Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Transcribing

It was wondering, if an English native speaker hears a phrase full of
unknown words and she wrote it down, it would be quite normal to find
mistakes in the written message.
Let's say that someone hears this sentence
Hu's ptarmigan pseudo gnashing's gnawing my forbearance away.
And let's say that he does not know the meaning of the words
ptarmigan, pseudo gnashing gnawing and forbearance.
How would he wrote it down?
Maybe like this:
whose tarmigan seudonashing's annoying his forbearance away
or something else?
It's not very important, it's just for a stupid script I'm writing for
fun.
Sebastiano
-- 
No wonder people say "gesundheit" when you say "Tchaikovsky".

 mistakes in the written message.
This reminds me of those books in which you find letters written by
uneducated people (Agatha Christie, A.C. Doyle *) giving clues about a
crime. In the Italian translations the errors are often rendered in quite
improbable ways, but in English it shouldn't be so, as spelling mistakes are
far more likely to happen.
* They are not the uneducated people of whom I'm speaking.
Your question is interesting. I, too, wonder if a person in that situation
would write the sentence down in a wrong way or a sort of instinct would
suggest the right spelling for most words.
Bye, FB (who has told you nothing new at all)

suggest the right spelling for most words.
Yes, in the phrase I wrote there are words with silent letters at the
beginning (pt*, ps*, gn*), how's possible to guess the right spelling,
if you have never seen the word? Of course, if you know the word
gnarled and you hear "narled bony hands", you're likely to write that
down properly, but if I told you that I'm reading a book and there's a
guy called Teppic, it would be impossible for you to write that down
in the right way (Pteppic).


 suggest the right spelling for most words.
Instinct goes a long way.
Zz

those that they recognise or occasionally even use.
The guy who wrote the sentence down wrong is an American stoned teen.
He hears "Hu's ptarmigan pseudo gnashing's gnawing my forbearance
away" and he writes on a piece of paper "whose tarmigan seudonashing's
annoying his forbearance away", after having look up forbearance. He
looks up "seudonash" and "tarmigan" but he does not find them.
That is supposed to be exaggerated.
Here it is the script:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
[Scene: Kid's house. Kid is smoking pot watching TV and the phone
rings]
Kid: Hello?
Doc: Hello, it's Doc, I need to speak with Hu's father, please.
Kid (mockingly): I don't know, you tell me who.
Doc: Hu, the Chinese lad from Beijing, I need to speak with his
father. Is he at home? 
Kid: Oh. No, it's not here. Is there something I can do?
Doc: Can you take a message?
Kid: Yes. Let me find a pen and a piece of paper. (he takes a piece of
paper and a pencil)
Doc: Are you ready?
Kid: Yes, shoot.
Doc: Hu's ptarmigan pseudo gnashing's gnawing my forbearance away.
Kid: Say what?
Doc: The bloody bird of your Chinese friend is driving me crazy!
Kid: Ok, got it.
Doc: Thanks, bye.
Kid: Bye (he hangs up the phone)
[Hu enters the door]
Hu: Hi Kid!
Kid: Yo, Hu, how you doing?
Hu: Good, good. And what's up with ya?
Kid: It's ok. Ah, Doc left a message for your father, I kinda wrote it
down. (he opens the piece of paper)
Hu: What did he say?
Kid: Well, he said "whose tarmigan seudonashing's annoying his
forbearance away".
Hu: He said what?
Kid: That's "whose tarmigan seudonashing's annoying his forbearance
away". That's pretty much it.
Hu: What kind of language is that?
Kid: Apparently, English. I looked up some of the words, but I found
nothing. Well, I found forbearance, but there's neither tarmigan nor
seudonash.
Hu: And what does that mean?
Kid: I don't know. Ah, he left a message for you too.
Hu: And that is?
Kid: That is that your bloody bird is driving him crazy.
Hu: That old fool! My bird is doing nothing. Just chewing seeds all
day long!
--------------------------------------------------------------------


 I remember "Little Lord Fauntleroy" where Mary was Irish:
This *is* a matter of education, unless you think that the Irish usually
write like that! If Frances read this...
Bye, FB

write like that! If Frances read this...
No, of course it's a matter of education! :)
What I wanted to say is that it's not *only* a matter of education,
because the variety of English is also very important.
An uneducated Irish person and an uneducated Australian person don't
speak the same way, and if you find them in the same book, you would
be able to recognize them.


 be able to recognize them.
Sounds like the start of a joke!
:o)
Of course, if they were both uneducated, it would be highly unlikely you'd
find them in a book at all.
Zz

find them in a book at all.
^_^


 be able to recognize them.
àbso-liùtly! Still: is it that the Aussie accent (and pattern, above all)
is as "well-defined" as the Irish (just because that is what I am into)
one?
Slan, a Chairde (contento, FB? :)
-- 
Non è mai troppo tardi per farsi un'infanzia felice. (Tom Robbins)
(Remove LASEMESTE' to reply by mail)

one?
I'm pretty much able to understand if someone is from Oz when he
speaks like Crocodile Hunter AKA Steve Irwin. ^_^
But I don't think that his pronunciation is the only one there, and my
knowledge of Australian English is not good at all. I've attended to a
conference with an Australian lecturer and her pronunciation was a
sort of mixture between the American English and the British English.


 sort of mixture between the American English and the British English.
Io sono stato un paio di mesi in Australia e, a parte Tasmania, South
Australia e ACT, l'ho più o meno girata tutta. Non ho trovato differenze
enormi nella pronuncia (la cosa mi è stata anche confermata dai miei
parenti che vivono là da 40 anni); l'unica cosa che ho notato è che
l'accento australiano è molto ingentilito a Melbourne e nel Victoria e
molto più pronunciato in Queensland e Northern Territory. Per quanto
riguarda New South Wales e Western Australia è un po' una via di mezzo
tra le due pronunce di cui sopra ma... definitely Aussie :) (oops...
'strine)
Ciao
Christian
--
Pancakes make people happy

'strine)
Grazie delle informazioni. :)
