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Stupid Pet Peeves

colton said:
Btw in case it wasn't clear, one of my pet peeves is people who pronounce gif with a hard g. :)

Is this the first time in the thread that we've had dueling pet peeves?
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I will fight to the death to defend your right to be wrong.
 
colton said:
Are you saying you pronounce it lee-nux, then? My point is still valid.
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Since Linux involves a word foreign to English speakers in general, which will generate confusion anyway here in murrica, then it is a VERY weak example. Can you come up worth another true multi letter acronym that takes an alternate pronunciation of the first letter in acronym form different from the word it is taken from? Ever pronounce SIM as zim?
 
LogGrad98 said:
Since Linux involves a word foreign to English speakers in general, which will generate confusion anyway here in murrica, then it is a VERY weak example. Can you come up worth another true multi letter acronym that takes an alternate pronunciation of the first letter in acronym form different from the word it is taken from? Ever pronounce SIM as zim?
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I looked over a list of acronyms just now and found many examples. OK, they are not the first letter, but still...

the s in laser (stands for "stimulated", but pronounced like "z" instead of like "s")

the u in scuba (stands for "underwater" but pronounced as a long "u" instead of short "u")

the s in taser (stands for "swift", but pronounced as "z" rather than "s")

the o in awol (stands for "out" or "official", depending on your view, but pronounced as "ah" rather than "ou" or "oh")

the a in swat (stands for "and" but pronounced as "ah" rather than short a)


In fact, it seems to me that once an acronym has become a full-fledged word in English, it is typically pronounced the way it looks in English. Can you think of examples to the contrary, where an acronym which has become a word is pronounced *differently* than it would had it been formed as a regular word, due to the underlying words in the acronym?
 
colton said:
I looked over a list of acronyms just now and found many examples. OK, they are not the first letter, but still...

the s in laser (stands for "stimulated", but pronounced like "z" instead of like "s")

the u in scuba (stands for "underwater" but pronounced as a long "u" instead of short "u")

the s in taser (stands for "swift", but pronounced as "z" rather than "s")

the o in awol (stands for "out" or "official", depending on your view, but pronounced as "ah" rather than "ou" or "oh")

the a in swat (stands for "and" but pronounced as "ah" rather than short a)
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Here are two more:

the a in NATO (stands for "Atlantic", but pronounced as long "a" rather than short "a")

the a in WASP (stands for "Anglo", but pronounced as "ah" rather than long "a")
 
colton said:
I looked over a list of acronyms just now and found many examples. OK, they are not the first letter, but still...

the s in laser (stands for "stimulated", but pronounced like "z" instead of like "s")

the u in scuba (stands for "underwater" but pronounced as a long "u" instead of short "u")

the s in taser (stands for "swift", but pronounced as "z" rather than "s")

the o in awol (stands for "out" or "official", depending on your view, but pronounced as "ah" rather than "ou" or "oh")

the a in swat (stands for "and" but pronounced as "ah" rather than short a)


In fact, it seems to me that once an acronym has become a full-fledged word in English, it is typically pronounced the way it looks in English. Can you think of examples to the contrary, where an acronym which has become a word is pronounced *differently* than it would had it been formed as a regular word, due to the underlying words in the acronym?
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Not due to underlying words, but "gif" pronounced with a soft "g." Guess I'll start saying "jift" from now on.
 
LazyD said:
'for all intensive purposes'

Smh
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Be aware that's a very old jazzfanz joke, probably dating back 10 or more years. So if you read it on here from an old-timer, it was quite likely written on purpose to be funny.
 
Moving along...


* People who cc large numbers of people on an email (instead of bcc'ing them), so that when someone invariably does "Reply all" instead of "Reply" it gets sent to everyone on the list. And then people start saying "Don't send me email", also invariably using "Reply all" to inform everyone of their objection to being emailed.

* People who "Reply all" when "Reply would be more appropriate.
 
colton said:
I looked over a list of acronyms just now and found many examples. OK, they are not the first letter, but still...

the s in laser (stands for "stimulated", but pronounced like "z" instead of like "s")

the u in scuba (stands for "underwater" but pronounced as a long "u" instead of short "u")

the s in taser (stands for "swift", but pronounced as "z" rather than "s")

the o in awol (stands for "out" or "official", depending on your view, but pronounced as "ah" rather than "ou" or "oh")

the a in swat (stands for "and" but pronounced as "ah" rather than short a)


In fact, it seems to me that once an acronym has become a full-fledged word in English, it is typically pronounced the way it looks in English. Can you think of examples to the contrary, where an acronym which has become a word is pronounced *differently* than it would had it been formed as a regular word, due to the underlying words in the acronym?
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colton said:
Here are two more:

the a in NATO (stands for "Atlantic", but pronounced as long "a" rather than short "a")

the a in WASP (stands for "Anglo", but pronounced as "ah" rather than long "a")
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Since the core of your posts above is the bolded let's look at that. Is it Gift or Jift? Is it Git or Jit? Is it Goat or Joat?

Guy or Juy?

Girl or Jirl?

Gone or Jone?

In fact it takes a second syllable or a different configuration entirely to render a leading G a soft G sound, according to standard english pronunciation. Therefore according to your logic it should be G-if and not J-if.

Oh I thought of one, gym. Of course that uses a consonant that is also a vowel so it is a special case. Also (mostly) standard is if a G is followed by an E it normally takes a soft G. Not many single-syllable words start with GI and take a soft G sound. In fact the standard would be if the I is followed by another vowel (giant), it takes a soft G otherwise it take's a hard G. So jif would at the very least be an exception to the rule.

An other juesses?
 
colton said:
Moving along...


* People who cc large numbers of people on an email (instead of bcc'ing them), so that when someone invariably does "Reply all" instead of "Reply" it gets sent to everyone on the list. And then people start saying "Don't send me email", also invariably using "Reply all" to inform everyone of their objection to being emailed.

* People who "Reply all" when "Reply would be more appropriate.
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I would add to this ANYONE who EVER uses BCC unless it is to a large group that they want to remain anonymous. Saw a firing due to a hubbub that erupted when a single person was included in BCC to try to "catch" someone else on the email string. The person in BCC (happened to be the boss of the group) didn't realize they were BCC'd and went to town on everyone. It was ugly.
 
colton said:
Be aware that's a very old jazzfanz joke, probably dating back 10 or more years. So if you read it on here from an old-timer, it was quite likely written on purpose to be funny.
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Ah okay, didn't know that.

Sadly I didn't see it here tho
 
LazyD said:
Ah okay, didn't know that.

Sadly I didn't see it here tho
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Yes, sadly I hear this kind of thing from my in-laws all the time. For all intensive purposes it just makes me cringe.
 
Broncster said:
I got to disagree with you on this one. Flip-flops are the greatest thing. I live in them in the summer, no reason to cram your foot into an uncomfortable, hot and sweaty shoe in the summer. Flip flops or bare foot is the way to be in the summer. I find it weird when people wear shoes with shorts, especially board shorts.

Im indifferent on the painted toe nails.
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I didn't mean any offense or anything, I'm just not a foot person at all and I'd rather not see people's feet. Toenail polish doesn't make it any better. In fact, for me, it makes it worse.
 
LogGrad98 said:
I would add to this ANYONE who EVER uses BCC unless it is to a large group that they want to remain anonymous. Saw a firing due to a hubbub that erupted when a single person was included in BCC to try to "catch" someone else on the email string. The person in BCC (happened to be the boss of the group) didn't realize they were BCC'd and went to town on everyone. It was ugly.
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Yah, bcc should be all or nothing.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Since the core of your posts above is the bolded let's look at that. Is it Gift or Jift? Is it Git or Jit? Is it Goat or Joat?

Guy or Juy?

Girl or Jirl?

Gone or Jone?

In fact it takes a second syllable or a different configuration entirely to render a leading G a soft G sound, according to standard english pronunciation. Therefore according to your logic it should be G-if and not J-if.

Oh I thought of one, gym. Of course that uses a consonant that is also a vowel so it is a special case. Also (mostly) standard is if a G is followed by an E it normally takes a soft G. Not many single-syllable words start with GI and take a soft G sound. In fact the standard would be if the I is followed by another vowel (giant), it takes a soft G otherwise it take's a hard G. So jif would at the very least be an exception to the rule.

An other juesses?
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While you are correct that there are some cases where a g followed by an i is pronounced as a "hard g", those are in fact exceptions to the rule. The general rule is this:

If the following letter is ‘E’, ‘I’ or ‘Y’, the pronunciation is said to be “soft”
from https://esl.about.com/od/speakingintermediate/a/hardsoftcg.htm

the soft "g" occurs when the "g" comes before the letters "e", "i" or "y", and the hard "g" occurs elsewhere.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_English_words_where_G_is_pronounced_exceptionally

When c or g meets a, o, or u, its sound is hard. When c or g meets e, i, or y, its sound is soft.
https://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0903396.html

Soft g before a front vowel if the word has a Romance origin (geography, giant, ginger, general)
https://theweek.com/articles/463959/why-are-there-two-pronunciations-letter-g

General Rules - If the g is followed by e, i, or y, the pronunciation is “soft g”. If the g is followed by any other letter (than e, i, y), the pronunciation is “hard g”.
https://www.dailywritingtips.com/the-two-sounds-of-g/

Those are the top 5 search results on https://www.google.com/webhp?source...=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=when to pronounce soft g.

Sources agree universally on this, without exception as far as I could find.

Therefore, the default pronunciation should be "jif", and it would have to be an exception to the rule to be pronounced with a hard g. Especially since that's how the person who invented the word said it should be pronounced!

Just for good measure, here's a list of "gi" words with soft g to counter your list:

giant
gibberish
giblet
Gibraltar
gigantic
gin
ginger
gingerly
ginormous
giraffe


And if you want more words, one can easily think of other soft g ones like this:

generous
geography
gel
gerbil
general
gym
gypsy
gyrate
gyroscope
 
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