Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 October 20

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October 20

Accent

Does the mellifluous Ronald Colman have any particular British accent? Clarityfiend (talk) 01:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Looking at his biography, particularly his early years which indicate his area of upbringing and education, I strongly suspect he had a clipped, middle class English accent, common among actors of his period. I do not recall hearing his actual voice but I'd put big money on it. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 07:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Àu contraire, he spent many years in the US, and in the latter part of his career, if one didn't know he was British, it would have been hard to spot it. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair point Jack but our accent, by and large, is determined in our early years: Coleman was about 31 when he went to the US. Watch and listen to this clip[1] and see if you can hear any US accent or whether he has a generic English middle class accent. He may of course adopted an American accent in films. Nice to see Sophie Tucker too. Richard Avery (talk) 12:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of accents, there's none on the "a" in au contraire. +Angr 13:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... that's a grave error. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

*groan* --Tango (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm now acutely aware of my error. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, it was understandable under the circumflexes. --Anonymous, 01:55 UTC, October 21, 2009.

(drums fingers on desk) It's OK - the rest of us can wait tilde you've finished this discussion... Grutness...wha? 00:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Having listened to the clip linked by Richard Avery, I would describe his accent in that instance to be British Received Pronunciation (RP) with a slight but detectable American tinge, verging on what in Britain is sometimes called "Transatlantic". RP is by definition a learned accent intended to lack regionality and class, and is one of the first things any actor of that period would learn or perfect in acting school. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

RP isn't always intentionally learnt these days, although there is a definite difference between people that learn it in elocution lessons and those that just learn it organically. --Tango (talk) 17:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

RP is supposed to lack class? +Angr 18:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Theoretically, yes. It's distinguished (socially downwards) from the "Hyperlect" or "Kensington" accent - "wrinde and wrinde the wragged wracks the wregged wrescel wren." Roy Jenkins was the last public figure who really spoke like that, in my memory, at least. Tevildo (talk) 20:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think that what made Colman's voice distinctive (and I've always said that if I could magically be gifted with anyone's voice, I'd ask for his) was the relative lack of "clippedness" and the unusually wide variation of pitch in normal speech, both as compared with other actors using RP—Basil Rathbone, for instance. As an exercise, compare him with the interviewer in that bit on Youtube. Deor (talk) 17:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

He certainly doesn't sound anywhere close to American, to me. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 20:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Most obviously, when he says "... a lot to do and a lot to be seen" (0:48), "lot" comes out as "laht", which is more characteristic of an American than an English accent. Also, his use of the phrase "set-up" (0:57) is definitely an Americanism for 1948 (although that's not an issue of _accent_, of course). Tevildo (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Deor. I've been trying to figure out what makes his voice so distinctive. Even while watching one of his silent films, I could hear it. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Akkadian logograms

According to this: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%92%8A%95#Akkadian the sign in question is used logographically both for rēšu and for qaqqadu. In practice, how were these two readings distinguished? Were there phonetic complements in Akkadian, as in Sumerian? Cevlakohn (talk) 05:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I know nothing about Akkadian, but I would imagine some of the difference is in context. Many Chinese characters (and their equivalents in hanja and kanji) have numerous readings, and it's never a big problem. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Name for particular expression

What is the name for things like "fair and square" or "even stevens"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikespedia (talk • contribs) 06:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean idiom?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think what he means is catchphrases that rhyme. Dunno what they're called either. TomorrowTime (talk) 11:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

"Even steven" is, I believe, an example of rhyming reduplication; see Reduplication#English. I don't know whether there's a name for rhyming synonymous pairs like "fair and square"; more common are alliterative synonymous or nearly synonymous pairs like "might and main", "chop and change", and "footloose and fancy-free", the use of which goes back quite far in English (as is shown by the obsolete sense of main in my first example). Deor (talk) 11:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

alliteration. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 09:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nah -- alliteration would be "The blue ball blew blastfully in the basking beach breeze." I'm not saying that makes much sense, but at least it's alliterative. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 03:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Reduplication sounds like the right term, and English is full of them: higglety-pigglety, piggly wiggly, hither-and-thither, loosey goosey, et al. And even in Yinglish: fancy-schmancy, and such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)