More "divided by a common language" stuff

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an seanduine
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by an seanduine »

I would be curious to know if any right-ponders here are familiar with the colloquialism : As independent as a hog on ice.

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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by benhall.1 »

an seanduine wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:29 pm I would be curious to know if any right-ponders here are familiar with the colloquialism : As independent as a hog on ice.

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Never heard it.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

benhall.1 wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:31 pm
an seanduine wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:29 pm I would be curious to know if any right-ponders here are familiar with the colloquialism : As independent as a hog on ice.

Bob
Never heard it.
Me neither (Left Ponder, here). TBH, it makes no sense to me, but then I've never associated with pigs beyond the dinner plate.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by an seanduine »

This image:https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=htt ... AdAAAAABAI

may help explain its provenance. The OED defines the phrase in this manner: ¨denoting independence, awkwardness, or insecurity.¨

I have heard it all my life, and associate it with rural Americana from the very early 20th Century.

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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

an seanduine wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 3:46 pm The OED defines the phrase in this manner: ¨denoting independence, awkwardness, or insecurity.¨
Of the three, I wouldn't normally (if ever) associate the first with the latter two, and those I would pair only incidentally. In colloquial use, I would associate "independence" with free-agency; IOW, nothing in the word suggests awkwardness or insecurity to me without a crowbar to help me pry it to limits that I would find a roving stretch at best. Is the language divide between the Midwest and New England that great?

Did we Yanks fight the Revolution for our right to awkwardness and insecurity? Okay, okay - judging by the times, maybe so; but that's another topic, and one proscribed here. I just want to know how a New Englander interprets "independent".

********************

Aha: Is the colloquialism an ironic assessment? Which is to say that there is actually nothing independent about a hog on ice, but rather that it would be hapless and in all likelihood need help out of its predicament (I'm guessing the phrase suggests that odds are that the situation can be expected to be revisited more times than not). Feckless, in other words?
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by benhall.1 »

I suppose this is a revival ... a bit ...

For want of anything to make my brain do, I am watching "Trisha's Southern Kitchen". She is making a "lime and cilantro salad". Now, leaving aside the fact that it's weird (to us) to call coriander "cilantro", Trisha's pronunciation of the word is extraordinary: "sill-on-trohhh". I can't understand how she can make the spelling "cilantro" into "sill-on-trohhh". Every syllable is wrong. It's like being sucker punched three times in quick succession.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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It's not an English word. How does it go in the Spanish of the southern USA?
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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david_h wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 1:44 am It's not an English word. How does it go in the Spanish of the southern USA?
I've just checked online for the Spanish pronunciation. It really isn't anything like Trisha's pronunciation.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

The problem, fellas, is in expecting garden-variety Anglophones - that would be Trisha, I expect - to pronounce Spanish words in true-blue, authentically Spanish diction (which Spanish, BTW? Mexican? Castilian? Argentine?): IOW, ain't likely gonna happen. You yourselves, as Brits, ought to know this all too well. After all, IIRC you lot say "tack-o" when referring to tacos, for heaven's sake. So put down your wagging fingers and consider the more dire necessity of differentiating between coriander and CILANTRO.

And no, I don't know how I pronounce it. I would rather die than eat cilantro anyway, so my level of concern for its pronunciation is pretty much zero apart from it being preceded by "no". :twisted:

BTW, I know how to pronounce "Gouda" correctly. I would like to think I deserve a cookie, but as a Yank among Yanks, generally I would pronounce it "goo-da", as is the norm upon our shores.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by david_h »

Nanohedron wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 8:03 am The problem, fellas,
Don't include me. I am relaxed about people who speak English with an accent attempting to render words from foreign languages.

I do it frequently. I think I do tacos fairly well though.

( I learned in this very forum that I'm one of those who don't taste that stuff 'right')
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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david_h wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:09 am ( I learned in this very forum that I'm one of those who don't taste that stuff 'right')
Oh, you taste it right, all right. It's the others that laud cilantro who lack the requisite refinement of palate to discern its poisonous miasma.

Dammit, Ben - now I have to pull that hook out of my mouth.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by benhall.1 »

Nanohedron wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 10:28 am
david_h wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:09 am ( I learned in this very forum that I'm one of those who don't taste that stuff 'right')
Oh, you taste it right, all right. It's the others that laud cilantro who lack the requisite refinement of palate to discern its poisonous miasma.

Dammit, Ben - now I have to pull that hook out of my mouth.
:lol:
I love coriander. It's fantastic. If I could grow enough, I'd have it as a garnish on every salad, always on a chilli (which I've spelt that way so as to imply the dish rather than the fruit [fruit heh! :D ]), on fish, fried rice (especially a pilau) and loads of other things as well. Mmmmm! :D

Gouda pronunciation is interesting. I've just looked it up, and it seems that we Brits don't pronounce it properly either. Apparently, it should be "how-da" rather than "gow-da". I don't think that's a normal, English type of 'h' sound, though ...

As for "tacos", I've just looked that up as well. I'm sticking with "tack-oes". Works for me. :D
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by benhall.1 »

Look, in case it gets missed, leaving aside everything else in Trisha's pronunciation of "cilantro" as "sill-on-trohhh", what's with that middle syllable having an 'o' sound? Why? Does she think it's a French word? (The French have a sensible word for it, by the way. It's "coriandre". :D )
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

benhall.1 wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 3:09 am Gouda pronunciation is interesting. I've just looked it up, and it seems that we Brits don't pronounce it properly either. Apparently, it should be "how-da" rather than "gow-da". I don't think that's a normal, English type of 'h' sound, though ...
It's not an H per se, but more akin to a CH as in "loch", but even that isn't right. It's further back to the throat. In desperation I would try to transcribe it as "qhauda" (that there's a Q in case you missed it), and the initial consonant is by no means shy or reticent. Recently met a visiting Dutchman and somehow we wound up on the topic of language and pronunciation difficulties among other things (I swear it wasn't my fault). Anyway, I got to show off my pronunciation of Gouda, and he almost wept and would have kissed me. But, you know: the looming specter of monkeypox.
benhall.1 wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 3:13 am Look, in case it gets missed, leaving aside everything else in Trisha's pronunciation of "cilantro" as "sill-on-trohhh", what's with that middle syllable having an 'o' sound? Why? Does she think it's a French word? (The French have a sensible word for it, by the way. It's "coriandre". :D )
I had to go find a clip of Trisha pronouncing "cilantro" in order to get a grip on what you exactly mean, and I think now I know. Her rendering is indeed how it's pronounced in Anglophone USA if you preserve, in the main, certain Spanish elements of its pronunciation, and many Yanks (including myself) do this. Since Spanish is an historically important and ever-present living language within the sphere of the US, I don't regard this as a hypercorrection at all, but rather I think a quite appropriate nod to its origins; the middle syllable would rhyme with the A in "father" (your likening it to the O in "on" threw me once you brought up the French), rather than the A in "pan". Nevertheless you get both pronunciations in the States, and of necessity we must adopt, to the best that our nervous strain will allow, a live-and-let-live attitude about it. Don't get me started on "jalapeño". You may pronounce it "ha-la-PEE-no" all you like, but I shall continue to pronounce it "ha-la-PEN-yo", thank you very much. If you try to correct me, THEN we shall have something to talk about. Look, I don't even take pains to pronounce the Spanish J correctly, so it's not like I'm being precious about it. IMO, anyway.

So no, Trisha's pronunciation is not a hypercorrection at all, although we Yanks do indeed do plenty of that: pronouncing "sommelier" as "Somali-yay" seems popular these days.

A lot of this pronunciation business has to do with how long a loanword has been part of our language. "Cilantro" is comparatively recent, yet take the word "ambience": You get a lot of people pronouncing it "awm-bee-awnce" these days, yet in English that's an almost-hypercorrective swing of the pendulum, considering how long the word has been embedded in our language. I grew up with it being pronounced much the same as "ambient", and I still pronounce it that way.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Mr.Gumby »

It's not an H per se, but more akin to a CH as in "loch", but even that isn't right. It's further back to the throat. In desperation I would try to transcribe it as "qhauda" (that there's a Q in case you missed it), and the initial consonant is by no means shy or reticent.
You're closer but I don't think "qhauda" quite does it. Few speakers of English can get the pronunciation of the Dutch 'g' and 'ou' quite right.

There's, almost inevitably, a YouTube video but that doesn't quite get it quite right 'ghh'. That 'h' creeping in there is the give away of the non native speaker.
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