Re: GIF prononciation. Word from the CREATOR!

Abraham Gonzales (abr...@u.washington.edu) wrote:
: Bilbo Baggins <bma...@dolphin.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >
: >No. I'm sorry, Matt. This ends nothing.  When you create something and 
: >send it out into the great wide world, you of necessity give up some of 
: >your power over it.
: >

: Why don't you pronounce something like _thorough_ or _rough_?  If you 
: go out into the "great wide world" pronouncing a hard 'G', who's going to 
: look like an idiot?  Would you defend yourself by saying that it's common 
: sense that since there's a G in the word that it's ridiculous to *not* 
: pronounce it?

Golly Gee and Gila monsters! I never thouGht of letters havinG different 
^     ^       ^                          ^                   ^
sounds dependinG on their place in a word and the letters around them!!
               ^ 
(sarcasm, for those who didn't catch it)  Give me a break, IQ-boy.  

I didn't say that *every* time one encounters the letter G, you have to 
pronounce it and you have to pronounce it hard.  HOWEVER, I am working in 
the context of words that _start_ with G, and follow it immediately with 
the vowel I, sepcifically the short I, since no one seems to be 
disagreeing with that, and following that with a fricative consonant 
(somebody check my terminology on the F and V - I did these courses 4 
years ago), since no one seems to disagree on that either.

In that context, you will be hard pressed to find examples of the soft-G 
initial sound.  Obviously, if you structure the 'new' word differently, 
you'll pronounce it differently.  If the acronym were THOROUGH, I wouldn't 
be a proponent of the hard-G.  But if you'll look closely, the acronym is 
*not* THOROUGH or ROUGH.  it's GIF, which on first reading will be 
pronounced with a hard G by the vast majority of experienced readers of 
English.  I'm not making this up, this isn't just a whimsical idea.  
There are, there must be, *some* ground rules to pronunciation.  
Otherwise no one could ever encounter a new word in reading and even hope 
to pronounce it correctly.


: But then again, you might be the type to spell these words as:  thurow 
: and ruff.
Oh, you cut me to the quick (sarcasm again).

:            There's no law in the English language that says that words 
: (or acronyms) have to be spelled phonetically. 

And this is relevant, how?



:                                                 Frankly, whoever invented
: a new word should have the final say.

In Your Humble Opinion.  With which I disagree.  Let's look at spelling:  
England's been around far longer than America, and I don't think I'm 
stretching it to say that American English got a lot of it's words from 
English English.  How come, then, do we write COLOR while they write 
COLOUR ?  I think it's pretty safe to say that whoever invented the word 
did not have the final say there.

How about Usage, Idiom, and Definition:  What we call a fanny the English 
call a bum, and don't dare pat a girl on her 'fanny' uninvited in 
England, or, for that matter, invite her bum to a hot meal.  At the end 
of a meal, don't say "I am stuffed," no matter how full you are, and 
don't ask others if they're "done."

Want to stay on this continent?  Okay... Take the words "GAY" and "FAGGOT."  
They sure as heck don't mean now what they meant some years ago.  
Originators of those words sure didn't get the final say.  How about the 
word "QUICK?" 

Want to make this a more on-point argument?  Stay with pronunciations? 
Okay.   How about the evolution of the name Gwendolyn into Jennifer?  
Somewhere along the line somebody softened that G, and I doubt they 
changed the spelling first.

What's the point??  Where am I going??  One word: EVOLUTION.
English is a living language and therefore it is evolving.  All the 
time.  Even while you read this.

I stand by my original point:  The creator of a word gets total control 
over the pronunciation, usage, and meaning of that word only for so long 
as he doesn't share that word with anyone.  When enough people know a 
secret it's not a secret anymore, is it?  When enough people have a word 
in their vocabulary it is for the aggregate of those people to determine 
the fate of that word.

If I go outside tomorrow and call someone a "faggot," no matter what I 
intend, I will NOT be calling them a burning piece of wood.  That would 
be true even if I had invented the word years ago.  If, in some number of 
years, everybody adopts a standard way of saying GIF, and assume, 
arguendo, that it's with the hard-G, then I don't care *who* comes up to 
me and starts talking about a file he wants to give me in the _J_IF 
format, it's going to take me a minute to figure out what he's talking about.

If you want to follow the inventor's >>suggestion,<< that's your 
perogative (sp?) until a standard is set, and even then it's your right, 
although the communicated message will be modified to include at best a 
personal, inherent  obstinate nature or more likely a lack of experience 
or expertise.

But don't try to foist that blind conformity on the rest of us.  Of 
course, you might be the type to spell that word "phoighst."



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;) (with a wink and a smile) -- Ben Manevitz.
Pax Vobiscum (b.n.t.m.)         bma...@dolphin.upenn.edu
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"The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life.  Its 
history is the history of the moral development of the race.  The 
practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens...."
                                         --Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
                     _The_Path_of_the_Law_, 10 Harv.L.Rev 457, 458 (1897)
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