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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • Translation: Margaret, are you sad about the trees losing their leaves? You can grieve for trees just as you would for human problems--right? That won't last. The older people get, the colder our hearts get, until a whole autumnal world won't get a single sigh out of us. Truly, the whole problem is rooted in the fall of mankind, and you are really grieving for yourself.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »

    Yes I know. I'm just pointing out that lots of languages (probably including Welsh but not exclusively) have the "you", in order to identify who is supposed to be doing the looking. We've decided there's no need.

    Or leaves, like the things of man, you
    With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
    I can only presume that's poetry because it's frankly incomprehensible.

    Very beautiful poetry and not, I would have said, that hard to understand: "Can you, with your young fresh thoughts, care as much about leaves as you do about human beings?" (Now some Hopkins really is tricky!)

    I'd have thought the other way around - can you care for people as much as you are now grieving the fallen leaves and the bare forest?

    I withdraw this.

    Lamb Chopped - pretty spot on, but I prefer Hopkins account.
  • Duh! 😅
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited February 2020
    orfeo wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »

    Yes I know. I'm just pointing out that lots of languages (probably including Welsh but not exclusively) have the "you", in order to identify who is supposed to be doing the looking. We've decided there's no need.

    Or leaves, like the things of man, you
    With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

    I can only presume that's poetry because it's frankly incomprehensible.

    Very beautiful poetry and not, I would have said, that hard to understand: "Can you, with your young fresh thoughts, care as much about leaves as you do about human beings?" (Now some Hopkins really is tricky!)

    Well it might have been easier to understand if the piece I got hadn't started with the word "Or".

    Firstly, that doesn't tend to indicate the beginning of a thought.

    Secondly, according to the link subsequently provided, it's not even in the poem.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Agreed. Excellent summary, but without the emotional impact of the poetry. I sometimes wonder at the power words can have when used in a certain way. Almost makes me believe in spells....
  • There's a reason I never got into poetry.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Truly, the whole problem is rooted in the fall of mankind, and you are really grieving for yourself.
    I don't think there is anything in the poem that requires any Christian doctrine. A pagan Greek or Roman could follow the thought without trouble. Possibly with less trouble than an English speaker given that their languages don't rely on word order to convey meaning so much.

  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Truly, the whole problem is rooted in the fall of mankind, and you are really grieving for yourself.
    I don't think there is anything in the poem that requires any Christian doctrine. A pagan Greek or Roman could follow the thought without trouble. Possibly with less trouble than an English speaker given that their languages don't rely on word order to convey meaning so much.

    "It is the blight man was born for;
    It is Margaret you mourn for."

    Take that concept (birth-blight), throw in the fact that the whole poem is dancing around the word "Fall" (as in autumn/leaves/fall of man) and we don't even need to drag in the author's teligious opinions to make the case. Sorry.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I'm not at all sure that Hopkins would have known of/used fall as a name for autumn.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited February 2020
    To turn to another language difference, I was reminded today of something that I first encountered a couple of decades ago.

    I pronounce "law" and "lore" the same.

    Americans most emphatically do not.

    I'm fairly sure that's also the case with "saw" and "sore".

    I'm trying to think of the extent to which there is a difference for British speakers (noting that accents in the British Isles vary a fair bit themselves). Not much difference. Certainly not as much difference as there is for Americans.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I cannot offhand think of any northern or western British accent that would confound those two. Cockney perhaps? I'll 'ave the lor on yer?
  • I’m a Londoner, albeit not a Cockney, and I also pronounce them the same, at least in casual conversation. If I wanted to stress that something was lore, it might sound slightly different, but not much.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Gee D wrote: »
    I'm not at all sure that Hopkins would have known of/used fall as a name for autumn.

    I'm not sure about this either. Everyone over here knows what Americans mean when they talk about "fall", but I haven't heard anyone use it. Would it have been widespread knowledge in an era before movies and TV?

    On a related note, as a result of this thread I know have "Margaret, are you grieving," swirling round my mind. ("Worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" - great!) Does anyone else get earworms of poetry?
  • Fall, like sidewalk and faucet are 'false' Americanisims, in that although now mostly used in North America they were once widely used in Medieval English. They just fell out of fashion here in England. Hopkins probably knew that.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    I'm not doubting you, @Robertus L, but I'd love some more information about this. Off the top of my head I can't think of any examples from English Literature that back up your claim. (And were sidewalk and faucet really common in Middle English?)
  • Firenze wrote: »
    I cannot offhand think of any northern or western British accent that would confound those two. Cockney perhaps? I'll 'ave the lor on yer?

    We pronounce them the same here in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. Possibly a careful speaker might distinguish them before a word starting with a vowel, but I think in fact that both might come out as Lohr in that situation, despite 'law' ending with a wubblewoo. Certainly the final 'w' is very unlikely to be realised in any context.
  • Robertus L wrote: »
    Fall, like sidewalk and faucet are 'false' Americanisims, in that although now mostly used in North America they were once widely used in Medieval English. They just fell out of fashion here in England. Hopkins probably knew that.

    Not Mediaeval however - much later.

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/autumn-vs-fall
  • Muff is also rude slang for what I understand is called "fanny" in the UK, what children may call "front bummy" here.

    "Front bottom" here.

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Perhaps it's from an unpublished Shakespearean play?

    King {rising from throne and bellowing}: "Look you, jumpers!

    Welsh King, is he then?

    Which bit of that signals Welsh, please?
    Its the position of the comma. Those not lucky enough to be Welsh, especially English scriptwriters, seem to think that making a character say look you makes them "sound Welsh" - in fact saying look you used like that is something native Welsh speakers do when an English mother-tongue speaker wouldn't.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    ‘Received Pronunciation’ or RP English doesn't have a rhotic ‘r’ so ‘law’ and ‘lore’, ‘saw’ and ‘sore’, and ‘dawn’ and ‘born’ all rhyme.
  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    but surely it's also about the vowel sound, not just whether you pronounce the "r"

    for me, "lore" would sound very similar to "lower", but law rhymes with Awe
  • Yes, I assume rhotic dialects do have /lor/ for lore. Any Bristolians? I have a feeling the vowel is different in some dialects, a bit like horse/hoarse, which are the same in some dialects, different in others.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    For me ‘lower’ has two syllables, ‘low-uh’ and ‘lore’ has only one ‘law’.
  • Wet Kipper wrote: »
    but surely it's also about the vowel sound, not just whether you pronounce the "r"

    for me, "lore" would sound very similar to "lower", but law rhymes with Awe

    Same vowel for me. The awe one, not the lower one.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Yes, I assume rhotic dialects do have /lor/ for lore. Any Bristolians? I have a feeling the vowel is different in some dialects, a bit like horse/hoarse, which are the same in some dialects, different in others.
    'Lore' and 'law' definitely sound different in a rhotic dialect such as SW England. The vowel is usually the same, the same one as in 'awe' but in 'lore' the 'r' is pronounced. There isn't an 'r' at the end of 'law', but there might be an illicit one where the next word starts with a consonant as in the demand for 'Laura Norder'.

    I don't think the rhotic 'r', e.g. at the end of the word, is quite the same as the RP one at, say, the beginning of a word. It sometimes sounds a bit as though it comes from the back of the mouth.

    Although it might scan as one, I think 'lower' is usually pronounced in England as two syllables, one gliding into the other. Both are quite different sounds from the vowel in lore/law. I think horse/hoarse are homophones in most English dialects.

  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    This isn't definitive, but I've been doing a Google search for quotes about Fall. The only one from this side of the Pond I can find is from Oscar Wilde: "And all at once, summer collapsed into fall". Now Wilde and Hopkins overlap chronologically, but no one seems to give a source for this, so I'm not sure this is genuine.

    Can anyone a) verify the quote or b) give any other examples of Fall being used in Britain?
  • Wet Kipper wrote: »
    but surely it's also about the vowel sound, not just whether you pronounce the "r"

    for me, "lore" would sound very similar to "lower", but law rhymes with Awe

    Do you not rhyme "lore" with "bore", "sore", and so on? Or does "sore" sound much like "sower" in your accent?

    For me, lore and law are rather similar, but there is a distinction - I think I put the merest hint of 'r' in lore to distinguish it from law. If you just heard me say one word in isolation, I'm not sure you could tell which one I had said.
  • I'm not doubting you, @Robertus L, but I'd love some more information about this. Off the top of my head I can't think of any examples from English Literature that back up your claim. (And were sidewalk and faucet really common in Middle English?)

    My source is the blessed Susie Dent. For non-UK viewers, Susie Dent is a lexicographer who works for the OED and appears on a popular TV show Countdown where contestants try to make words from randomly selected letters

    Dent has written a number of academic and popular books on the English language. One of her pet peeves is the snobbish attitude some British people have towards supposed Americanisms on the grounds that, a) the English don't own the language and it's legitimate for Americans/Canadans/Scots or whoever to develop a language that meets the needs of their society and culture, and b) many of the oft derided usages often originated in what is now the UK.

    Concerning 'sidewalk', apparent this was used in England in earlier times. To have a pavement , one needs paving, and this would have been lacking in even larger towns before the C19. Most street would have been deeply rutted by wagons and full of the contents of carelessly tossed chamber pots*

    People, therefore, walked carefully on the sides of streets, which through constant use became compacted, providing a sidewalk for the convenience of pedestrians.

    With thanks to KarlLB for the clarification

    * the British slang term ' tosspot' meaning a stupid or inconsiderate person is said to derive from this unfortunate practice.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    ETA: Drat. Everybody else got there first, and with the exact same link! That'll teach me to scroll down.

  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Perhaps it's from an unpublished Shakespearean play?

    King {rising from throne and bellowing}: "Look you, jumpers!

    Welsh King, is he then?

    Which bit of that signals Welsh, please?
    Its the position of the comma. Those not lucky enough to be Welsh, especially English scriptwriters, seem to think that making a character say look you makes them "sound Welsh" - in fact saying look you used like that is something native Welsh speakers do when an English mother-tongue speaker wouldn't.

    Welsh uses pronouns more frequently than the equivalent English idioms. So, while it's perfectly correct to say Edrychwch (Look!) you'll more commonly hear Edrychwch chi (Look you). The stereotypical Welsh expression may have originated in a literal translation of the Welsh idom in to English. I've never heard a real live Welsh person actually say 'look, you'

    (As note elsewhere, Welsh retain its 'ti' form so you could also say Edrycha ti. The use of ti and chi in Welsh is so complicated it could furnish the material for several PhDs, and probably has)
  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Wet Kipper wrote: »
    but surely it's also about the vowel sound, not just whether you pronounce the "r"

    for me, "lore" would sound very similar to "lower", but law rhymes with Awe

    Do you not rhyme "lore" with "bore", "sore", and so on? Or does "sore" sound much like "sower" in your accent?

    yes, Lore, bore, sore (and sower) rhyme for me (along with core, more, soar)

    the vowel sound is o - as in what you would say for the letter O if you were reciting the alphabet, and the r is pronounced

    Saw, on the other hand, has vowel sound same as with Awwwwww (when you express disappointment, or see something cute) and no R
  • Robertus L wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Perhaps it's from an unpublished Shakespearean play?

    King {rising from throne and bellowing}: "Look you, jumpers!

    Welsh King, is he then?

    Which bit of that signals Welsh, please?
    Its the position of the comma. Those not lucky enough to be Welsh, especially English scriptwriters, seem to think that making a character say look you makes them "sound Welsh" - in fact saying look you used like that is something native Welsh speakers do when an English mother-tongue speaker wouldn't.

    Welsh uses pronouns more frequently than the equivalent English idioms. So, while it's perfectly correct to say Edrychwch (Look!) you'll more commonly hear Edrychwch chi (Look you). The stereotypical Welsh expression may have originated in a literal translation of the Welsh idom in to English. I've never heard a real live Welsh person actually say 'look, you'

    (As note elsewhere, Welsh retain its 'ti' form so you could also say Edrycha ti. The use of ti and chi in Welsh is so complicated it could furnish the material for several PhDs, and probably has)

    Chdi...

    Isn't ti/chi mostly the same as tu/vous though? Inasmuch as "if in doubt, use 'chi'".

  • If only!!

    Chidi (ie chi + ti) is a North Walsean goldilocks pronoun; more formal than ti less formal than chi.

    Broadly ti/chi is similar to tu/vous, but there are so many local variation that it can be a bit of a mine field. For example, I have cousins who addressed our common grandmother as ti, but their other grandmother as chi.

    Not that the Welsh are content to use only ti and chi, as throughout Wales various forms of the third person singular are used to denote intimacy. On parts of Anglesey, you might be asked Sut mae hi? which literally means 'How is she?' but actually means how are you? Used irrespective of gender. Other options in other parts of Wales are available.

    It has to be said, however, that in recent times ti is becoming the standard amongst younger people whom ever they are speaking to (chi still used when talking to more than one person).
  • This isn't definitive, but I've been doing a Google search for quotes about Fall. The only one from this side of the Pond I can find is from Oscar Wilde: "And all at once, summer collapsed into fall". Now Wilde and Hopkins overlap chronologically, but no one seems to give a source for this, so I'm not sure this is genuine.

    Can anyone a) verify the quote or b) give any other examples of Fall being used in Britain?

    A lot of articles state that fall was used for autumn in England until 16th century, but I can't find any citations, so that is useless. Some also argue that Chaucer first used autumn.

    Of course, Hopkins had a great interest in language, including obscure stuff, so it's possible he would have used fall with the sense of autumn. I don't have an annotated edition.
  • Robertus L wrote: »
    If only!!

    Chidi (ie chi + ti) is a North Walsean goldilocks pronoun; more formal than ti less formal than chi.

    Broadly ti/chi is similar to tu/vous, but there are so many local variation that it can be a bit of a mine field. For example, I have cousins who addressed our common grandmother as ti, but their other grandmother as chi.

    Not that the Welsh are content to use only ti and chi, as throughout Wales various forms of the third person singular are used to denote intimacy. On parts of Anglesey, you might be asked Sut mae hi? which literally means 'How is she?' but actually means how are you? Used irrespective of gender. Other options in other parts of Wales are available.

    It has to be said, however, that in recent times ti is becoming the standard amongst younger people whom ever they are speaking to (chi still used when talking to more than one person).

    Of course you could parse sut mae hi? as "how is it?" since hi is used for the dummy subject.
  • True, as Welsh has no neuter pronouns ( and why you have to be careful about saying it's raining*). However, it definitely means you, in this context. A Darthvader from that part of Anglesey would have said Dw i'n ei thad hi which literally means I am her father but means in this context I am your father

    In parts of South Wales they use the third person masculine pronoun irrespective of actual gender. While in West Wales they use the third person singular with the correct pronoun as appropriate.

    * a standard Welsh idom equivalent to 'it's raining cats and dogs' is Mae hi'n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn literally it is raining old ladies and sticks: however a misplaced stress can change its meaning to ' she's beating old ladies with sticks'
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    While in Blaenau ffestiniog on alternate Tuesdays they use the anaphoric gerund - but only if it's raining*

    I can see why I never got that far in learning Welsh.

    *which it usually is.
  • Yes Anglophones have it easy 😀
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    edited February 2020
    The r in non-rhotic dialects is unrolled. It's a bare flap at an r even when as at the start of words it is pronounced.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    I'm not at all sure that Hopkins would have known of/used fall as a name for autumn.

    Etymonline dot com says the use of "Fall" for "Autumn" was formerly common in the UK but now is rare outside the US. Add to the bucket with "gotten".
  • There's a nice selection of quotes in the OED, from (in chronological order) Ascham, Raleigh, Capt. Smith, Evelyn, H. Kelsey, Luttrell, J. Edwards, Quebec Gaz., Scott, J. Baxter, J.E. Alexander, Carlyle, Merivale, Lowell, C.E. Montague, and D. McCowan. One hopes Sir Walter Scott is eastpondian enough.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Thank you @mousethief, that's exactly the sort of thing I was after. None of those are authors I know well; in fact Scott is the only one I've read at all. So there is some excuse for my ignorance.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    The OED says
    A shortening of earlier fall of the leaf: see Phrases 4.
    Although common in British English in the 16th century, by the end of the 17th century fall had been overtaken by autumn as the primary term for this season. In early North American use both terms were in use, but fall had become established as the more usual term by the early 19th century.

    It then cites from the following;
    1550 J. Hooper Godly Confession
    1601 W. Cornwallis Ess. II.
    1664 J. Evelyn Sylva (1679)
    1701 D. Irish Animadversio Astrologica
    1826 W. Scott Malachi Malagrowther
    1907 Standard 21 Feb
    1987 F. Graham New Geordie Dict.
    2001 Irish Times 18 July

    I have omitted North American citations.
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    On the subject of Latin, it has a full complement of 6 persons and umpteen tenses for verbs, as well as a myriad of declensions. I disliked doing Latin grammar when studying it, but it did mean I had a head start on my A-Level French compatriots when learning about things like subjunctives. It is a bit of both when it comes to pronouns, sometimes they're there to specify people, but often the specificity of the endings being used is enough to make things clear, especially when continuing a train of thought. There is plenty of historical evidence that people did sometimes struggle to get it right in everyday use though.

  • Pendragon wrote: »
    On the subject of Latin, it has a full complement of 6 persons and umpteen tenses for verbs, as well as a myriad of declensions. I disliked doing Latin grammar when studying it, but it did mean I had a head start on my A-Level French compatriots when learning about things like subjunctives. It is a bit of both when it comes to pronouns, sometimes they're there to specify people, but often the specificity of the endings being used is enough to make things clear, especially when continuing a train of thought. There is plenty of historical evidence that people did sometimes struggle to get it right in everyday use though.

    Doubtless their friends and neighbors mocked them with the Latin equivalent of "Blueberry's what?"
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    I'm not at all sure that Hopkins would have known of/used fall as a name for autumn.

    I'm not sure about this either. Everyone over here knows what Americans mean when they talk about "fall", but I haven't heard anyone use it. Would it have been widespread knowledge in an era before movies and TV?

    On a related note, as a result of this thread I know have "Margaret, are you grieving," swirling round my mind. ("Worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie" - great!) Does anyone else get earworms of poetry?

    And of course, 'wanwood' is a Hopkins own, but the meaning is so clear on a first reading that it's a wonder it has not made its way into regular speech.

    Thanks for all about the "fall" comments. Hopkins may well have known it.

  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    mt--
    mousethief wrote: »

    Doubtless their friends and neighbors mocked them with the Latin equivalent of "Blueberry's what?"

    Huh???
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    mt--
    mousethief wrote: »

    Doubtless their friends and neighbors mocked them with the Latin equivalent of "Blueberry's what?"

    Huh???

    Thinking of the grocers (grocer's? grocers'?) apostrophe. People probably made analogous errors in Latin.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    mt--
    mousethief wrote: »

    Doubtless their friends and neighbors mocked them with the Latin equivalent of "Blueberry's what?"

    Huh???

    Thinking of the grocers (grocer's? grocers'?) apostrophe. People probably made analogous errors in Latin.

    There are extant lists of pet peeves from the time.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Pendragon wrote: »
    On the subject of Latin, it has a full complement of 6 persons and umpteen tenses for verbs, as well as a myriad of declensions. I disliked doing Latin grammar when studying it, but it did mean I had a head start on my A-Level French compatriots when learning about things like subjunctives. It is a bit of both when it comes to pronouns, sometimes they're there to specify people, but often the specificity of the endings being used is enough to make things clear, especially when continuing a train of thought. There is plenty of historical evidence that people did sometimes struggle to get it right in everyday use though.

    Most of the synthetic forms (inflected perfect, pluperfect, future etc.) didn't survive into modern Romance, and were were replaced with forms using auxiliary verbs (especially habeo and esse) implying that people struggled with them, perhaps especially where Latin was acquired as a second language in the Empire. Fascinatingly (or not), one of the reasons for the aforementioned variety of use in Welsh is that it is in the tail end of a similar process; the considerably more conservative literary language (so conservative that using it in speech would be like using Shakespearean English, forsooth!) has inflected synthetic forms for lots of tenses which the colloquial language never uses. Other tenses can be formed either way. So I can say "Bydda i'n mynd" - literally "will be I in (the action of) going", or "af i" - literally "will go I". I can also say "dysgais i" - "learnt I" but also "gwnes i ddysgu" - "did I (the action of) learning". Note the language is verb initial.

    Similar things must have been going on in Vulgar Latin.
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