But if you say route like "root" then you've taken all the purpose out of that poor little "u"'s existence. Or the "o"'s. One of them.

Once again we have improved upon an established order...we started it with Constitutional government, and we'll finish with forcing our version of our common language down your mispronunciating throats! (And that's even better, because I just made up that last word.)

Granted, I was born and raised in the American Midwest, which is where most American newscasters go to unlearn their regional accents. As long as you don't wander Wisconsin-ward, you're pretty good.

And you guys have just gone overboard with this accent thing.

I was watching the actor interviews in the Phantom of the Opera special edition DVD...and the girl who played Kitty spoke of how difficult her role was, because neither she nor the girl who played Christine could understand eachother's accents. YOU BOTH COME FROM A NATION THE APPROXIMATE SIZE OF...OF...OF...A QUARTER!!

How do the British have such ridiculously segmented dialects of the same language, and yet such a totally cramped sense of distance?

I hereby assign to Morder British people complaining about their cars. I have to drive 800 some miles just to visit my parents, and we don't live all that far apart...

EDIT: And...my husband and I don't even own a regular phone line. Just a cell phone. It's actually a growing trend among young professionals, which is giving all the "Ma Bell"-clones something to keep them up at night. So THERE to all you cell-phone bashers!

We say it near enough to the french original. And the differences in spelling actually make reading easier. Trust me I'm a linguistician. American spelling is just an excuse to cheat at Scrabble. I mean what is the point in changing plough to plow if you are going to leave snow as snow?

As one of SpM's signatures demonstrated, I glory in a language that has seven different ways to pronounce wourds ending in -ough (or is it 8?). If you want a ruthlessly logical language you end up with German which is pronounced as it is written but has 16 different ways to say "the" and the word for insectiside is 25 letters long. :p

Insektenvernichtungsmittel - that's 26 letters, actually...

Oh, to get back on topic: I assign second-degree burns to Mordor. Even the smallest has the power to hurt and takes a long time to heal.

Weather that can't make up it's mind. This morning, it was grey. This afternoon, it snowed. Now, the sun is out. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME AND MY FRAGILE MIND? DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND IT'S MIDTERMS? :mad: I hope it's not like this over spring break...this is why you don't live in the Midwest, specifically Minnesota. (And to think I could have gone anywhere!)

Interesting. I've always said route as 'root.' But my accent has been molded by the Northeast, more specifically 'be-yoodiful' Philadelphia.

To Mordor with scutwork! (Definition: boring, tedious, time-consuming tasks that no one wants to do and thus are relegated to the lowest ranking member of the team. In other words, me. Origin: acronym for Some Common Unfinished Task, or so I've been told.)

vocal habits
 

The pronunciation of route? It rhymes with the Canadian about, the pronunciation of which, due to close proximity to numerous Canadians, has infiltrated my vocabulary. I won't even go into what Marylanders have done to my home, my cold, fold, and my hold.

And the slang you pick up away from home? I can only imagine the looks on my parents' faces the first time I unthinkingly come out with something along the lines of "Say what? Wow. Sketch! All caps, bolded, italicized sketch like Sketch from Pennsylvania sketch. That was scarier than Killington."

In any case, I assign being the last to order and then having the latte machine break just before they start my "SmallTwoPercentVanillaLatteWithExtraVanillaAndNoF oam".

So that's something like Insect Annihilation Spray? I rather like that. ;)

Heh. My father reckoned he could tell which village in a seven mile radius of his own village that someone came from by the differences in accent. Even in Liverpool there are two distinct accents, so you'd get really mad there! I moved 90 miles from home and was totally dumbfounded to find myself in a city where the men call one another 'love' and sweets are 'spice'.

I know, sometimes I feel guilty just for existing! I feel like investing in a hair shirt. Just be careful, soon swatting flies or killing the slugs in the garden will be counted as 'hunting' and you'll be fined! Which brings us right back to Insektenvernichtungsmittel. ;)

And I assign to Mordor that flaming shrink wrap packaging that they insist on shrouding CDs and DVDs in these days. Not even my trusty swiss army knife will deal with the stuff. Even worse are those plastic security tags which you have to remove to get to the CD, usually ruining the jewel case in the process. And as for why they always have to obscure half the track listings on the back of the CD with stupid labels, don't even go there.... Long gone are the days of examining record sleeves in the local record shop for hours on end. Just to add insult to injury, then they put copy protection on everything so you can't play it in all your DVD or CD players, despite the fact you've just spent £12 on it!!! Argh! Why can't laws be made about that kind of thing instead?

I assign the oux-des-calone one wheres while ryding on a slay oughver the snough awn a could wyntre's nicht. It ken bee moust disaudvauntayjus whilst autemptyng tue quiss wan's fair breid. :p

Don't forget the horrible plastic-like stuff they wrap CD players/other small electronic devices in - the stuff that is impossible to open without ruining your scissors. :rolleyes: And once you get into it you still just can't rip it open because it's too tough. I hate that stuff. So packaging in general can probably just go to Mordor. Most of it is probably bad for the environment anyway, and there's not much in Mordor to kill...

Ooh...*stops* Okay, I won't.


I guess I'll just have to continue popping those adorable bubble wraps in Mordor...

*skips off*

"Sorry" for the double post.
 

(I hope using that word won't get me lynched. :p)

Having to travel an hour or so for something that will take less than five minutes to accomplish.

Malfunctioning airconditioners in facilities that should be airconditioned. Have they no idea how intense the near-summer heat is?

Men (for lack of a more appropriate term) who wouldn't give their seats to pregnant women. I ended up giving mine (in the same non-airconditioned facility mentioned above) because I didn't mind standing anyway, and the "man" didn't so much as flush in embarrassment. :rolleyes: Must be an Orc in disguise.

I assign double lynching! I always seem to get lyched like this and I am always an Ordo.

Double lynching's already there. Go read the "Assigned to Mordor" rpg in The Shire forum. You'll find it.

[QUOTE=Estelyn Telcontar]Insektenvernichtungsmittel - that's 26 letters, actually...

QUOTE]

das Insektenbekämpfungsmittel has 25 - at least most of the times I counted it ... no wonder the operas are so long :D .

I assign to Mordor anyone (and *gasp* some of them work at the BBC !) who pronounces "quarter" with a k sound not a "kw" sound. It irritates me - as does (and again the BBC employs repeat offenders) the incorrect use of titles. I know that will make me sound like a snob - it isn't to do with deference it is just wrong. So sad case that I am I wince when they refer to "Lord Sebastian Coe", "Princess Diana", " Lord Richard Attenborough" "Prime Minister Blair" ... but clearly no one cares any more(I think only M&S has a "nine items or fewer" till - bless them). This is perhaps extreme pedantry but it is part of a more worrying decline.

Yay! I'm in Morder!!! I don't even properly articulate an "ar" sound or the "t"!

Korder! Korder! Korder!

Ok I say it right occasionally. But only when I'm feeling snobbish.

I think I should start a club...

Americans for the Casual Butchering of Queens English or ACBoQuE, to be pronounced...

um...

Howe'er you please!

Jenny I would definately be in that club! Ever say pellow instead of pillow or Grav instead of grab? I know, I know...*Smacks back of hand* I know the difference, but it just comes out that way!:smokin:

I don't mind Americans doing it so much .... but I expect standard English from the "Today" programme. .... :p

Did I ever tell you about my Mamaw and Papaw's farm? You drive down into the holler and over the crick...the road's about all warshed out, buchoo just stick yer truck down inta fore-weel drive and it'll run right on up thar!

Sorry, couldn't resist. But I do have a bad habit of talking like that when I'm feeling lazy. It's a Kentucky Hills/Appalachia accent I fall into, not the true southern drawl, but it's not that bad, just makes me sound like I was really lucky to graduate high-school, when I was in fact a National Merit Scholar in a national Forensics league (lots of public speaking).

[Rant] In that vein Mithalwen, I assign poor grammar in the newspaper. I have far too many weaknesses of my own to assign pronunciation, although I have an evil tendency to laugh uproariously when the Southern girls on the newscasts down here let their careful Midwestern non-accents slip, but I can't STAND it when the newspaper is grammatically incorrect. The things are written on computers anymore anyway! Use Word's grammar check if you managed to get a degree in English or journalism without knowing how to write in that language! [/Rant]

No, no, no, Jenny!

That belongs in the Shire! There are few things more delicious than the smug feeling of superiority that comes of knowing that one's English is classier than that of a professional publication.

:p

On the other hand, the inability to proofread one's own work definitely belongs in Mordor. One really hesitates to point out other people's spelling mistakes, when one knows that his own always seem to pass him by...

But stupid people don't amuse me...they annoy me. There are far too many of them already, and then they breed...

Oh, and while my brain is on the subject of newspapers, two more things to send Mordor-ward:

The gradual dumbing down of newspapers, magazines, and news broadcasts.

and...

The media bias. This is not because I'm conservative and the media's liberal. Ok, not entirely. This is because I want to be considered intelligent enough to decide my own political and philosophical views and interpretation of current events within my framework, rather than have somebody else's shoved down my throat. Especially when it's all in little words at a third-grade reading level.

Oh, and infotainment. You know, that recent tendency of the news media to report Britney's marital status and who got kicked off of American Idol as news of equal importance to the Hussein trial. Which, incidentally, I haven't seen even mentioned in a while.

*sigh* Those of you from places other than the US...is there a country you know of, with a really strong aviation industry, that treats its citizens like they're capable of making their own decisions?

You mean this one:

:D

Nope, not here. I refer you to one of my previous assignees:

:(

I assign to Mordor the temptation to chat when I should be discouraging it ... :rolleyes:

You and Jenny are exhibiting Grimm's Law and Verner's Law, which are fundamental to understanding how a lot of European languages work, including American varities of English. Yeah, sort of ivory tower maybe, but I find it fascinating.

I assign not understanding a bit of the Verner's Law link LMP provided. And I still don't think it explains "warsh" and "holler", etc.

I shall explain in the vernacular. I call it "lazy tongue". The mouth always (unless you're German :p) finds the easiest way to say something. That way varies depending upon all kinds of factors.

Germans are by and large a rather exacting group of people. Lazy tongue appears to have worked in the opposite direction, and the entire language seems to have been afflicted (hee hee) with a case of over-working the tongue.

French, in contrast, is Latin overly affected by wine. (grin)

Brits as English speakers say most everything toward the front of their mouths, and they open their mouths tall. What I find also very fascinating is that Brits hang their jaws. By contrast, U.S. English speakers tend to clench. Clenching tends to force words further back in the mouth. It also forces vowel sounds to be expressed wide compared to tall.

I'm hard of hearing, so I've spent a lot of years watching people's mouths (reading lips). It's fascinating, and it was one of the main 'sports' I involved myself in when I visited England last September. English women (you may laugh if you like, but take a look next time) apparently develop the muscles between their lower lips and the bottom of their chin to an extent unheard of anywhere else in the speaking world. It just looks packed with thick tissue down there. Compare Keira Knightly to Lindsay Lohan sometime. I think they're about the same age. Then compare Emma Thompson to Laura Linney. Maybe you'll see what I mean.

Okay, that was a weird aside. Anyway, "lazy tongue" is largely responsible for consonants slipping from one place in the mouth to another. Thus, 'b' begins to slip to 'v', 'th' to 't', 't' do 'd', and so on. Those last two are very very prominent on the U.S. east coast: "Hey, lookit dat!" Or "Hey Lookidat!"

Link examples below for the "developed chin" weird aside:

Keira

Lindsay

Emma (who proves out that the older the female Brit, the more advanced the development)
Laura

Further examples:

Margaret ... especially the 20 June 1983 "Time" cover.

Laura B.

Well? Can you see the differences?

LMP: neat.

I assign forgetting about an important assignment while budgeting your time, only to be reminded just as you thought you were almost done with your work.

And I assign the sorts of aches and pains that you're not supposed to get until you're old. Like... you know... 40ish. :p I'm only 18! I don't want to hobble around on a knee that gives out or have my jaw ache to the point that I can't chew mac'n'cheese or have my elbow hurt so much I can't unbend it because of the damp, chill air of an Upstate spring!

I assign average case Big-O analysis.

Best case and worst case are fine, and even sometimes fun, but average case is the worst of orcseys.

Oh, and I assign weekends when professors decide to assign extra homework AND my parents decide to come to town and hang out all day. Yay for starting 6 hours of homework 3 hours before midnight!

I assign to Mordor the realization that there is nothing left in your hometown to stay for...

No, I don't mean I won't miss my family. I will- a lot. And I'll miss my parish as much, if not more...

But there is something awful, something painful, about realizing that there is no one remotely near your own age who will miss you- or that you will really miss- if you move away.

Oh, there's lot of people I like to hang out with, and lots of people I like- but the realization that your entire past year has been spent largely as a recluse, and that when you move away, the odds are that the people you hang out with now will see you about as often come then: once or twice a month.

I don't know... that doesn't sound the way it does in my head. So let me simplify: I assign to Mordor the moment when it dawns on you that you won't miss your hometown- your beloved hometown. That there's nothing tying you down...

It's an incredibly lonely feeling...

You have no idea how much I sympathise. But such is freedom. :)

I assign not having to buy a card and present for Mothering Sunday. :(

I assign people who say "a very good point" or "a nice thread" and then don't rep you. It takes them a few seconds or something and it gives great joy to the receiver.

I know I complain for stupid things - and I'm greedy - but if people appreciate my posts I'd gladly see them thank me more concretically....

(Oooh... green boxes... like emeralds....) ;)

I agree with you completely. An excellent point. ;) :rolleyes:

Oh no, Jenny, now you're in Mordor and will stay there - unless someone assigns you to the Shire... ;)

I assign depression. It comes from Mordor anyway. I'm convinced of it. .... that black, oozing smear of befogged blah and moroseness that you actually start taking pleasure in because it begins to feel good to pity oneself. Poisoned flowers of doom, those. Ick. To Mordor away!

On your birthday? Poor man. May you have a happier day from now on!

I'm already in Mordor, thanks to Mithalwen. I pronounce quarter incorrectly. Purists!

EDIT: LMP, I know exactly what you're talking about and I wish I knew how to combat it...my husband is the only one who can snap me out of that kind of funk. I suggest putt-putt. And ice cream. And a walk in the park, to see how lovely the world looks in early spring.

Especially if you can use your birthday to ensure you pay for nothing. ;)

I assign forgetting people's birthdays!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY lmp! *party hats, cake, candles!*

Also, hotmail's decision not to send me emails from this site. How will I keep up! :rolleyes:

I assign Daylight Savings Time. And I will probably assign Daylight Savings Time several times this week, so bear with me.

When you're thinking of something really really fun to do, that you really want to do, and then you forget about it. Then you spend 45 minutes trying to remeber what it was that was so fun... :( :rolleyes: :confused:

That does sound a little sad... but on to bigger and better things, right? :)

I think there should be a BarrowDowns town -- it'd be incredibly nerdy, but quite lovely. A little Tolkien utopia, if you will. I therefore assign the lack of such a thing.

I assign 2nd hour class. It's really early, so I don't want to wake up and eat breakfast before. But it ends about ten minutes after breakfast ends.

Actually, I guess I assign whomever decided the schedule for the dining hall, and decided that those of us who have second hour class should just go before.