Judge Perry sounds uneducated when he says 'ANFONY"

If that is what you want everyone to think then I will accept it.

I think your headline is philosophical.

That could be a reason. It was done purposely but this person's official reason is different.

See the little pencil icon next to the Headline?

Headlines should be supported by the information presented in the article/seed, rather than used primarily as a means to draw attention.

Fix it.

K:

Unless he was born in Africa, I would think he would have learned the typical English dialect by now.

Um. No. Languages and dialects don't work that way.

Do you think some pretty blonde girl born in Macon, Georgia should've learned by now that "Y'all" is not a "typical English"?

Denzel Washington is trained in accents for pete's sake. Barack Obama does not speak the dialect common to African Americans as I defined them because he is not a common African American as I defined them.

Dunno about your father's partner or whatever, but if he grew up in a Black family in a traditionally Black community, he probably had to have the accent trained out.

I understand it's common for African Americans to speak that way, but I think it's something a "judge" should have corrected by now.

Why? To keep people like you from feeling superior about your own accent, which is probably also non-standard along a different axis of of differentiation?

the typical English dialect

That phrase right there is worth a @!$%#-ton of LOL all on its own.

K. Snider i sent you an FR if you want it...look forward to you articles thanks...

K.:

Improper pronunciation is not an accent.

Yes. It is. Go get a Ph. @!$%#ing D. in English and report back to me.

to be rude and act ugly

Frankly I found the title of this piece to sound "rude" and "ugly". Choice of language aside, Jack is right. Further:

it is not spelled with an F and therefore no F should be pronounced.

Would you be kind enough to say "through" out loud for me? How about "doubt" or "Wednesday"? Just as letters, present, can not be pronounced, so can others, not being present, be pronounced. I don't have to travel far in one directly to hear "idea" pronounced "ideal", and in another to hear it "idear". Spelling is ossified. The written language is slower to change than the spoken, and is less flexible. It does not have primacy.

I say again: Welcome to English.

some very educated.......say liberry instead of library..........

K.:

Maybe you could go take a chill pill

No. I will not take a chill pill. You do not know what you are talking about. Not only are you spreading ignorance and falsehood, but you are doing so weeks after I patiently and politely explained it to you.

So, since you don't seem to get it, let me rephrase: Your proposition is ignorant, stupid and false. When you stop spreading ignorant stupid falsehoods, I will take a "chill pill."

Are you smart enough to understand that?

some very educated.......say liberry instead of library..........

Exactly. Spelling is roughly indicative of a word at some place and at some time, according to both the rules and whims extant, then. But English encompasses many places, across a great deal of time. There are bound to be variations. It is a strength of the language, and most certainly not a weakness.

Your headline states:

Judge Perry sounds uneducated when he says 'ANFONY'

That's a bold statement, and one simply of opinion. And it's an opinion you are welcome to. It also happens to be a headline which in my opinion sounds a bit rude and ugly.

There are lots of words with "silent letters" but give me some examples of the sounds of letters that aren't even found in the word. I think that would make your argument more valid.

I included, above:

I don't have to travel far in one directly to hear "idea" pronounced "ideal", and in another to hear it "idear".

The fact of the matter here is that, to the extent you have an opinion, you are of course more than welcome to it, but to the extent you believe that opinion is at all factually based, you are wrong. You clearly are demonstrating a lack of understanding about how the English language works, in general, or how spelling works, in specific. Where you may say that Perry sounds uneducated, you are providing concrete examples as to the lack of your relevant education, in this area.

If you truly are curious about language, I would recommend reading up on it, and this is a good a place to start as any. I hope you find it of interest.

CHASING: If someone says "idear" instead of "idea" I think I would feel the same way as I do about "Anfony.

So, let me get this straight: you wanted an example of a word which is pronounced with a letter that is not there, and then when I provide you with such an example you say it is not valid because that letter is not there? Look - you do not pronounce it "idear". This does not mean it cannot be pronounced "idear".

Idear is not a word in the English language

It most certainly is. If "idear", as a word, gained a foothold first in parts of East Texas, and/or was first written down there, and/or by someone from there, and/or that region had a certain cultural cachet, then that is how you would expect it to be spelled. The fact that this word first became ossified elsewhere does not make that elsewhere the de facto and universal standard. In fact there is no de facto and universal standard in English.

Let me ask you, in all seriousness: do you know how spelling came about? Why British spelling and American spelling are so often different? How it is that the English of the London area first rose to prominence? I urge you to look into all of these questions.

You seem to want to denigrate people who don't happen to be in the same segment of the dialect continuum that you are.

Though the judge might pronounce it funny, I bet he gets the spelling right when he puts it on paper.

K.:

Just because we have differing opinions

It's not a matter of differing opinion. You're wrong. Period. What you say is stupid, ignorant and false. Full stop.

SRO is utterly correct, here. Perry may well sound either uneducated or unprofessional to you, yet he is, quite obviously, both educated and professional. It is perfectly OK for you to find that his pronunciation hits your ears oddly; it is another thing altogether to presume that because it does so, it must necessarily reflect on the worth of the speaker.

K. that was so smooth............

Since this is my article, I guess I thought it would obvious to most people that Judge Perry sounded uneducated or unprofessional to me.

So long as that is all you are saying, and not that he is uneducated or unprofessional, although the basis for your judgment has been illustrated, by Jack and others, to be faulty. But the extent to which you would prefer to cling to incorrect notions is, of course, entirely up to you.

Cheers!

You, too. Have a good weekend.

K.:

Nope. It's not my opinion. It's a fact.

It is a fact that your opinion is ignorant, stupid, bigoted falsehood.

#9.29: Being a "professional physicist" is not the same as "sounding professional" - meaning sounding business-like.

Exactly!

Ordinarily, and this means in ordinary conversation with friends, acquaintances, peers, etc., I don't care how a person speaks. The point of speech (and writing, for that matter) is communication. We speak with our family and friends differently from the way we speak to our employers, for example, or professionals in our fields, or those on whom we wish to make a particular impression. It is a part of our group identity, and those who say otherwise are kidding themselves.

"When in Rome..." and, of course, that expression is based on the fact that we all tend to take on the attributes of whatever group we are a part of, or are trying to be a part of. If we are trying to make a particular impression, then we adapt our speech style (and, by extension, our writing style) accordingly. Thus, when we go to a country where the native language is different from our own, we make every effort to speak in the native tongue. It may not be perfect, but we make the effort. And when someone from another country visits us here, and they ask for directions, for example, then it is incumbent upon them to ask in English. It needn't be perfect, but they will ask in such a way that they are most likely to get the answer they need. Again, the point is communication, and we communicate a lot more than just words. The way we communicate tells whoever is listening pretty much what the speaker thinks of the listener. It isn't too hard to tell if the attitude is, "You are not worth the effort it takes to speak to you as an equal."

Thus, there are times and places for all kinds of speech, and it is up to the speaker to tailor his/her words and phrasing to the present circumstance. So, if that judge really wants to be taken seriously, then he really needs to leave his street slang at home. That he decided to "be cute" gives the clearest signal that he held his audience in contempt, unworthy of the effort it would have taken to speak to them as courteously as they deserved to be spoken to.

Of course, there is also simply laziness... most often we see that in written speech (and often in these comment boxes). Some people will make the effort to write legibly, and others, for whatever reason, will tap out comments in as few words as possible, not even bothering to use capital letters where they should, or correct punctuation, or spellings. And there are also those who simply don't bother to read carefully, regardless of the legibility of what was written.

I tend to be far more forgiving of the writing styles I see in forums like Newsvine because I know that some people have vision problems, physical limitations that make hitting some keys very awkward, if not impossible, etc., along with the fact that English may not be their first language. I'm not going to go around criticizing their writing when the whole point is to communicate, and written communication by definition omits visual and audible cues as to intent. I'll take the writing at face value 99% of the time.

But... I expect TV News anchors, narrators of TV or Movie documentaries, commercials, etc. to speak formally. They have a much broader audience, for one thing, and so need to be cognizant that their normal speech patterns may be unintelligible to some listeners, so they need to speak to the broadest audience.

I think the best example I can give is Hugh Laurie ("Dr. House"). He is British, normally speaks with a British accent, but for the TV series in which he is the star performer, he speaks United States "English" like a native! The man is a genius, really, and clearly understands his audience. When you see him being interviewed on a talk show, however, his accent is clearly British, as it should be.

I guess some people don't realize how the way they speak can have an impact on their listeners, but the fact is, if one cannot communicate a clear intent, then there are going to be consequences, not the least of those being ruined credibility.

For those who don't care what impression they give, well, okay. They should not expect anyone to BE impressed with them, either. Communication is always a two-way street.

You both might find this to be of interest: Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory.

Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory.

The Anglophone world incorporates within its intelligentsia a very vocal class of people I will call prescriptive ideologues whose avocation, or even in some cases profession, is prescribing for others how they ought to write and speak, and lambasting the linguistic incorrectnesses and infelicities of those who do not follow the prescription. They do this, naturally enough, on behalf of the prestige dialect: there are no signs of prescriptive ideologues advocating for the non-standard dialects. There is a link between the stance of the prescriptive ideologues and actual political conservativism. Geoff Nunberg has remarked that English grammatical usage “has become a flagship issue for the cultural right: the people who are most vociferous about grammatical correctness tend to be those most dismissive of the political variety.” The question that concerns me is whether there is any other valid rationale for the connection. It is extraordinarily hard to locate one

Heh...

Your comments and "personality" shared on this thread have caused me to view you as a bully who thinks you have to be in control of what everyone else says, thinks, feels and does

So you're saying you didn't read the PDF? (And moreover... that comment? Coming from you? That's rich.)

And SRO: spot on. ;)

Chansing:

a bully who thinks you have to be in control of what everyone else says, thinks, feels and does

Hey! That's my job. You were actually pretty damn nice. Too nice.