Elision?

Is is still elision if you spell it the long way? I guess probably it is.

I had trouble with "halcyon". Butchered that sucker. And I still screw it up occasionally - my brain, having glommed onto it as "HAL-lee-con" at about age eight, refuses to shift. Buggeration.

I pronounce my t's. Like Plei, I was told about it if I didn't. So? The second R in February.

I will only say u-r-l, so as not to give Plei hives.

I don't call URLs earls, but I'm as likely to say your-uhl (kinda like Ural, but not exactly) as U-R-L. Anyone else do that?

I pronounce my t's. Like Plei, I was told about it if I didn't. So? The second R in February.

I can't remember if I was told off about that one, but I certainly say both of them. Though they sometimes come out mangled, because it's a word with F and U, which, oddly, are my problem letters. Lot of trouble with those. It's almout a miracle I can say fuck, actually.

(My f/v distinction is the kind that's not. I got enough lecturing about that to drive me to tears, and half of my phone issues are from the frustration of trying to make myself understood over the things.)

Like how most people say Lancaster (the county, not the actor) -- LAAAAAANG-cstr.

There's not really a "g" sound in Lancaster, though (I go to school there! I have valuable regional knowlege!). Local people say LAN-ca-str. Everyone else says lan-CAST-r. If you are an outsider who manages to adopt this useful piece of regional dialect, you will be INVISIBLE! Really! Okay, not really, because you will make faces when presented with a piece of spaghetti pizza. Like all right-thinking people.

I'm going to vote for F-A-Q and U-R-L. I think my "t"s and glottal stops depend on who I'm talking to and how much sleep I've had.

I still think chimera should be "kim-AIR-uh," dictionary be damned.

I think the most amusing college freshman regional dialect experience I had was with my neighbor from central California, where apparently there is no difference between the soft "e" and the soft "i." People in the dorm spent hours trying to convince the poor girl that "ten" and "tin" or "pen" and "pin" should be pronounced differently. She couldn't even *hear* the difference, let alone reproduce it. Most disturbing? She called milk "melk."

hey all. I recently moved into a house and all my books are currently in boxes, unorganized. What is the best way to approach organizing the books, so I don't have to put them on the shelves more than once?

What is the best way to approach organizing the books, so I don't have to put them on the shelves more than once?

When I moved, I used the "piles on the floor" approach. I sorted my books into large piles based on the way I tend to think about my books. For me, those categories were: Fiction--all sorts; reference--encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, language guides, travel guides, atlases, etc.; poetry and plays; manga, comic book anthologies, graphic novels; craft books--knitting, weaving, etc.; history; cookbooks; assorted non-fiction; and so on.

I then shelved one category at a time, deciding if there needed to be additional sorting within a category. With the exception of fiction (I shelved by author, and to hell with genre), the comics (volumes in a series are kept together), and history/assorted non-fiction (anything related to science or history thereof got separated out), I didn't worry too much about further refining the sort.

The trick is to organize to the level at which you mentally categorize your books. My concept of "reference" is pretty broad, and I lump poetry and plays together, since I tend to think of them as "not-non-fiction-but-not-prose." My dad, on the other hand, is a theater junkie, and would probably categorize plays by period and author. My mom would probably have seventeen different criteria for categorizing her cookbooks.

Books I know I'll take out frequently (cookbooks, reference, re-readable novels, etc.) are placed where I could get to them most easily without having to hunker down or stand on tip-toe.

Also, since my shelf space is at a premium (and because I know darn well that I'll be acquiring more books), I stacked most books at the backs of the shelves, then propped another book in front of the pile that would give me an idea of what was behind there. That way, I was able to squeeze in more books per shelf-foot, and I was able to display the covers of particularly pretty books. Does that make sense?

There's not really a "g" sound in Lancaster, though (I go to school there! I have valuable regional knowlege!). Local people say LAN-ca-str. Everyone else says lan-CAST-r. If you are an outsider who manages to adopt this useful piece of regional dialect, you will be INVISIBLE!

Likewise -- if from Worcester, MA, pronouce it Wuss-tah.
You know you want to.