fun wif forn fronting

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

nenya-kanadka:

jazzypom:

ubungmachtdenmeister:

So you know how every language has that word/phrase/sentence that native speakers can pronounce just fine, but foreigners can almost never pronounce it correctly? And the natives have a lot of fun telling the foreigners to try and say it and laughing at their attempts?

They’re called Shibboleths, and wikipedia has a whole article on them. 
Even better, wikipedia has a whole article on examples of them.

Some of them are ridiculous, I can’t stop reading this article.

Wow. Cheers for this. 

“Art thou an Ephraimite?”

“Um, uh … No?”

“Prove it. Say ‘shibboleth.’”

“Sibboleth.”

“Aha! Die Ephraimite!”

“Oh sit.”

(Judges 12 according to Fred Clark)

Tags:

#I can never decide whether it’s very fitting or very *un*-fitting that I can’t pronounce ‘shibboleth’ #if it were just ‘word that is extremely difficult to pronounce’ #it would be fitting to have the word for that be extremely difficult to pronounce #but it’s ‘word that native speakers can say easily and everyone *else* finds extremely difficult to pronounce’ #and I am a native English speaker #and I can’t say it #I swear I’m not an Ephraimite please don’t kill me #language #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Oh hey, there is an official term for it.

Tags:

#oh look an original post #followup to the voice meme I did a little while ago #adventures in Wikipedia #I had no idea ‘brother’ wasn’t supposed to be pronounced with a ‘v’ #the more you know #(well) #(I suppose you *could* pronounce the ‘th’ in ‘brother’ like ‘they’) #(it might not even sound weird) #(but still) #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #fun wif forn fronting

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

 

I did it!

It was easier to make the words come out once I tried it in the second-most-secluded place in my house rather than going to the third-most-secluded. (The most secluded place is the Death Trap Room, a part of the attic whose door can only be opened from the outside. No way in hell am I setting more than one foot in there without use of the buddy system, and since the point was to make sure my family couldn’t hear me (so I wouldn’t have that awkwardness)…)

Tumblr Accent Meme!

Your name and username.

Where you’re from.

Pronounce the following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Pajamas, Caught, Naturally, Aluminum, GIF, Tumblr, Crackerjack, Doorknob, Envelope, GPOY.

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?

What is a bubbly carbonated drink called?

What do you call gym shoes?

What do you call your grandparents?

What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Choose a book and read a passage from it.

Do you think you have an accent?

Be a wizard or a vampire?

Do you know anyone on Tumblr in real life?

End audio post by saying any THREE words you want.

Tags:

#eponymous rose #oh look an original post #can you tell I read this from a script I wrote up last night? #(I can) #(I’m significantly more coherent than usual) #but it was still an accomplishment that I got up enough nerve at all #and once I’d made sure the mic on my MP3 player could pick me up I did it in one take #(I could’ve sworn I was better at L’s than this) #(‘misweading statistics’) #(the following category tags were added retroactively:) #accents #fun wif forn fronting