Harry:

As our board appointed interpreter, how does one properly pronounce "Farquaharson"?

Is this another one of those words where you get paid by the letter, or is it where you hid all the extra syllables from "Featherstonehaugh"?

Glenn

hst wrote on Nov 30^th, 2006 at 2:53pm:


Hello Glenn,

It's a name that stumps (English Cricket term, meaning the batsman was out of his crease and the wicket Keeper knocked off the bails, with the ball, which means, oh bugger, forget it) many a person.

Everyone I know pronounces it FAR - KERR - SON. The Q, U, A, R, H and A are pronounced in what I believe to be the Scottish Gaelic language. 

Even my own simple five letter name Eales, I have heard pronounced in at least a dozen ways. That came in handy in HM Forces when the Sgt called out names for dirty or unpopular duties, if he didn't get it right, I didn't answer. 

English is a simple language to learn if you live over here, most people have mastered it by the time they get to 40 years of age. 

Bye the way, did you get my Emails?

Harry

hst wrote on Nov 30^th, 2006 at 6:41pm:


Hello Glen,

It's probably a hangover from the pre 1776 dispute, when cricket was played in what is now the USA by some of our old settlers.

Some names have changed though, the game you call Baseball is known in England as Rounders and played only by women or girls.

Thanks in advance for the drawings, I'll wait for them in great anticipation.

Harry

Funny old language English isn't it. Take the word Gotten you often find it in American publications, even in John Taylors African Rifles & Cartridges published by The Gun Room Press, Terrible bad grammer to use such a word in the UK but imagine my supprise when reading an early copy of Samuel Pepys Diary which he wrote in his own short hand (1660-1669) and which wasn't deciphered until after his death in 1885, there was the word gotten. Long forgotten in England but still in use in America.

KWK wrote on Dec 1^st, 2006 at 2:13pm:


Hello KWK,
Damn, there's never a French lady in my neighbourhood when I need one. 

Your French lady friend may have a point about the influence of foreign words, but in my own experience they tend to be used more as 'slang' and not proper English. E.g. Tab from the Egyption tabah meaning cigarette, Chi or Char from India meaning tea, and Bint from the Arabic meaning woman.

We have of course, absorbed the words of many languages over the past three centuries during Colonial Expansion and contraction, and still continue to do so today.

Languages of all countries evolve constantly, even English changes rapidly, Elizabethan documents only 500 years old are very difficult to read and understand. I have little doubt that if mankind survives another 500 years the people of that time will be looking at our writings and scratching their head. 

Who today speaks in the style of, or uses the words that Shakespear wrote in everyday speech? Only actors do. 

I haven't found the word 'Gotten' in any of my three English Dictionaries, but as each new edition is published new words are added and others fall by the wayside.

Harry

I remember now that one of the things I found strange about the UK usage was their seeming insistence upon using 'got' as the past participle of 'got'. I just figured it was another instance of differing customs & usage, and maybe the UK writer/speaker was simply using a casual form of the language or possibly hadn't been educated properly. Or maybe an instance of a contraction that later came to be a word in and of itself, like the UK contraction of the word 'university' into first 'varsity and later losing the apostrophe and becoming the now-accepted stand-alone word varsity when referring to sports.

Just one of many.
Regards, Joe

Quote:


Hello J.D.
When I was young, I used to have a full set of volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary and a complete set of Encyclopedia Britanica. Then I 'got' married. I had no use for them after that,  my wife knew everything. 

I'm quite familiar with the word 'gotten' having heard it used in many an Americam film or TV programme.

The word 'received' has replaced 'gotten' in most everyday usage these days over here, although the word 'got' is still used occasionally.

English is a very strange language indeed.

Harry

hello harry_eales, I do find my neighbor's claim to be a bit suspicious. After all, U.S. English was under the influence of great waves of German, Italian, Polish, etc. immigration, and I'd have wagered money it is U.S. English that has changed more than British English over the last 250 years. My book on the history of English has no concise answer to the question. It says the two languages were essential identical in spelling and pronunciation in 1776, but U.S. English changed rapidly, partly as a desire by the newly independent country to assert it was different. To my ear, Aussie, N.Z., southern African, etc. all sound more similar to British English, suggesting it is U.S. English which has changed the most.