Comments on: "All English is Good English"

"All English is Good English"

Kattullus — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 13:52:37 -0800

The linguist Sonya Mathews has a website where they blog about language-related matters, such as a miscarriage of justice in 19th Century Ireland against people who spoke only Irish, the mysterious Hand of Irulegi, the Scots letter yogh and the spelling of Shetland and why ain't ain't wrong. Mathews also makes videos which they post to YouTube and TikTok, including on such topics as Proto Indo European, the lazy magic of the prefix un- and why the distinction between cow and beef, pig and pork, deer and venison, and so on, doesn't go back to the Norman conquest.

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 14:27:18 -0800

"English spelling thinks about the Roman Empire' "Today the particular query centered around the word "solder" and why it is pronounced "saw-der" by many North Americans who seemingly ignore the letter L. And the answer is: renaissance scholars who thought too much about the Roman Empire." "saw-der" I hear as "saa-derr' I like to know where cuz I've never heard it pronounce this way I've heard it pronounced "soh-gha" or "so ghas" or sol-Jah in emphasis. Is this more upper east coast up to Canada? "Solder" was a lucky scientific word that received the relatinization treatment, being refashioned along the lines of its Latin root solidus, meaning "solid". The new L sound, however, was not pronounced until the early 1900s...Well, there is no hard and fast rule, but the guiding force seems to be the commonality of the spoken version of the word versus the written version. "Island" is a far more regularly used word across different speech groups than "solder", so it makes sense that "solder" would be the one to eventually become pronounced like the spelling." very interesting. nice site, nice find.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 14:46:41 -0800

the distinction between cow and beef, pig and pork, deer and venison, and so on, doesn't go back to the Norman conquest. Another tidy language story crumbles to dust...

By: BobTheScientist

BobTheScientist — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 15:08:14 -0800

miscarriage of justice in 19th Century Ireland against people who spoke only Irish Maamtrasna Eight (1882) miscarriage of justice in 20th Century England against people who spoke only with Irish accents Guildford Four (1975) Maguire Seven (1976) Birmingham Six (1975) etc.

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 15:30:06 -0800

Ain't is wrong, because apostrophes are the Devil's Hoofprints.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 17:35:21 -0800

Appropriate soundtrack.

By: darkstar

darkstar — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 17:46:38 -0800

I've heard it pronounced "soh-gha" or "so ghas" or sol-Jah in emphasis I am truly perplexed by this. I've never heard a variation in pronunciation of the word "solder" that could be interpreted as having a phone in it that would be transcribed with a "g" or "J" in English orthography. (I.e., with either a voiced velar stop or a voiced palatal affricate or approximant.) Nor with a sibilant at the end. How intriguing!

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:16:03 -0800

Mostly I've heard sol-JER or sol-JA.

By: rory

rory — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:33:02 -0800

Is anyone talking about "jer/ja" misreading solder as soldier?

By: darkstar

darkstar — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 18:43:31 -0800

LOL, it didn't occur to me, but that would certainly explain my confusion, rory!

By: Pallas Athena

Pallas Athena — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 01:06:47 -0800

apostrophes are the Devil's Hoofprints. Thank you, George Bernard Shaw.

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 02:12:13 -0800

Is anyone talking about "jer/ja" misreading solder as soldier? Yes! How embarrassing!

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 02:16:46 -0800

I found this interesting as I had noticed it in other languages too:

For ears trained in other flavors of the English language, one of the most clandestine aspects of Hiberno English is the seeming lack of yes/no answers to direct questions. Examples: Is your charger here? It isn't. Are you coming home soon? I am'n't. Will he go? He will not.. Is she alright? She isn't. Is it warm out? Tisn't. These responses are collectively referred to as "echo answers", as the speaker replicates a salient piece of information from the question to affirm or deny the content of it. ... For example, the question "an dtuigeann tú ?" ("do you understand?") could be affirmatively answered by "tuigim" ("I understand").

This is true in Portuguese as well. Yes/No questions are not generally answered by yes/no but by repeating the verb: Are you going to the concert tonight? (I'm) going. Do you have the keys? (I) have. And so on.. This isn't a feature of Latin languages so I'm going to guess it comes from the shared Celtic roots - Celtiberian or Lusitanian.

By: HearHere

HearHere — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 02:47:17 -0800

misreading solder as soldier? i got sol, but i'm not a soldier

By: 43rdAnd9th

43rdAnd9th — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 03:56:13 -0800

A friend of mine in California pronounces "solder" as "sodder", which I found very strange when I first heard it (he says from London)

By: antinomia

antinomia — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 04:25:53 -0800

Something I didn't realize until someone pointed it out is that "gonna" is a perfectly cromulent word on its own and not strictly a contraction: I'm going to get some bacon. —> I'm gonna get some bacon. I'm going to the store. —> I'm gonna the store.

By: 43rdAnd9th

43rdAnd9th — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 05:35:32 -0800

My best language-related read of recent weeks has been "Language City" by Ross Perlin (https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/language-city/). A fascinating book.

By: eekernohan

eekernohan — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 05:51:35 -0800

the distinction between cow and beef, pig and pork, deer and venison, and so on, doesn't go back to the Norman conquest. Another tidy language story crumbles to dust... Darn, I always enjoyed that one!

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 06:46:41 -0800

"All English is Good English" Or, from a different but equally valid point of view, all English is bad English.

By: heyitsgogi

heyitsgogi — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 06:50:28 -0800

Huh. I listened to the cow/beef one since that is personally close to my foodie/language nerd heart, and she seems to be debunking the idea that "lower class Germanic people weren't allowed to eat the animals they raised" -- which I had never heard of -- and then goes on to talk about all the ways in which both Germanic and French words for animals and their meats were used largely interchangeably for hundreds of years after the Norman invasion. ...which seems to support the basic conjecture that the Norman invasion fundamentally changed the English language, and gave us all kinds of double words for things, with the French words sounding fancier than the Germanic ones. I always thought was the point of the whole beef/cow thing. So unless I misunderstood (possible!) I wouldn't say she debunked the beef/cow divisions as much as more deeply explained the complex history of them, which is neat!

By: Ishbadiddle

Ishbadiddle — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 07:07:07 -0800

1066: Never Forget

By: darkstar

darkstar — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 07:56:17 -0800

I have to share an anecdote related to 1066, as it also relates to a mis-heard word, and so seems to fit in this thread. Some years ago, shortly after I moved in to my condo complex, I was talking with a neighbor out front while watering my flowers. She asked if I ever planted nasturtiums, a favorite of hers. I said I hadn't, and she suggested I take a look at her patio sometime, as she had them growing in several pots. "Oh, that sounds great!" I said. "Which unit are you in?" "1066," she replied. "Ah — the Norman Conquest!" I said with a smile. She looked at me quizzically. "Not my religion." I was a bit flummoxed by that non sequitur, and asked about it, whereupon it became evident that she thought I was talking about Mormons. Ever since then, when I think about 1066, I sometimes get a flash of an image of a fleet of ships full of Latter Day Saints debarking at Pevensey, on their way to a fateful Battle at Hastings, bringing their distinctive linguistic and cultural influences to England.

By: ishmael

ishmael — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 08:14:28 -0800

"Today the particular query centered around the word "solder" and why it is pronounced "saw-der" by many North Americans who seemingly ignore the letter L I've noticed the dropping of the L in a lot of places. Used to think it was a midwest thing, but I hear it in media from a lot of North Americans, especially younger ones. "O-der" instead of "older", "o-wez" instead of "always". Not sure what to chalk it up to. Perhaps to say things more quickly? Or elide difficult sounds?

By: k3ninho

k3ninho — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 08:21:02 -0800

Ishbadiddle: 1066: Never Forget TIL the Take That song is a cover.

By: caviar2d2

caviar2d2 — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 08:36:49 -0800

Southeast US and I've only ever heard "sodder". I can't defend it as a logical pronunciation but if I heard the L it would seem super weird.

By: Pallas Athena

Pallas Athena — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 14:46:12 -0800

"sojer" is attested in British English

By: inexorably_forward

inexorably_forward — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 15:51:51 -0800

OK, I'm a north american transplant to New Zealand and I hear (jovial) complaints about my pronunciation of solder all the damn time. The "l" is not silent here; basically, "solder" rhymes with "older". Which is another way to say that the solder article is extremely relevant to my interests! I do, however, take issue with "saw-der". I do not have the COT/CAUGHT merger and I definitely use the COT vowel in solder (so, as caviar2d2 says, "sodder"). What say you, fellow solderers of MetaFilter? Is anyone using the CAUGHT vowel in solder?

By: adrienneleigh

adrienneleigh — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:16:26 -0800

inexorably_forward: i also do not have the COT/CAUGHT merger, but i use the CAUGHT vowel in "solder". This may actually be due to influence from my mother, however, because she does have the COT/CAUGHT merger (this caused no end of confusion in high school, when i had a friend named Dawn and a boss named Don and sometimes i couldn't figure out who she was asking me about.)

By: inexorably_forward

inexorably_forward — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:27:00 -0800

Wow, adrienneleigh, that's fascinating. If I ever hear someone pronounce it as CAUGHT, I'll just assume it's you!

By: inexorably_forward

inexorably_forward — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:28:34 -0800

(Or, of course, it could be Sonya Mathews.)

By: rory

rory — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:56:31 -0800

"sojer" is attested in British English By whom? The OED has SOL-duh, SOHL-duh for British English, SAW-duhr, SAH-duhr for U.S. English. If someone says "sojer" here in the UK (SOHL-juh, but the L could get swallowed in some regional accents) they mean the people with guns who fight in the army, not the melty metal stuff used on circuit boards. Anyway, the pieces on Maamtrasna and the Hand of Irulegi were both very interesting, and it seems a shame we're going to spend the whole thread on Americans not rhyming solder and older. Wait'll you hear about how Aussies rhyme short and thought... (Use of "wait'll" in honour of the piece on contractions, also v.g.)

By: rory

rory — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 17:05:45 -0800

On the story of yogh: it wasn't until I learned about that letter and its relics in the Scottish names "Menzies", "Dalziel" and "Culzean" that I realised why the nickname of Australia's mid-20th-century prime minister Bob Menzies (MEN-zeez, to Aussies) was Ming. I always thought it was a reference to his love of Empire, and to the nemesis of Speed Gordon (as Flash Gordon was known to Aussies at the time). But no: Menzies to Scots is MING-us (and Dalziel is dee-ELL, and Culzean is cull-AIN), because the z was never really a z.

By: BobTheScientist

BobTheScientist — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 23:42:27 -0800

vacapinta: one of the most clandestine aspects of Hiberno English is the seeming lack of yes/no answers to direct questions More hedging and pragmatics in HibernoEnglish recently on RTE incl a 7 min voice segment 'Ah sure, you know yourself': why Irish people never say what they mean . There you are, now.

By: away for regrooving

away for regrooving — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 23:51:04 -0800

This isn't a feature of Latin languages It [viz. "echoing the verb" rather than using yes or no responses] is a feature of classical Latin itself, so it's interesting to see how it has disappeared and reappeared!