What do you assign to Mordor?

[VanimaEdhel]

Originally Posted by the guy who be short

I have never yet been confronted for asking for a black coffee.

TGWBS: May I have a black coffee please?
Vendor: Excuse me! Are you insinuating that my coffee is racially inferior to other types?! Get out, foul Dwimmerlaik!

Nope, don't see that ever happening. You must live in a really weird and scary place.

You know, if I were called a Dwimmerlaik in the course of an average conversation, I just might faint.

Actually, the problem is that everyone here in the U.S. now wants to be called a Something-American. If you want to generalize, though, you can't get that - well - specific. If we were to call me a politically correct hyphenated name, I would be a Russian-German-Syrian-Austrian-Polish-Swedish-French-Dutch-American. That doesn't exactly just roll off the tongue. I don't mind being called "white" - call me white, I don't mind. If you want to call me "of European and Middle Eastern descent", go for it. I'm really not that picky.

[Amanaduial the archer]

There's PC-ness...and then there's taking it too far. Call me white, call me black, call me bloody rainbow-coloured (I defy you with my English spelling!) - I really don't mind. When people dance around it and get twitchy when the words black or white are mentioned, insistently referring to people as 'dark skinned'...well, it just seems silly. I do believe there needs to be a line - but at this moment, society seems to be so far past that line that the line...the line is a dot.

TGWBS - calm down, everyone is allowed to make their own point and sure, there are lots of things about language that different people may object to or even, dare I say it, like language. *gasps* It's like saying that if one person decreed that men should be sent to Mordor - does this mean that no one else can mention any specific male or male trait that should be sent? (Purely hypothetical situation, of course...)

(although I would love it if I could say the word theater as you Brits do)

Ah, but then there are some brits who delight in saying it differently. See, the word 'theatre' is rather difficult to spell phonetically as Brits would say it (theer-ter maybe?), but my drama teacher always insisted on saying it 'thee-ah-ter'. Argh! It's that way that thespians often have, to put their own melodramatic, theatrical spin on a word that was really perfectly fine how it was. It just lends such a pretentious air to the word...

*Sigh* And now I'm getting heated about a word. Something wrong here...

[littlemanpoet]

Since Aman could not quite bring herself to do it, I will do it for her: pretentious pronunciations are hereby assigned to Mordor. If an rpg ever takes form, I will have a gas and a half over this one.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Since Aman could not quite bring herself to do it, I will do it for her: pretentious pronunciations are hereby assigned to Mordor.

I'll second that. And make sure that the following are included: pretentious pronunciations of foreign language words and phrases. I mean those delivered with a particularly heavy, comedic French/Italian/Spanish 'accent' which the speaker so clearly belives is the correct and cultured thing to do. Alas it reminds you of sitcoms like 'Allo 'Allo. Richard Madeley, greasy UK daytime TV presenter is particularly guilty of this one.

[Holbytlass]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

pretentious pronunciations of foreign language words and phrases. I mean those delivered with a particularly heavy, comedic French/Italian/Spanish 'accent' which the speaker so clearly belives is the correct and cultured thing to do.

*chuckles* I second this. A couple nights ago I ate at The Olive Garden, for those who don't know it's a "fancy" ( envision the hand signal) italian restaurant where the the menu headings and items are in Italian. It had me stumped because I wasn't sure if I should say 'Ravioli de Portobello' or just Portobello Ravioli. Maybe I should have gone to my southern hick roots and said, 'heeyuckheeyuck i wants sum fungus stuffed pillows, pulees!'


And the sitcom, Seinfeld , where George's girlfriend who said paper mache as papia mashia.

[Amanaduial the archer]

Ooh er, an RPG from lmp? I wait with baited breath...

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Since Aman could not quite bring herself to do it, I will do it for her: pretentious pronunciations are hereby assigned to Mordor. If an rpg ever takes form, I will have a gas and a half over this one.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

To tag on to pretentious pronunciation... pretentious use of silent letters.

My old history teacher had a silent "t" in his name. I mean... who has a silent "t"? Silent vowels are forgivable, but when you enter the domain of not pronouncing a very obvious consonant... that's just too much.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

To tag on to pretentious pronunciation... pretentious use of silent letters.

My old history teacher had a silent "t" in his name. I mean... who has a silent "t"? Silent vowels are forgivable, but when you enter the domain of not pronouncing a very obvious consonant... that's just too much.

You have run headlong into the history of language. Names, especially place-names, are especially notorious for containing letters that once were, but are no longer, pronounced. This is nobody's fault, but it is the fault of the human language apparatus, namely, the tongue. The human tongue is basically a lazy thing, and insists on finding the easiest way around the words it wants to "spit out". Thus, through, for example, is no longer said with an asperated (as in clearing one's throat) "gh"; so now the letters are "silent". So if to Mordor such silent letters go, so does the history of language itself, and the human tongue to boot! (eewww!) Just imagine all over Mordor, human tongues hopping around, finding the easiest way to say words.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

You have run headlong into the history of language. Names, especially place-names, are especially notorious for containing letters that once were, but are no longer, pronounced.

I like names which are pronounced peculiarly. Some strange examples:

Towcester - Pron. toaster
Featherstonehaugh - Pron. fanshaw
Culzean - Pron. cullaine
and Oughtibridge which you can pronounce any of the following ways: owtybridge, ootybridge, oatybridge, ortybridge.

It does amuse me when people have a name that's a bit rude or funny and they pronounce it differently so as not to look daft though. Although for obvious reasons with this being a family forum an' all I can't repeat said names here. I say, be proud of your daft name!