Words that piss me off.

[Nast]

This was in my "Communications" "Class's" "textbook" (and yes, all three of those words require scare quotes individually.)

Articulation and Pronunciation. In addition to the rate, pitch, and volume of your voice, articulation and pronunciation help give meaning to your verbal message. Articulation consists of forming vowel and consonant sounds correctly. Because many people are lazy when it comes to articulating the sounds used to communicate, they may slur the s sound or leave sounds out of words altogether. In many cultures, this is very distracting; in others, it can be seen as a behavior symbolizing group membership. Some commonly mispronounced words are listed following. How many of these do you mispronounce?

Distracting Pronunciation and Articulation

    * AKS instead of ask
    * PIN instead of pen
    * DEM instead of them
    * DIS instead of this
    * JIST instead of just
    * NU-CU-LER instead of nuclear
    * NUTTIN instead of nothing
    * GITTIN instead of getting
    * CAUSE or CUZ instead of because
    * AN instead of and
    * BEAN instead of being
    * PITCHER instead of picture
    * WIF instead of with
    * WORSHington instead of Washington

That's right, people who pronounce words differently than you are just being LAZY.

I'm also confused as to why the put "nuculur" in there.  I mean, it's not like Bush is ever going to read take this "class," right?

That's also my Japanese teacher's explanation for sound changes in modern Japanese. But I'm not sure if she's serious or not.

[Triple Zero]

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuk that is just retarded. ITS CALLED DIALECT YOU FUCKERS

you know I always thought those people in the south of the netherlands were just too fucking lazy to pronounce the hard g correctly.

[Triple Zero]

or maybe it's me, in the north that's too lazy to pronounce the last-syllable schwa in plurals.



or those British, with their glo'al sto'. lazy fuckers, not pronouncing their consonants

[P3nT4gR4m]

MuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuV! 

[LMNO]

Ok, this isn't really a word, it's a mode of speech.

Does it piss me off?  Yes.
Is it stilted and awkward?  Yup.
Is it a way of controlling the conversation? Yes.
Does it give the illusion of providing information other than what the speaker explicitly wants?  You bet.
Does it prevent other people actually asking relevant questions?  Sure thing.

[Triple Zero]

Is it demonstrated in the previous post?

[LMNO]

Did I provide several working examples in the previous post?  Absolutely.

Do I blame Donald Rumsfeld?  You bet your ass I do.

[Jenne]

LOVE IT.

The best part of conversation analysis (what I did part of my MA thesis in) was studying the motivations behind such constructions.  The breakdown is just FUN.

[LMNO]

Please to be revealing secret linguistic analysis.

[Jenne]

Please to be revealing secret linguistic analysis.

We did it with film back in those days.  Stopping and starting constantly, getting each eye movement, hand gesture, posture original position, posture change, intonation, prosody, and pause, with pause length.

That was the boring part.  Took forever.  We did it with Hi-8 material.

Then you put it together and start looking at it on paper, along with the actual video.  That shit was hot.  It was purely subjective, you need to REALLY know the subculture you're dealing with, but damn it was fun.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Did that answer the question? NO! 

[Triple Zero]

Jenne, do you happen to know of any accessible and/or interesting/fun to read books on that subject? Yes!

Are you not thinking why I am not asking myself how I could mess up that conversational style? Not a chance!

I remember I enjoyed reading Pinker's the Language Instinct a lot, and that was also someone's course material.

[Nast]

Jenne, do you happen to know of any accessible and/or interesting/fun to read books on that subject? Yes!

Seconded. Curious individuals would be happy to know. 

[Mangrove]

'Aks' isntead of 'ask' used to irritate me until I discovered that 'Aks' is actually quite old.

ask
O.E. ascian "ask," from earlier ahsian, from P.Gmc. *aiskojan (cf. O.S. escon, O.Fris. askia, M.Du. eiscen, O.H.G. eiscon, Ger. heischen "to ask, demand"), from PIE *ais- "to wish, desire" (cf. Skt. icchati "seeks, desires," Arm. aic "investigation," O.C.S. iskati "to seek," Lith. ieškau "to seek"). Form in Eng. infl. by a Scand. form of the word (cf. Dan. æske; the O.E. would have evolved by normal sound changes into ash, esh, which was a Midlands and s.w. England dialect form). The variant in modern dialect ax is as old as O.E. acsian and was an accepted literary variant until c.1600. O.E. also had fregnan, frignan which carried more directly the sense of "question, inquire," and is from PIE root *prek-, the common source of words for "ask" in most I.E. languages. If you ask me "in my opinion" is attested from 1910.

So it was in usage, then it fell out of usage and has now returned.

[Iason Ouabache]

I hate hate HATE the word "ilk". Probably the most overused word this year. It just grates on my nerves.

And if you couldn't tell from the other thread, I will kill the mother fucker that came up with "attainment".