When you were in school, did you ever flunk both English and math in the same year? If you did, did you do it publicly, not just for your teacher and your parents to see?
I have come upon a whole organization that gets a failing grade in English and math. And I am not picking on it because it is an organization of bloggers. But if I didn’t already dislike blogs, this would do it.
I recently received a news release from the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), a recently formed organization that unabashedly acknowledges that it is copying the Baseball Writers Association (BBWAA). Except it’s for bloggers, not newspaper reporters. Before the Hall of Fame announcement last week, the BBA surveyed its members in an “election” that copied the BBWAA election. It was meaningless, of course, but the group was just looking to get some publicity. It wasn’t the kind of publicity, however, that I would want for my organization.
On the English side of the ledger, the release mixed singular subjects with plural predicates and singular subjects with subsequent plural pronouns. We writers care about that sort of thing. The release said Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven, the leading votegetters, “both received 35 of the 47 votes.” But they each got 35 votes; if they both received 35 votes, they would not have been the leading votegetters because their combined total would have been 35.
But the BBA saved its worst for its math exploits. Noting that the percentages for Alomar and Blyleven were 74.468, the release said the two players would make the Hall of Fame because their percentages would be rounded to 75.
Wrong. If the BBA is trying to imitate the BBWAA, it should get the rules right. The BBWAA does not round up to 75. A player has to get a pure 75 percent or more to be elected. In this year’s election, 539 votes were cast, and 75 percent of that total is 404.25. But 404 votes would not have put a candidate in the Hall. He needed 405.
But the BBA also fails simple math, something that two of my grandchildren, Jake and Josh, said they learned in first grade. The fraction .468 is not rounded to the next number. A fraction has to be half (.5) or more to round to the next whole number. If 74.468 is rounded, it becomes 74, not 75. So in the BBA survey, no one received enough votes to be elected. But that’s not what the release said.
The error-infested release only reinforces my feeling about blogs and bloggers. It becomes Exhibit A. If a person can’t write basic English correctly and doesn’t know basic math in a sport filled with numbers, what business does he have writing anything for public consumption?
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Heh. I agree. I personally don't point out these "mistakes" when someone pronounces an Italian word American-style.
I'm sympathetic to the, er, sentiment. However, I grew up in Europe, and the first time an America asked me if I wanted a "cruh-sant", I had absolutely no idea that he was talking about.
I took English in University and read a book outside of my formal studies lamenting the fact that people said "for-tay" incorrectly when they should be saying "fort". The book had the same reasoning as above (the Italian for-tay is a musical term and not be confused with the French word).
Despite this new-found knowledge I still continued to pronounce it "for-tay". That was how everyone else I knew prononnuced it and I wasn't going to go around correcting everyone.
I grew up in Canada, and I'd still have absolutely no idea what someone was talking about if they offered me a "cruh-sant."
Um, way to think on your feet, guys.
Reminds me of my college English teacher who insisteed that Quixote was pronounced "quick-sut." I guess he couldn't get over "quixotic" (which, indeed, I suppose doesn't make a whole lot of sense ...).
Also, the great-aunt who more or less raised me, & who taught school for 50 years, pronounced Vietnam "vye-ET-num." Maybe that was an older pronunciation; she was born in 1879.
Reminds me of my college English teacher who insisteed that Quixote was pronounced "quick-sut." I guess he couldn't get over "quixotic" (which, indeed, I suppose doesn't make a whole lot of sense ...).
Or course, though, if your English teacher were teaching Byron's "Don Juan," it would be (correctly) pronounced "Don Joo-uhn."
In other words, it isnt:
Mootz-ah-DELL
Ruh-GAWT
No matter what my grandfather thinks. It's ri-COT-ta (middle vowel rhymes with "coat")
If someone came over from Milan they would be much more likely to understand you if you just said Mozzarrella and Ricotta in the American way than in the Italian-American way.
Oh yeah, and ga-ba-gool? Come on. It Italy, Capicola, like most Italian words, is pronounced exactly how it's spelled.
If you asked for that to an actual Italian you would just get a funny look.
ftr, I wouldn't know what a cruh-sant was either.
although on a related note; late last year I spent a couple months living in Zurich and when I came back I asked for a Gipfeli (Croissant) in a coffee shop and confused the girl behind the counter!
Is that a rather recent development? I grew up in an area that was heavily populated by Italian-Americans (the guy down the block from me cowrote Big Night based on a local Italian restaurant), I don't remember ever hearing these pronunciations?
On my mother's side of the family, they always have pronounced the first word as Mootz-ah-RELL-a. The second word could be pronounced either the way that you posted it or as Ruh-GAWT-a.
The dictionary's conclusion: "So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however."
The dictionary concludes that two-syllable pronunciations are probably the most frequent in American English.
Of course, dialects are not uniform across Italy (or at least it wasn't the case 100 years ago). My mother's family came from the provinces of Naples and Potenza in the south, so they might have pronounced those words differently than citizens of Northern and Central Italy. Of course, they might have pronounced it the same way there, too. Never been to the "old country."
WRT regional pronunciations, "poem" was universally pronounced "poym" in northern Wisconsin where I grew up.
Correct or not, I think most people would find "fort" confusing in a non-military context.
and there sure nuff are a lot of different ways to per-nownts thangs
i mean, really, how else would you say - cruh-SAHNT? because if you said it some other way, wouldn't nobody here know whatchu talkin bout
and "poem" is pernounct "pome"
agreed:
"pome"
"ornj"
"JEW-lah-ree"
Or couch-cushion context.
Al Michaels pronounces it "fort." Really.
I think the battle is over for words like this. I know that it's supposed to be "fort," not "for-TAY," but using the former makes you sound like an idiot or, at best, a pedantic ass. So I stick with "for-TAY."
ALVY
I distinctly heard it. He muttered under
his breath, "Jew."
ROB
You're crazy!
ALVY
No, I'm not. We were walking off the
tennis court, and you know, he was there
and me and his wife, and he looked at her
and then they both looked at me, and under
his breath he said, "Jew."
ROB
Alvy, you're a total paranoid.
I am enjoying watching the definition of "literally" become "not-literally but still impressive".
Basically, most Italian immigrants to the NY/NJ area were from southern Italy. And in those dialects, the final vowel in mozzarella was pronounced, but only faintly very faintly. When these words were passed onto the younger generation, who did not attain fluency, the faint final vowel was lost, as a kind of detail that a foreign speaker could not perceive or imitate.
So saying "mozz-ah-rell" means you are using a debased and inaccurate form of a dialect that probably already sounded ridiculous to Romans even when it was spoken correctly.
The only other way I know would be kwah-son with the o-sound of "on".
Gah. I've learned to mentally edit that word out when I hear or read it, since it almost never adds any meaning to a sentence.
It's impressive that it hasn't happened yet, but we're close to the point where a certain Canadian pop singer's popular song is discussed.
This story is wonderful because it combines an absurd abuse of the word with a charmingly senile "uphill both ways" type of recollection. A comment of Grandpa Simpson quality.
Same reasoning, different result. I simply have removed the word from my personal usage. I can't bring myself to deliberately pronounce it incorrectly, and I don't want to come off like a snob, so I just typically just say "specialty."
How do different people on this thread pronounce "huge"? I say "yuge" (the H is silent) and a good deal of my friends insist that it must be "hyuge." The dictionary says either are acceptable.
The one I'm trying desperately to get rid of is "melk." You know, the stuff you put on your cereal. I cringe when I hear myself but it's a very hard habit to break, particularly since I don't drink tea or coffee, so I practically never have to use it in conversation. You'll never hear "Long Guy-Land" or "Noo Yawk" from me, but I'm perfectly content to say "ahr-ange," "Flahr-ih-da," and "chawklate" until the day I die.
Don't forget "surreal" turning into "not-surreal but still somewhat strange."
and it is chawk-LIT not chawk-LATE
as for "huge" i think that if it is in the middle of a sentence and not emphasized, you don't say the H and you just say "yewdj" but if it is like a one word answer, you would use the H
grinning
then again all yall Up There cain't say AWL (as in hot AWL or puttin fresh AWL in yer caRRRR - NOT cahhh)
I think FOR-tay is the way. I think I put the accent on the wrong one. Now I've said it so many times in my brain that I have no idea.
Yup. Told you it makes me cringe.
and it is chawk-LIT not chawk-LATE
You're right. I suck at writing out pronunciations.
<I>then again all yall Up There cain't say AWL (as in hot AWL or puttin fresh AWL in yer caRRRR - NOT cahhh)<I>
I don't know how you folks don't end up poking holes in your cars and keeping an unhappy Mary single.
Good thing Ike Forte (star running back for the Razorbacks when I was a kid in Arkansas; he later played for the Patriots, Giants & Redskins a bit) didn't go into baseball, I suppose.
Agreed. That is a charming example.
The first time I can remember "literally" mis-used was watching hockey news (early 90s) when the talking head said in the next replay the goalie "literally stood on his head" to make the save. I stopped what I was doing and watched the replay and, although the save was impressive, there were no headstands. I stood confused for about 20 seconds because I didn't consider the annonucer mis-used the word. I foolishly thought it was a one-time event (the silly man meant figuratively not literally) but soon noticed it was a common evolution of the word; which doesn't bother me so much as intrigue me.
my thesis advisor (a native New Yorker) pronounced "guard" and "God" the same
(I'll let you decide what the pronunciation WAS--it's hard to spell it out)
can we still make fun of Michael Kay?
100% agree. When I try to use the speaking tips provided upthread ("a" as in . . ) I sound like Marlee Matlin.
Those of us who have merged the sounds would say it like this.
While those who pronounce them differently say this.
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