Re: Another dynamically linked documentation patch

[David Bateman]

This is really really off topic now, and yes I know its my fault... I
should probably hold off replying to kill the thread, but hey....

Tom Holroyd wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Apr 2007, David Bateman wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, I always found that Aluminium/Aluminum one of the weirder changes
>> in American English. Although some of the other simplifications make
>> sense, that one in fact makes things inconsistent as you point out...
> 
> This ever so slightly touches on my area of expertise, so allow me to
> explain.
> 
> We have al-u-min-i-um vs alu-mi-num (see http://www.m-w.com/).

I'm a "Concise Oxford" kinda guy. Though at nearly 2000 pages I'd hate
to think how large the non-concise version is...

> 
> There are actually two changes. The syllabification above, in the case
> of the American version, doesn't really reflect the pronunciation, which
> is a-lu-mi-num. So the first change is that al-u has changed to a-lu.
> (The British pronunciation matches the syllabification.) As to the other
> change (dropping the i), you can see that it is the same sort of change:
> min-i to mi-num. That is, both changes take a VC pair and transform it
> into a CV pair. (C=consonant, V=vowel). It is well known from many
> studies of articulation that CV syllables are more stable and easier to
> say. Case in point: the Japanese language is composed entirely of
> CV pairs (and bare Vs), and they can talk really rapidly as a result.
> Here's an English example: say "apt" over and over, as fast as you can.
> Very quickly, you will find yourself saying "tap" over and over.
> 
> So the simplifications in Al are consistent and normal. Look around and
> you'll see many other VC->CV changes. Of course, the way to resolve this
> is quite simple: spell it "aluminium" but pronounce it "aluminum".
> There's already no systematic relation between English spelling and
> pronunciation, so this shouldn't bother anybody. :-)

That makes it easier, but it doesn't make it consistent. You'd also have
to change the spelling of other elements of the periodic table ending in
"ium" for that. Though, "cadmum" sounds like an abuse of my mother (Note
English spelling of "mom" == "mum")...

>From what I've seen in learning French, the systematic relation to the
spelling and pronunciation in English, to at least a large number of
English words, is that you take the English word, find the French one
and the spelling follows the French rules. Or at least the French rules
as they were in the 16th century ... Humm, ok perhaps things could be
simpler...

Cheers
D.