River ,'Out Of Gas'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
For many of those, what a bunch of prescriptivist twerps infected with that unfortunate notion that the English are always right. The general smugness in the write up just made me desire to smack 'em. Hard.
YES! Me too. So, it didn't used to be "spitting image." It also didn't used to be "good bye."
Well, my other issue is that there are plenty of phrases/words in the list that are technically incorrect, but have moved into common usage, like persnickety. I bet that if you started using the "correct" pronounciation, folks would be correcting _you_ left and right.
I bet that if you started using the "correct" pronounciation, folks would be correcting _you_ left and right.
Like "forte" -- it's only supposed to be pronounced "for-TAY" when referring to music; when it's used to mean a strong point, it's supposed to be pronounced "fort."
And every time I've tried to use that pronounciation, I've gotten corrected.
m-w.com says:
In forte we have a word derived from French that in its "strong point" sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \'for-"tA\ and \'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived 2forte. Their recommended pronunciation \'fort\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English \'fo-"tA\ and \'fot\ predominate; \'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English.
From MW
usage: In forte we have a word derived from French that in its "strong point" sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \'for-"tA\ and \'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived 2forte. Their recommended pronunciation \'fort\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English \'fo-"tA\ and \'fot\ predominate; \'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English.
That's my favorite cross-post ever.
Jesse, holy mother of freakish X-posts.
You funny x-posting geeks!
Heh.
I honestly thougth that Jesse had just double posted. freaky!