In the US, a solicitor who goes door to door to sell Fuller Brushes, etc., may meet a sign saying "no soliciting"--i.e., "Go away, don't bother us, we don't want any". Missionaries probably included.
However, someone charged by the police with soliciting is being accused of prostitution.
I was once escorted into the local nick by a detective involved in investigating a theft from the school. I was there to identify the items as ours. Passing the custody sergeant, he announced that I was there for soliciting. I didn't quite have the chutzpah to say that that would be adding another £200 to the bill for legal fees, but was not at all happy about it.
I did get my revenge later, when we had the computer back, and I got screen shots of all the files whose dates showed the evidence that the thief had, contrary to his claim, accessed the machine while he had it. He clearly had no idea that that could be done, and by a woman at that.
On the accent and emphasis on particular syllables. Gill H grew up in the same part of South Wales as I did, so she would say 'Centri-FEW-gal' because the accent is on the penultimate syllable in Welsh accents.
That's what gives them their distinctive sing-song and lilting quality. It's why the place name Abertillery doesn't rhyme with 'artillery' but is pronounced something like 'Aber-til-LAIR-y' and Abergavenny is AbergaVENNy.
It's not always as emphatic as that but it is detectable. My accent isn't as sing song as it used to be but you'd notice if you heard me talk. An American once told me that if I ever produced a CD of me reading poetry he'd buy it.
On stresses and emphases, an American friend told me she found David Tennant's Scottish accent difficult to follow and rather unattractive in 'Broadchurch'. One of the reasons she cited was that the emphases fell in unexpected places and in ways she hadn't heard before.
I'd not thought about that much before, but the stresses do seem to fall differently in some forms of US English than they do in RP and other forms of UK English. I don't know enough about regional variations in US speech to put any geographical pattern on that, but my gut-feel would be that there are East Coast/West Coast differences at play, with Southern and Eastern forms of US speech echoing or sharing parallels with stresses found in UK speech rather more than West Coast US accents - but I might be completely wrong about that.
This south of England English speaker would also place the stress on the third syllable of centrifugal (but the second of centripetal).
What BroJames said. Although when I was at school, I pronounced "centripetal" with the emphasis on the third syllable. I think my pronunciation shifted in college.
Some of the inconsistencies do, in fact, follow consistent patterns of inconsistency... it's all quite fascinating.
I'm slightly obsessed with one part of the great vowel shift at the moment, how the letter "i" changed its value, but only in some words. For some reason it hit me just yesterday that "Christian" and "Christmas" still have the original sound, but "Christ" shifted.
Some of the inconsistencies do, in fact, follow consistent patterns of inconsistency... it's all quite fascinating.
I'm slightly obsessed with one part of the great vowel shift at the moment, how the letter "i" changed its value, but only in some words. For some reason it hit me just yesterday that "Christian" and "Christmas" still have the original sound, but "Christ" shifted.
Because it's short in the first two and long in the third. The GVS only affected long vowels. Hence also child and children.
Some of the inconsistencies do, in fact, follow consistent patterns of inconsistency... it's all quite fascinating.
I'm slightly obsessed with one part of the great vowel shift at the moment, how the letter "i" changed its value, but only in some words. For some reason it hit me just yesterday that "Christian" and "Christmas" still have the original sound, but "Christ" shifted.
Because it's short in the first two and long in the third. The GVS only affected long vowels. Hence also child and children.
Yes, like I said: the inconsistency actually does follow a consistent pattern.
On stresses and emphases, an American friend told me she found David Tennant's Scottish accent difficult to follow and rather unattractive in 'Broadchurch'. One of the reasons she cited was that the emphases fell in unexpected places and in ways she hadn't heard before.
Wow -- no accounting for tastes. I would pay for David Tennant to read the phone book to me in his Scottish accent.
Indeed, although I'm not sure Tennant used his 'normal' Edinburgh accent in 'Broadchurch'. He's good at accents. Our Scottish shipmates would be able to tell us which particular Scottish accent he adopted for that.
About emphases etc. I've always said: 'he wanted to dis-TRIB-ute his money'. Or 'she con-TRIB-uted to the fund'. But I notice on TV the norm seems to be (or have become) 'distri-BUTE' and 'contri-BUTED'. Is my way really weird?
Stresses have changed a fair bit in UK English since the 1950s.
An RP speaker back then would have said 'ges stove' for 'gas stove' with a fairly even stress throughout. These days is would be more like 'gAS stOVE' - there is a more marked emphasis towards the end of the words.
Hence the observations Anselmina makes about 'distri-BUTE' etc. It's not universal of course, as KarlLB indicates but things seem to be heading that way.
I'm quite bemused at the tendency of well spoken RP people to change the u sound in words such as put, cook and book into perk, cerk and berk. this was very evident when I watched a programme on tv about Captain Cook, the great explorer. It really sounded that the commentator was talking about Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame.
The playwright Alan Bennett tells a similar story about visiting a quaint rural parish church and chatting to a posh old lady in the churchyard after wards.
When he observes how well kept it all is she complains that it would be better if they didn't have problems with the 'myrrh'.
He's puzzled as it doesn't appear to be a particularly High and spikey parish. Then it dawns on him. She's referring to the 'mower', the 'grass myrrh ...'
One change in stress over my lifetime is 'research'. To me, that's 'rǝsearch' with the stress on the second syllable, whether a noun or a verb. People younger than me seem to pronounce it 'ree-search' with the the stress on the first syllable.
The 'sort of general rule' would say that the first pronunciation would be for when it's a verb and the second for when it's a noun. I've not managed to notice whether there are people who do that, rather than use the same of whichever pronunciation they adopt for both.
There's all sorts of jokes about posh accents. In East of Scotland they get related to people in certain well-to-do areas of Edinburgh
Sex: what the coalman uses to bring the coal
Crèche : when the chauffeur loses control of the car.
They stopped drinking tea and coffee when rhey thought one could "get BSE from the kettle" .
etc., etc.
One change in stress over my lifetime is 'research'. To me, that's 'rǝsearch' with the stress on the second syllable, whether a noun or a verb. People younger than me seem to pronounce it 'ree-search' with the the stress on the first syllable.
The 'sort of general rule' would say that the first pronunciation would be for when it's a verb and the second for when it's a noun. I've not managed to notice whether there are people who do that, rather than use the same of whichever pronunciation they adopt for both.
I remember reading about forty years that stressing the first syllable of 'research' was a mark of the vulgar, possibly in Jilly Cooper's book on Class.
The general rule is that the stress is on the first syllable in nouns and second, or later in verbs.
To desERT, but a DESert.
To disTRIBute, a DIStriBUtion is how I'd pronounce it, distribUTE (italics for lighter stress, 'trib' is unstressed) sounds to me like a noun, a distribute, whatever that is.
One change in stress over my lifetime is 'research'. To me, that's 'rǝsearch' with the stress on the second syllable, whether a noun or a verb. People younger than me seem to pronounce it 'ree-search' with the the stress on the first syllable.
The 'sort of general rule' would say that the first pronunciation would be for when it's a verb and the second for when it's a noun. I've not managed to notice whether there are people who do that, rather than use the same of whichever pronunciation they adopt for both.
Here (American South, but true of the US generally in my experience), your “general rule” is the rule—the noun is REE-search, while the verb is rǝ-SEARCH.
There's all sorts of jokes about posh accents. In East of Scotland they get related to people in certain well-to-do areas of Edinburgh
Sex: what the coalman uses to bring the coal
Crèche : when the chauffeur loses control of the car.
They stopped drinking tea and coffee when rhey thought one could "get BSE from the kettle" .
etc., etc.
I know I’ve told this one a thousand times before, but when we moved back to the UK from France we were forever wondering just why we had to avoid a giant wasp ( “ Mind the guepe!”), on descending from tube train to platform.
There's all sorts of jokes about posh accents. In East of Scotland they get related to people in certain well-to-do areas of Edinburgh
Sex: what the coalman uses to bring the coal
Crèche : when the chauffeur loses control of the car.
They stopped drinking tea and coffee when rhey thought one could "get BSE from the kettle" .
etc., etc.
I know I’ve told this one a thousand times before, but when we moved back to the UK from France we were forever wondering just why we had to avoid a giant wasp ( “ Mind the guepe!”), on descending from tube train to platform.
Londoners have to shift A towards E to make room for the U in words like up, duck, rut etc. which they pronounce as ap, dack, rat etc.. Many a northener has been bemused by inebriated cockneys suggesting he fack off back to 'Addersfield, whatever that means.
How about 'Con-TIN-ue' or 'Man-da-TOR-y' or is that just Welsh people now isn't it?
I can't imagine continue stressed on any other syllable.
Here, MAN-də-tor-y
Here, it's more like MAN-d-tree. And never heard any pronunciation other than con-TIN-yew. Don't see how you could put the stress on any other syllable.
How about 'Con-TIN-ue' or 'Man-da-TOR-y' or is that just Welsh people now isn't it?
I can't imagine continue stressed on any other syllable.
Here, MAN-də-tor-y
Here, it's more like MAN-d-tree. And never heard any pronunciation other than con-TIN-yew. Don't see how you could put the stress on any other syllable.
How about 'Con-TIN-ue' or 'Man-da-TOR-y' or is that just Welsh people now isn't it?
I can't imagine continue stressed on any other syllable.
Here, MAN-də-tor-y
Here, it's more like MAN-d-tree. And never heard any pronunciation other than con-TIN-yew. Don't see how you could put the stress on any other syllable.
Yes, like KarlLB and Gee Dee I can't envisage 'continue' being pronounced any other way than 'con-TIN-ue'.
'Mandatory' is different. Why? I don't know. It seems to lend itself to different stresses.
I don't think anyone in the UK would look at Mousethief daft for stressing the first syllable in that one. I imagine they might be puzzled by other stress patterns he may use, but I can't think of any examples of what those might be, off the top of my head. I just have this vague impression that the stress patterns may fall differently in our respective ways of speaking that may cause surprise - but not conflict hopefully - on both sides.
By and large, the differences between any form of English tend to be more apparent in usage and vocabulary than in stress patterns - though these clearly differ. I watched something about Kenya last night and was intrigued by the stress patterns in the way Kenyans spoke English, for instance.
A US friend told me about a neighbour's house being 'burglarized' the other day and that stuck out to me as something very distinctively American rather than differences in accent and stress patterns, which are more 'background.'
We'd say 'burgled' of course.
Forgive me, but I do wince at 'burglarized' and deplore it for some reason. I have to be honest. I don't know for why, as Uncle Bryn would say in Gavin and Stacey. Is it prejudice? Linguistic snobbery?
I dunno.
I have a similar reaction when hearing Lahndahnders saying 'Addersfield' ... worse even.
The verb "burgle" is a back-formation from burglar, not the other way round. I think in the 19th century when both the Brits and Americans were looking for an appropriate verb for what burglars did they went their separate ways with "burgle" and "burglarize". I may be biased but I prefer burgle, much neater.
On another note, I heard an American pronouncing divisive as di-VIZZ-ive the other day. Until recently I had only ever heard di-VICE-ive. Is this the standard pronunciation in North America? Do words like derisive and decisive rhyme with it?
The verb "burgle" is a back-formation from burglar, not the other way round. I think in the 19th century when both the Brits and Americans were looking for an appropriate verb for what burglars did they went their separate ways with "burgle" and "burglarize". I may be biased but I prefer burgle, much neater.
Gilbert & Sullivan certainly thought "burgling" was ok, as in "When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling"
On another note, I heard an American pronouncing divisive as di-VIZZ-ive the other day. Until recently I had only ever heard di-VICE-ive. Is this the standard pronunciation in North America? Do words like derisive and decisive rhyme with it?
I've never heard any pronunciation other than də-VICE-iv.
I always took the '-ize' suffix to indicate a process or change of state eg liquidize. So when I first heard 'hospitalize' it suggested people were being turned into hospitals rather than being taken to (a) hospital. 'Brutalize' still reads to me as being turned, Circewise, into a brute beast.
I always took the '-ize' suffix to indicate a process or change of state eg liquidize. So when I first heard 'hospitalize' it suggested people were being turned into hospitals rather than being taken to (a) hospital. 'Brutalize' still reads to me as being turned, Circewise, into a brute beast.
Whether actually or metaphorically isn't that what 'brutalise does mean?
So 'burglarise' sounds like either turning somebody into a burglar - a sort of Fagin's school for young aspiring housebreakers - or treating someone as though they were a burglar irrespective of whether they really are or not.
The bloody things have proliferated in recent years, it seems to me. I'm sure they weren't so common when I were a lad.
Indeed, I remember heading to Scotland by train when I was 18 and being surprised when a very sweet old American couple who were excitedly travelling to visit their ancestral home observed that the scenery was becoming 'more ruralised'.
Or should I say, 'ruralized'?
Why not simply say it was getting 'more rural'?
Why complicate it?
I know the following isn't typical of US speech but it is very American, but I well remember hearing my mother let out a horrified screech in the kitchen. I ran in thinking she'd scalded herself or something, only to find that an American woman being interviewed on the radio had just said, 'Well, at my maturation juncture ...' meaning, 'at my age.'
Comments
Oh, I thought it was a joke - it used be a sort of one here.
However, someone charged by the police with soliciting is being accused of prostitution.
I did get my revenge later, when we had the computer back, and I got screen shots of all the files whose dates showed the evidence that the thief had, contrary to his claim, accessed the machine while he had it. He clearly had no idea that that could be done, and by a woman at that.
That's what gives them their distinctive sing-song and lilting quality. It's why the place name Abertillery doesn't rhyme with 'artillery' but is pronounced something like 'Aber-til-LAIR-y' and Abergavenny is AbergaVENNy.
It's not always as emphatic as that but it is detectable. My accent isn't as sing song as it used to be but you'd notice if you heard me talk. An American once told me that if I ever produced a CD of me reading poetry he'd buy it.
I'd not thought about that much before, but the stresses do seem to fall differently in some forms of US English than they do in RP and other forms of UK English. I don't know enough about regional variations in US speech to put any geographical pattern on that, but my gut-feel would be that there are East Coast/West Coast differences at play, with Southern and Eastern forms of US speech echoing or sharing parallels with stresses found in UK speech rather more than West Coast US accents - but I might be completely wrong about that.
What BroJames said. Although when I was at school, I pronounced "centripetal" with the emphasis on the third syllable. I think my pronunciation shifted in college.
The English language is far from consistent! FWIW, I'd place the emphasis on the second syllable for both words.
I'm slightly obsessed with one part of the great vowel shift at the moment, how the letter "i" changed its value, but only in some words. For some reason it hit me just yesterday that "Christian" and "Christmas" still have the original sound, but "Christ" shifted.
Because it's short in the first two and long in the third. The GVS only affected long vowels. Hence also child and children.
Yes, like I said: the inconsistency actually does follow a consistent pattern.
Wow -- no accounting for tastes. I would pay for David Tennant to read the phone book to me in his Scottish accent.
An RP speaker back then would have said 'ges stove' for 'gas stove' with a fairly even stress throughout. These days is would be more like 'gAS stOVE' - there is a more marked emphasis towards the end of the words.
Hence the observations Anselmina makes about 'distri-BUTE' etc. It's not universal of course, as KarlLB indicates but things seem to be heading that way.
When he observes how well kept it all is she complains that it would be better if they didn't have problems with the 'myrrh'.
He's puzzled as it doesn't appear to be a particularly High and spikey parish. Then it dawns on him. She's referring to the 'mower', the 'grass myrrh ...'
The 'sort of general rule' would say that the first pronunciation would be for when it's a verb and the second for when it's a noun. I've not managed to notice whether there are people who do that, rather than use the same of whichever pronunciation they adopt for both.
Sex: what the coalman uses to bring the coal
Crèche : when the chauffeur loses control of the car.
They stopped drinking tea and coffee when rhey thought one could "get BSE from the kettle" .
etc., etc.
I remember reading about forty years that stressing the first syllable of 'research' was a mark of the vulgar, possibly in Jilly Cooper's book on Class.
To desERT, but a DESert.
To disTRIBute, a DIStriBUtion is how I'd pronounce it, distribUTE (italics for lighter stress, 'trib' is unstressed) sounds to me like a noun, a distribute, whatever that is.
Continue. C'un-tin-you. CON-tin-you.
The first for me for both.
I know I’ve told this one a thousand times before, but when we moved back to the UK from France we were forever wondering just why we had to avoid a giant wasp ( “ Mind the guepe!”), on descending from tube train to platform.
I can't imagine continue stressed on any other syllable.
Londoners have to shift A towards E to make room for the U in words like up, duck, rut etc. which they pronounce as ap, dack, rat etc.. Many a northener has been bemused by inebriated cockneys suggesting he fack off back to 'Addersfield, whatever that means.
Here, MAN-də-tor-y
Here, it's more like MAN-d-tree. And never heard any pronunciation other than con-TIN-yew. Don't see how you could put the stress on any other syllable.
But CON-tin-u-ity.
Yes, but more like CON-tin-YEW- itee
'Mandatory' is different. Why? I don't know. It seems to lend itself to different stresses.
I don't think anyone in the UK would look at Mousethief daft for stressing the first syllable in that one. I imagine they might be puzzled by other stress patterns he may use, but I can't think of any examples of what those might be, off the top of my head. I just have this vague impression that the stress patterns may fall differently in our respective ways of speaking that may cause surprise - but not conflict hopefully - on both sides.
By and large, the differences between any form of English tend to be more apparent in usage and vocabulary than in stress patterns - though these clearly differ. I watched something about Kenya last night and was intrigued by the stress patterns in the way Kenyans spoke English, for instance.
A US friend told me about a neighbour's house being 'burglarized' the other day and that stuck out to me as something very distinctively American rather than differences in accent and stress patterns, which are more 'background.'
We'd say 'burgled' of course.
Forgive me, but I do wince at 'burglarized' and deplore it for some reason. I have to be honest. I don't know for why, as Uncle Bryn would say in Gavin and Stacey. Is it prejudice? Linguistic snobbery?
I dunno.
I have a similar reaction when hearing Lahndahnders saying 'Addersfield' ... worse even.
On another note, I heard an American pronouncing divisive as di-VIZZ-ive the other day. Until recently I had only ever heard di-VICE-ive. Is this the standard pronunciation in North America? Do words like derisive and decisive rhyme with it?
For some reason I imagine it to be of more recent origin. That could be because I don't like it.
That doesn't mean that I am 'against' Americanisms in general nor that I don't use Americanisms myself. Far from it.
I hasten to add this as I have offended people in the past and have no intention of doing so again if I can help it.
I've never heard any pronunciation other than də-VICE-iv.
So 'burglarise' sounds like either turning somebody into a burglar - a sort of Fagin's school for young aspiring housebreakers - or treating someone as though they were a burglar irrespective of whether they really are or not.
The bloody things have proliferated in recent years, it seems to me. I'm sure they weren't so common when I were a lad.
Indeed, I remember heading to Scotland by train when I was 18 and being surprised when a very sweet old American couple who were excitedly travelling to visit their ancestral home observed that the scenery was becoming 'more ruralised'.
Or should I say, 'ruralized'?
Why not simply say it was getting 'more rural'?
Why complicate it?
I know the following isn't typical of US speech but it is very American, but I well remember hearing my mother let out a horrified screech in the kitchen. I ran in thinking she'd scalded herself or something, only to find that an American woman being interviewed on the radio had just said, 'Well, at my maturation juncture ...' meaning, 'at my age.'
What the heck?!
What's that about?
Indeed, what is it about? Are you saying one is said in Blighty and another in Trumpland? Which?
'She is 12 years old.'
'She is 12 years of age.'
What's the problem?
There'd be an issue if anyone on either side of the Atlantic said, 'At her maturation juncture she is 12 yearsirized'.
Not even George W Bush would have come out with that.
'At this maturation juncture this child is becoming adolescenterized ...'
I'm not in Scotland.
You didn't know what? You didn't ask about a fact you just mentioned two phrases.