Elite pronunciation
Did someone recently change the spelling of, "Neanderthals?" I heard it pronounced as , "neandertols" twice today on different documentaries. (Yeah, I know, real cool to watch more than one program about ancient humans in one day.)
Anyway, I wonder if this foppy articulation is an outgrowth of the tendency of editorialists, errr, journalists to elocute the capitals of foreign countries in the foreign country's native language even though the reporter is speaking in English? Notice the next time some idiot on CNN says "Gutter" when he means "Qatar" or "Mumbai" when he means Bom-frigging-bay.
They're inconsistent at best in this pursuit. I never hear them say "Paree" or "Ciudad de México."
Morons.
posted by 2Evil4U | 3/09/2005 10:00:00 AM
3 Comments:
I hate to rain on your parade . . . but. . . I just looked up Neanderthal in my brandspanking new Franklin Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition and it has two spellings and two prononciations! It can be spelled Neandertal! This PDA is so much fun! I can give myself spelling bees, play word games, use the calculator, the databank and all sorts of neat things! I needed something to play with!
YOu have proven my point by being sucked into the same linguistic trap. Turns out, this trait is older than I thought. (Thanks to "answers.com")
The name Neanderthal is now spelled two ways. The spelling of the German word Thal, meaning "valley", was changed to Tal in the early 20th century, but the former spelling is used in English and in scientific names, while the modern spelling is used in German. In any case, the correct pronunciation is with a "t" sound (or hard "th" sound) and not a soft "th" sound, if one were to try to pronounce it as a German word. Many people use the more English pronunciation with a soft "th" sound instead, just as other German words that enter the English language are usually pronounced using normal English pronunciation.
The point being??????? (Sooooooooooooooooo?)
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