charivarius (1870 -1946)
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corspe, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet
Make my coat new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid,laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia , via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem and toe.
Hear me say devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar and cigar
Solar, mica, war and far.
From 'desire' desirable-admirable from 'admire.'
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, broughman, reknown but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Litchen, litchen, laundry,laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives, moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end from ballet,
Banquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mouldlike, should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with 'darky.'
Viscous, Viscount, load and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.
When you correctly croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live,
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachael, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with 'shirk it' and 'beyond it.'
But it is not hard to tell,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous,clamour
And enamour rimes with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenanats.
Hoist, inlieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll an roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't want, grand and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull Goffrey, George, ate, late
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psaalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess - it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, wear and bear
Do not rime with here, and ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation - think of psyche!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing 'groats' and saying 'grits'?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with 'enough'
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of 'cup'
My advice is - give it up!
Ciao
Anna

                    Claudia
The g in Salinger is soft, and that of Gere is hard.
No, there is no way of determining this. There are three
ways of pronouncing "-inger":
[in ASCII IPA ]
1) Singer - /sIN@/ - ng sound, no g sound
      as in bringer, Winger, swinger ...
2) Finger - /fINg@/ - ng sound followed by hard g
      as in linger, Hingis ...
3) Binger - /bIndz@/ - soft g, as in ninja.
      as in whinger, Salinger, harbinger ...
As for Gere, I suppose it is Germanic, and thus has a
hard g, as in: Gestalt, gesundheit, gestapo --
whereas words of Latin origin have a soft initial g:
geranium, general, geriatric ...
Ciao, 
Raymot
[[[[[[[[[[[[

       as in whinger, Salinger, harbinger ...
Sempre piu' difficile :)
Accidenti alla pronuncia, io avrei detto /sINg@/, come finger...
Grazie per aver ricordato la differenza.
Antonio

 Perche' "pitfalls" e non "traps"?
"Pitfalls" is closer to "insidie"; concealed traps.
If I hadn't used "pitfalls" I might have said "difficulties", but it wouldn't
have occurred to me to say "traps". Perhaps because "trap" gives the impression
of a trap that's deliberately set, whereas "pitfalls" (in the figurative sense)
just exist, without being constructed on purpose.
Mary
(remove "spamoff" to reply)
--
When man builds better mousetraps, nature builds better mice.

 ICQ# 1980563

 Mary
Maybe singular and plural come in here as well.
When talking of the concealed costs and risks associated with the world
getting closer (Internet, single European market, multinational
companies) wouldn't you prefer "the globalization trap"
to "globalization pitfall" (because - and this is my hypothesis - its
singluar)? On the other hand, "the pitfalls (plural!) of globalization"
would be all right, as well, wouldn't it?
Andreas
Sent via Deja.com 
http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

would be all right, as well, wouldn't it?
I haven't seen the earlier posts on this thread but let me give you my
perception of the relevant connotations of these two words. Pitfalls has a
connotation of "possible misstep" that can be avoided if one is aware of it.
Traps has a connotation of "unrecoverability if encountered" and includes a
element of difficulty to avoid. If the words are used in their singular form,
since globalization is singular, it would connote that globalization proper is
the trap or pitfall, rather than other concealed components. So, choosing
singular or plural forms can considerably change the meaning.
It seems to me that costs and risks do not raise the specter of globalization
into the level of traps. In fact, if the risks and costs cannot be avoided
during globalization then pitfalls may also not be appropriate. Perhaps it would
be more descriptive to say "the consequences of globalization" (although I
imagine there may be some avenues to offset these costs and risks). Again I
apologize if earlier posts in this thread illuminated some contextual clues that
are unknown to me and make my observations moot.
I'd be happy to comment further on additional information provided.
Ciao,
Ron
USA