GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Brinestone on December 15, 2004, 07:34:01 AM
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One of the perks of editing the course I am working on is that I'm learning all sorts of new words. This author has about a million-dollar vocabulary. The problem is, I'm trying to "tone down" the big words so that students in grades 8–12 can understand the course. That means that instead of just glossing over words I don't recognize and guessing their meanings from context, I've had to look them up and replace them with synonyms. Words I've learned so far:
Effete
Vilify
Malign
Timbre (well, I learned how to pronounce it; I already knew its meaning)
Binary (in reference to music)
Abut
Pastiche
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Thanks. Now I'll feel stooopid all day.
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Ooh! I know a lot of those words. Or at least, I feel like I would understand them if I read them in context, even if I can't define them by themselves.
Edit: Whoa—timbre is pronounced TAMber? What the heck is up with that?
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Yeah, but would you use them in your writing? That's the real kicker. This guy knows these words well enough to just litter his writing with them.
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Okay, so I don't know them that well.
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Actually, as I look at those words more closely, I realize that I know most of them.
Are you sure you didn't edit your post after I posted?
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All of those are words I'd feel comfortable using in writing or speaking, either one. Although apparently I've been mispronouncing "timber" all my life. TAMber huh? Weird.
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Well, "TIMber" is an acceptable alternate, but "TAMber" is listed as the primary pronunciation. Weird.
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That is weird.
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I read it about twenty times in the course, and I'm still not used to it. TAM-ber.
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It's easier if you think of it in French.
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Some of us can't think in French.
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Well, whose fault is that?
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I'm going to have to blame the French.
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I've heard the word timbre spoken many times by many people and I have never heard it pronounced 'tam-b&r.
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Sounds like an English approximation of the French nasal ˜i (I can't make those two type together.)
I also think it's weird how we transform the French -re into -er. I suppose it's because the British pronounce things like theatre and centre that way. It gets really tricky for Americans, apparently, when the letter combination is -vre. There's a town in Montana called Havre that is pronounced as in "You can have 'er!" That's not too hard, is it? But we have a dickens of a time with Brett Favre's name, which I'm pretty sure his ancestors didn't pronounce farve.
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But we have a dickens of a time with Brett Favre's name, which I'm pretty sure his ancestors didn't pronounce farve.
Yes, but apparently he has a dickens of a time with it, too.
?
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Of course, the ever popular nasal 'i'.
I'll admit to having used all of those words quite comfortably in my writing, but usually not with musical associations. I really have no idea what distinguishes a "pastiche" from a "collage", but I think I like musical collages better than pastiches and sculptural pastiches about the same. I've placed wooden beams and such so that they abut one another, I suppose that someone could do the same thing with musical themes or something. I don't even use "timbre" much in association with music, I think of it as what you test by knocking something with a mallet and listening to the noise it makes.
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...I'd always thought of it as TAM-bre. However, I did not encounter the word until I heard it spoken in a music class.
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Add to that list contiguous.
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That's not a commonly known word?
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How are you supposed to pronounce a nasal i in French, anyway? I've heard it as the vowels in both men and man, and possibly more.
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It might be commonly known, but I hadn't heard it.
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You've never heard the word contiguous, as in the contiguous forty-eight states?
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Um, no. I've heard of them as the lower 48 or the continental 48.
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I'll bet you've misheard "contiguous" as "continuous" in that phrase, Brinestone. Either that or, if there is a particular person (such as a parent or something) who you know uses that phrase, they misheard it.
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Continental? That doesn't even make sense; Alaska's on the continent, too. And I suppose that "lower" doesn't really make sense, either, since Hawaii is further south than any of the other states.
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Oh, did you say "Continental"? I completely misread that word in your last post Brinestone.
Jon Boy, I have heard the phrase "Continental United States" used to mean "the contiguous 48 states" fairly frequently, despite the fact that Alaska is on the same continent.
A quick survey of my officemates revealed that they found it to be a common phrase too.
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I've never heard the word contiguous used to describe the 48 states.
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All of my coworkers have, and they're from all over the country, so it isn't a regional thing.
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I didn't know pastiche, and if I'd read abut in context I imagine I would have known it. For some reason I thought it was a noun when I read it in the list, though most of the other words are not nouns. But yes, Uchiha even uses those words in daily speech now and again.
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Contiguous is an option with the magic wand tool in Photoshop.
And just for you, JB:
(by the way, I wrote the international phonetic letter wrong. It should have been /?/ )
Articulation of /?/
1. The sound /?/ is a nasal vowel. A nasal vowel is produced by lowering the back of the velum (velic valve) so that the air stream is exhaled partly through the nasal passage and partly through the oral passage. The vowel /?/ is quite similar to the oral vowel /?/ except for its nasality: trait-train, mais-main, laid-lin, paix-pain. In order to articulate /?/, spread your lips horizontally as for /?/, but let your breath escape simultaneously through your nose and mouth: /?/------>nasalizing------>/?/. You should be able to say /?/ continuously as long as your breath lasts. Change in the nasality of the vowel indicates that the velic valve is not held in a tense and steady position.
It's really too bad I can't duplicate the illustrations here. For best effect, articulate these sounds while sitting in a laboratory classroom, wearing headphones, surrounded by 15 other students and not knowing when exactly the teacher is going to listen in on your practice and then interrupt you with "Bien. Continuez."
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Aww. The funny letter is showing up as a question mark. Well, for the record, it looks like a backwards 3 under a tilde. And whenever it's talking about the other vowel, it means just a backwards 3.
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How can you not have known what a pastiche is, Trish? You were much more oriented towards artsy kinds of things than I was.
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Bien merci, Annie. In linguist-speak, that letter is called an epsilon, and it represents the first syllable in its own name. Technically, it is an unrounded lax mid front vowel, just in case you were curious.
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People can be curious about those things? :huh:
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Some people with discriminating taste can be.
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I'm not sure I believe that. :P
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That's only because you don't have discriminating taste.
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Obviously.
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What is a pastiche? Meg doesn't know either. She says it's like maybe a literary potpourri? Why do the french have so many danged words for the same stupid thing? Melange? Collage? Pastiche? Potpourri? Montage? I guess they have a right to be proud that they don't use the English Hodgepodge. It has the intent of being satirical. She says Shrek II was a pastiche of the works of Disney and other stuff.
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A pastiche is like a mock-up. A prototype, if you will.
(I wrote this definition from my brain, before actually going to look it up. I am now going to go look it up and see if I was right.)
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Main Entry: pas·tiche
Pronunciation: pas-'tEsh, päs-
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Italian pasticcio
1 : a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work; also : such stylistic imitation
2 a : a musical, literary, or artistic composition made up of selections from different works : POTPOURRI b : HODGEPODGE
Looks like I was totally wrong. I wonder which word I was actually thinking of.
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Does it have to start with a 'p' or does it just have to mean something like "sketch"?
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Sketch doesn't apply. Unless by sketch you mean skit.