Yes, they generally sound the same, though as I say them both, the vowel sound is more O than A in bomb. I get that it may not be heard that way by all.
In the UK, candidates just have to stand for election. In America, they have to run. Mind you, if they win, American candidates get an office - British ones only get a seat.
Item from Canada... Listened to a minister today discoursing on the subject of balms and bombs. The pronunciation of both words was the same.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
In the UK, candidates just have to stand for election. In America, they have to run. Mind you, if they win, American candidates get an office - British ones only get a seat.
Thinking about it,, that's correct. I hadn't noticed it before. Only the winning party that forms the government is 'in office', and the only individuals who are, are those who are some sort of minister or sub- minister. Backbenchers even of the ruling party are not.
'Getting an office', though, as distinct from 'in office' refers to succeeding in being allocated a room or a share of one, in the House of Commons.
Although there has been a tendency among the more ignorant journalists recently to use the word, it's quite a serious misunderstanding of Westminster type constitutions to call the MPs 'lawmakers'. Unlike the US, where the Executive is not directly answerable to the Legislature, ours is. MPs do a lot more than just pass laws.
Item from Canada... Listened to a minister today discoursing on the subject of balms and bombs. The pronunciation of both words was the same.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
Regional (and perhaps class) difference in Canada. But yes, I have heard people pronounce 'balm' and 'bomb' with the vowel so descending to a schwa that they're almost indistinguishable.
Here distinguishing long/short vowels have nothing to do with duration or being diphthongs. Here it's a phoneme question: 'note' vs 'not' -> same duration, neither a diphthong. Allowing for regional differences.
Item from Canada... Listened to a minister today discoursing on the subject of balms and bombs. The pronunciation of both words was the same.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
Regional (and perhaps class) difference in Canada. But yes, I have heard people pronounce 'balm' and 'bomb' with the vowel so descending to a schwa that they're almost indistinguishable.
Here distinguishing long/short vowels have nothing to do with duration or being diphthongs. Here it's a phoneme question: 'note' vs 'not' -> same duration, neither a diphthong. Allowing for regional differences.
The 'note' vowel in UK English, at least in the South of the country, is a diphthong. It's also longer in duration.
The term "nuisance ground" came up today. It means a garbage dump. We used the term to specifically mean where you would go to watch the bears rip through the trash.
The other two regionalisms is that a "nip" is a hamburger in some parts of Manitoba, and "chop" is oatmeal porridge.
The other two regionalisms is that a "nip" is a hamburger in some parts of Manitoba, and "chop" is oatmeal porridge.
The first part is true, but not the second. At all. Never heard oatmeal porridge referred to as "chop." Oatmeal porridge may be called simply "porridge". Chop is a mixture of grains fed to pigs.
I usually don't bother trying to clean up after your postings, as it would be as time-consuming and laborious, and possibly as pointless, as trying to fact-check Donald Trump. But you might consider posting more accurately and more circumspectly. In many of your posts, you refer to "we" and "here", giving rise to misunderstandings as to the number and area of people using - what seems to me to be often - your own idiolect.
I can't say whether or not I'd like you, because I don't know you. I was referring to your posting.
Do you remember that shipmate who used to refer to bishops as "mateys"? If that shipmate had claimed that "we" "here" refer to bishops as mateys, it would have caused puzzlement about this usage. Either someone would have come along to say "no, that's not right, that's just you" or people would have been left with the assumption that the shipmate's claim was accurate. It certainly would have produced confusion and hilarity at the next Lambeth Conference.
This is a bit of a tangent, but there's a phrase I often come across in American action novels: "It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission". Is this a widespread attitude?
In terms of keeping the plot moving, it's jolly useful. In terms of real life, I can think of few things that would destroy a relationship faster than someone deliberately doing something and keeping it from me until too late, because they knew I wouldn't approve.
I have only heard it used lightly. For instance, I know someone who stole his husband's food (from his plate) and used that as an excuse when he was caught and mock glared at.
This is a bit of a tangent, but there's a phrase I often come across in American action novels: "It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission". Is this a widespread attitude?
In terms of keeping the plot moving, it's jolly useful. In terms of real life, I can think of few things that would destroy a relationship faster than someone deliberately doing something and keeping it from me until too late, because they knew I wouldn't approve.
I first heard that term in the military when we were uncertain if we could do something without orders. I had a sarge who used that expression all the time.
Item from Canada... Listened to a minister today discoursing on the subject of balms and bombs. The pronunciation of both words was the same.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
Regional (and perhaps class) difference in Canada. But yes, I have heard people pronounce 'balm' and 'bomb' with the vowel so descending to a schwa that they're almost indistinguishable.
Here distinguishing long/short vowels have nothing to do with duration or being diphthongs. Here it's a phoneme question: 'note' vs 'not' -> same duration, neither a diphthong. Allowing for regional differences.
The 'note' vowel in UK English, at least in the South of the country, is a diphthong. It's also longer in duration.
Interesting. I've lived in London, but when you say 'south of the country' are you pointing at Kent, or Sussex, or elsewhere? And when you say the the 'o' becomes a diphthong, is it kind of "no-owt"? (Sorry - I can't do the linguistic alphabet easily.)
Item from Canada... Listened to a minister today discoursing on the subject of balms and bombs. The pronunciation of both words was the same.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
Regional (and perhaps class) difference in Canada. But yes, I have heard people pronounce 'balm' and 'bomb' with the vowel so descending to a schwa that they're almost indistinguishable.
Here distinguishing long/short vowels have nothing to do with duration or being diphthongs. Here it's a phoneme question: 'note' vs 'not' -> same duration, neither a diphthong. Allowing for regional differences.
The 'note' vowel in UK English, at least in the South of the country, is a diphthong. It's also longer in duration.
Interesting. I've lived in London, but when you say 'south of the country' are you pointing at Kent, or Sussex, or elsewhere? And when you say the the 'o' becomes a diphthong, is it kind of "no-owt"? (Sorry - I can't do the linguistic alphabet easily.)
"Long O" is a diphthong in most of the UK. If you look here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/both for the pronunciation of "both" you'll see the IPA which is a dipthong - RP for example is /əʊ/. London accents are mostly pretty close to that RP dipthong. In my area the opening vowel is closer to a short o, but it still ends in
ʊ.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
The only "long vowel" in English which is a non-dipthong is "long e" but even then it's much closer to being long version of short i than it is short e - wheech eez why a stereotypical Romance accent confuses these two sounds.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
Or when you start learning something like, say, singing. Trained singers have to be very aware of vowels.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
Or when you start learning something like, say, singing. Trained singers have to be very aware of vowels.
There aren't very many of those. Even within the music industry.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
Or when you start learning something like, say, singing. Trained singers have to be very aware of vowels.
There aren't very many of those. Even within the music industry.
Well, I have a Bachelor of Music degree and have always sung in choirs (except for now, of course), so there are lots of them in my world, both trained soloists and trained choral singers. And I have rarely encountered a church choir director or school choral director who didn’t at least introduce his or her singers to the basic concepts of pure vowels and diphthongs so as to get consistent and appropriate vowel sounds from the group.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
Or when you start learning something like, say, singing. Trained singers have to be very aware of vowels.
There aren't very many of those. Even within the music industry.
Well, I have a Bachelor of Music degree and have always sung in choirs (except for now, of course), so there are lots of them in my world, both trained soloists and trained choral singers. And I have rarely encountered a church choir director or school choral director who didn’t at least introduce his or her singers to the basic concepts of pure vowels and diphthongs so as to get consistent and appropriate vowel sounds from the group.
Rarely a thing over here outside the major Cathedral schools and professional classical singers, I'd say.
You may be right, KarlLB, but it is something which I remember from my school choir days, and which is regularly the subject of attention in the amateur choir I now sing in.
Perhaps I've been unlucky but a streak of anti-intellectualism has been a feature of too many choirs I've been in. Being able to read music made you one of the keenies...
I have only heard it used lightly. For instance, I know someone who stole his husband's food (from his plate) and used that as an excuse when he was caught and mock glared at.
If anyone, ANYONE, tries that with me they will get stabbed in the hand with a fork.
Earlier today I ran across the phrase "cash on the barrelhead", which I've always used. I quickly looked it up on line, curious about the origin, and it seems to be American, 17thC. The thing of it is, I've heard it used in the UK I think more frequently than the UK "cash on the nailhead" - but I won't swear to that. Thoughts?
Earlier today I ran across the phrase "cash on the barrelhead", which I've always used. I quickly looked it up on line, curious about the origin, and it seems to be American, 17thC. The thing of it is, I've heard it used in the UK I think more frequently than the UK "cash on the nailhead" - but I won't swear to that. Thoughts?
"Cash on the nail" is the English term (not "nailhead"). I've never head "barrelhead" in the UK, but it's not impossible that it could have been imported from the US.
@KarlLB The long vowels amongst my family from Zambia/Zimbabwe/RSA are quite pure, definitely not diphthongs. I haven't seen my cousin in years, and after her coming to Canada at age 12, I wonder what she sounds like.
I have noticed that some people (waving hand) who've grown up in a Finnish-influenced environment, as in the home, will have a slight accent, noticeable in some consonants (less aspiration) and vowels tend to be 'purer', less 'diphthongy' than in English Canadian accents.
I've never heard of cash being on the barrel-head or the nail-head. 'Paying on the nail' is the normal expression here, but that derives from some specific nails which stand outside the Corn Exchange in Bristol which is in England.
I've head all variants except "on the knocker." I wonder whether it's not a door knocker, but rapping the table, akin to spitting in one's palm before shaking hands.
I've never heard of cash being on the barrel-head or the nail-head. 'Paying on the nail' is the normal expression here, but that derives from some specific nails which stand outside the Corn Exchange in Bristol which is in England.
OED offers a 14th century Norman French "payer sur le ungle" which would rather predate either the Corn Exchange or any specific nails that might be there. But back-derivations happen often.
I've never heard of cash being on the barrel-head or the nail-head. 'Paying on the nail' is the normal expression here, but that derives from some specific nails which stand outside the Corn Exchange in Bristol which is in England.
Ah, thank you. I was trying to remember where that came from, and all I could think of was a sketch of them in one of the 'I Spy" books that we had when we were very young. Google Images shows them nicely.
Immediate payment, as in They won't extend credit; it's cash on the barrelhead or no sale. The lexicographer Charles Earle Funk surmised that this term originated in the days when upended barrels served as both seats and tables in bars, and customers were required to pay for their drinks immediately, literally putting their money on the top (head) of a barrel.
I have no familiarity with any of these expressions about cash being somewhere, at all. Barrel, nail, knocker... I've no idea what any of you are talking about.
I'm middle-aged. As it's traditionally not polite to ask a woman's age, I don't propose going around the room and inquiring if you're all a bunch of old farts.
Comments
That’s Trump, not Americans in general. Get it right.
In the UK, candidates just have to stand for election. In America, they have to run. Mind you, if they win, American candidates get an office - British ones only get a seat.
That's weird to my ears. Balm had the ah sound, Bomb has the hot, top, wok sound. Mouth considerably more open for 'ah'.
Balm also contains a long vowel*, bomb a short.
*technical meaning of 'long vowel' - still a pure single vowel but long in duration, as opposed to popular meaning where what are called long vowels in English are often diphthongs.
'Getting an office', though, as distinct from 'in office' refers to succeeding in being allocated a room or a share of one, in the House of Commons.
Although there has been a tendency among the more ignorant journalists recently to use the word, it's quite a serious misunderstanding of Westminster type constitutions to call the MPs 'lawmakers'. Unlike the US, where the Executive is not directly answerable to the Legislature, ours is. MPs do a lot more than just pass laws.
Regional (and perhaps class) difference in Canada. But yes, I have heard people pronounce 'balm' and 'bomb' with the vowel so descending to a schwa that they're almost indistinguishable.
Here distinguishing long/short vowels have nothing to do with duration or being diphthongs. Here it's a phoneme question: 'note' vs 'not' -> same duration, neither a diphthong. Allowing for regional differences.
The 'note' vowel in UK English, at least in the South of the country, is a diphthong. It's also longer in duration.
The other two regionalisms is that a "nip" is a hamburger in some parts of Manitoba, and "chop" is oatmeal porridge.
I usually don't bother trying to clean up after your postings, as it would be as time-consuming and laborious, and possibly as pointless, as trying to fact-check Donald Trump. But you might consider posting more accurately and more circumspectly. In many of your posts, you refer to "we" and "here", giving rise to misunderstandings as to the number and area of people using - what seems to me to be often - your own idiolect.
Do you remember that shipmate who used to refer to bishops as "mateys"? If that shipmate had claimed that "we" "here" refer to bishops as mateys, it would have caused puzzlement about this usage. Either someone would have come along to say "no, that's not right, that's just you" or people would have been left with the assumption that the shipmate's claim was accurate. It certainly would have produced confusion and hilarity at the next Lambeth Conference.
lighting hostly lightsaber...again
This is Heaven. Remember? It's getting a bit too snarky Leaf and NOprophet_NØprofit. Please stop.
powering down lightsaber
jedijudy-Heaven Host
It's the full blue Hallowe'en moon, isn't it...that has to be it.
In terms of keeping the plot moving, it's jolly useful. In terms of real life, I can think of few things that would destroy a relationship faster than someone deliberately doing something and keeping it from me until too late, because they knew I wouldn't approve.
Related is a t-shirt I saw which says "If I die my biggest fear is that my wife will sell my bikes for what I told her they cost"
I first heard that term in the military when we were uncertain if we could do something without orders. I had a sarge who used that expression all the time.
Interesting. I've lived in London, but when you say 'south of the country' are you pointing at Kent, or Sussex, or elsewhere? And when you say the the 'o' becomes a diphthong, is it kind of "no-owt"? (Sorry - I can't do the linguistic alphabet easily.)
"Long O" is a diphthong in most of the UK. If you look here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/both for the pronunciation of "both" you'll see the IPA which is a dipthong - RP for example is /əʊ/. London accents are mostly pretty close to that RP dipthong. In my area the opening vowel is closer to a short o, but it still ends in
ʊ.
Most English speakers never notice that "long" a, i, o, u are diphthongs. It's only when you start learning foreign languages and really listen and concentrate on how your mouth is moving you realise how odd and diphthongy the English vowel system is.
The only "long vowel" in English which is a non-dipthong is "long e" but even then it's much closer to being long version of short i than it is short e - wheech eez why a stereotypical Romance accent confuses these two sounds.
Loose
Route
Aught
Should
Ah
Air
There aren't very many of those. Even within the music industry.
Rarely a thing over here outside the major Cathedral schools and professional classical singers, I'd say.
If anyone, ANYONE, tries that with me they will get stabbed in the hand with a fork.
"Cash on the nail" is the English term (not "nailhead"). I've never head "barrelhead" in the UK, but it's not impossible that it could have been imported from the US.
I have noticed that some people (waving hand) who've grown up in a Finnish-influenced environment, as in the home, will have a slight accent, noticeable in some consonants (less aspiration) and vowels tend to be 'purer', less 'diphthongy' than in English Canadian accents.
OED offers a 14th century Norman French "payer sur le ungle" which would rather predate either the Corn Exchange or any specific nails that might be there. But back-derivations happen often.
Ah, thank you. I was trying to remember where that came from, and all I could think of was a sketch of them in one of the 'I Spy" books that we had when we were very young. Google Images shows them nicely.
(dictionary.com)
I still hear it at cash auctions.
It's an Australian expression meaning on demand or immediately.