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OK, when you say the word "Beast", it's pronounced "Bee-st" (long E), right? How come when I hear people (in podcasts and the like) say "Beastiary" it sounds like "Best-iary" (short e)? That doesn't make any sense to me.
It's like when people say "To - mah - to" instead of "To - may - to", except I can understand the Tomato thing as possibly being a regional difference in dialect. The Beastiary thing I can't understand at all.
Tell the J-Dog he's not insane, please!
Presumably because the word is, in fact, "Bestiary" and not "Beastiary". Just look at your copy of the book :)
bestiary definition bes·ti·ary (bes'te e're)noun pl. bestiaries (-·ar'·ies)
1.A medieval collection of stories providing physical and allegorical descriptions of real or imaginary animals along with an interpretation of the moral significance each animal was thought to embody. A number of common misconceptions relating to natural history were preserved in these popular accounts.
2.A modern version of such a collection.
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OK, when you say the word "Beast", it's pronounced "Bee-st" (long E), right? How come when I hear people (in podcasts and the like) say "Beastiary" it sounds like "Best-iary" (short e)? That doesn't make any sense to me.
It's like when people say "To - mah - to" instead of "To - may - to", except I can understand the Tomato thing as possibly being a regional difference in dialect. The Beastiary thing I can't understand at all.
Tell the J-Dog he's not insane, please!
Are, beat me to it.
A bestiary is a manual of monsters, historically. That's just the way its pronounced. Be-schee-ae-ree
Well, that's just silly.
Welcome to the English language. I mean, you'd think an apiary might be a primate enclosure, but it's where bees are kept. Go figure. :)
Well, that's just silly. But, I guess I am insane. Duly noted.
Well, that's the English language for you. Not that it's the only one with stuff like this.
It's no more or less insane than not having marsial arts.
Well, that's just silly. But, I guess I am insane. Duly noted.Well, that's the English language for you. Not that it's the only one with stuff like this.
It's no more or less insane than not having marsial arts.
Are you sure that those aren't marshall arts? :)
If you want to pronounce it Beast-iary instead of Best-iary, go right ahead. Dictionary.com has a little sound icon next to the word that actually says it out loud. According to them, both are correct.
Believe me, the french language has far more exception rules in its grammar.
"You have to understand we are dealing with a language that makes up for, in obscurity, what it lacks, in style..."
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My old French teacher showed us the absurdity of the Ehglish language by writing on the blackboard:
Ghoti
And saying that was pronounced as Fish.
"Gh" is the sound "f" as seen in words such as "rough" and "tough".
"o" is the sound of "i" as seen in the word "women".
"ti" is "sh" as in "station"
English is just a mish mash of other lanaguages as well - Norman and Saxon - its why we have different words for the animals and their meat for Cow/Beef, Pig/Pork but not chicken apparently!
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"You have to understand we are dealing with a language that makes up for, in obscurity, what it lacks, in style..."
Or alternatively "English is not so much a language that borrows from others, but one that bashes other languages over the head and rummages in their pockets for interesting syntax."
Alternatively,
"In German, there are a thousand pages of rules for language and three pages for exceptions. In English, it's pretty much the other way around."
Imagine the disappointment in finding that a brothel does not sell broth.
And the fact that while dogs live in doghouses, cats do not in fact live in cathouses. What lives in cathouses is something which is in fact another word for cat, but with a different meaning which becomes vulgar when written in that context.
Indeed, it has a lot to do with foreign languages making their ways into the english language more than 500 years ago.
In this case, it comes from the French "bête" (an animal), which was probably spelled "beste" before accents where adopted, leading to the term "bestiaire". Pronounce the silent "e" at the end of bestiaire and it becomes "bestiary". As to why it went from "beste" to "beast", that's the natural evolution of the language over the centuries I guess...
Well, the german word is "Bestie" which comes from the latin "bestia" (wild animal), so I guess the word found its way from latin over french and german into the english language.
Well, the german word is "Bestie" which comes from the latin "bestia" (wild animal), so I guess the word found its way from latin over french and german into the english language.
Considering that most of French comes from latin, yes indeed.
However, most of the "latin" words of the English language were introduced though French. You know, 1066 and all...
Your simplistic western languages have nothing on Polish ! Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzczinie w Strzebszeszynie !
Ei jo alles klar was emma de sahschd!
Imagine the disappointment in finding that a brothel does not sell broth.
And the fact that while dogs live in doghouses, cats do not in fact live in cathouses. What lives in cathouses is something which is in fact another word for cat, but with a different meaning which becomes vulgar when written in that context.
Let's not put the cart before the whores!
Well, the german word is "Bestie" which comes from the latin "bestia" (wild animal), so I guess the word found its way from latin over french and german into the english language.
There's also Biest (beast, both in meaning and pronunciation)
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Dutch linguist Gerard Nolst Trenité was kind enough to write:
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
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.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, 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, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
(I particularly like the juxtaposition of "tomb, bomb, comb".)
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Dutch linguist Gerard Nolst Trenité was kind enough to write:
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
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.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.** spoiler omitted **...
That's a long poem to say, "this s@~! makes no sense" :D loved it.
Why ya'll bashin' English? It's spelled "bestiary" and pronounced "bestiary". There's no smoke and mirrors on that one. Now all the *other* items mentioned above are certainly hinkey but "bestiary"? Nope, that one makes sense. I like my language quirky. I like it even more that people like Joss Whedon and tech like the Internetz are making it ever more quirky as time goes by...
M
Imagine the disappointment in finding that a brothel does not sell broth.
Some things are better than soup, my friend. Surprise I can understand, but never disappointment.
Your simplistic western languages have nothing on Polish ! Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzczinie w Strzebszeszynie !Ei jo alles klar was emma de sahschd!
Mno, porad se muzeme jeste bavit cesky panove :)
Yeah... where is someone speaking something more exotic (relatively to our language branch) like Vietnamese?
I suddenly got this image of Jerry Seinfeld asking the question... "What's the deal with the Bestiary? I mean, it's not like it's trying to be the best at everything..."
Ahem. I'll be here all night...
I suddenly got this image of Jerry Seinfeld asking the question... "What's the deal with the Bestiary? I mean, it's not like it's trying to be the best at everything..."
Ahem. I'll be here all night...
Keep Michael Richards away from the drow, or it will end in bloody murder.
Lastly (for American English)have a group of them splinter off and change the language still more. Partly out of spite (The lack of "re" endings in American English) and partly due to proximity with Spanish speaking countries.
Actual, some of these changes came about because od spelling reform (pushed for largely by individuals like Noah Webster). Due to there being a large number of regional spelling variations for the same word, attempts to standardize the language resulting in differences betwenn American English and British English. Some in the US (I believe Webster was among them) favored going so far as to even drop silent letters from the spelling of a word.
At least you do not have to link a gender to every word in english.
In French, masculinity is feminine..
Actual, some of these changes came about because od spelling reform (pushed for largely by individuals like Noah Webster). Due to there being a large number of regional spelling variations for the same word, attempts to standardize the language resulting in differences betwenn American English and British English. Some in the US (I believe Webster was among them) favored going so far as to even drop silent letters from the spelling of a word.And hence why we have 2 baseball teams name after colored sox instead of socks.
Huhu. Yeah, that sucks.
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Why ya'll bashin' English? It's spelled "bestiary" and pronounced "bestiary". There's no smoke and mirrors on that one. Now all the *other* items mentioned above are certainly hinkey but "bestiary"? Nope, that one makes sense. I like my language quirky. I like it even more that people like Joss Whedon and tech like the Internetz are making it ever more quirky as time goes by...
M
Po-Tah-To
In French, masculinity is feminine..
I wanted to make a joke out of this, but I couldn't stop laughing! ;-P
Po-Tah-ToWhy ya'll bashin' English? It's spelled "bestiary" and pronounced "bestiary". There's no smoke and mirrors on that one. Now all the *other* items mentioned above are certainly hinkey but "bestiary"? Nope, that one makes sense. I like my language quirky. I like it even more that people like Joss Whedon and tech like the Internetz are making it ever more quirky as time goes by...
M
Po-Tay-To
Potatoes
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Po-Tah-ToWhy ya'll bashin' English? It's spelled "bestiary" and pronounced "bestiary". There's no smoke and mirrors on that one. Now all the *other* items mentioned above are certainly hinkey but "bestiary"? Nope, that one makes sense. I like my language quirky. I like it even more that people like Joss Whedon and tech like the Internetz are making it ever more quirky as time goes by...
MPo-Tay-To
Potatoes
Nasty Hobbts
My old French teacher showed us the absurdity of the Ehglish language by writing on the blackboard:
Ghoti
And saying that was pronounced as Fish.
"Gh" is the sound "f" as seen in words such as "rough" and "tough".
"o" is the sound of "i" as seen in the word "women".
"ti" is "sh" as in "station"
English is just a mish mash of other lanaguages as well - Norman and Saxon - its why we have different words for the animals and their meat for Cow/Beef, Pig/Pork but not chicken apparently!
Yeah well, french is just a bunch of franks that decided not to pronounce ANY G&%#&+N CONSONANTS!
Versailles is ver-sie. seriously? Maine Gauche is man-gosh. freal?
French is just on crack.
Main-gauche is hard to translate phonetically. I can't think of an equivalent for the -ain. The au in gauche is pronounced more like the ho in Homer.
While I often hear Florida described as the phallic appendage of the USA, it is feminine in french..while the grand canyon is masculine.
(Props to David Sedaris)
The weird part is that some states are refered to as "L'état de New York" or "New York State" but others are clearly given a gender.
La Floride/La Georgie/La Louisiane
Le Texas/Le Minnesota/...
Le crack. Yes indeed.
Po-Tah-To
Po-Tay-To
Potatoes
Boil 'em
Mash 'emStick 'em in a stew.
Yeah well, french is just a bunch of franks that decided not to pronounce ANY G#!$#+N CONSONANTS!
Forecastle.