Why don't Americans have field marshals? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Kleist]

Plus, the Brits won't let the Americans use the term 'Field Marshal' until you guys learn to pronounce 'lieutenant' properly.

 

[Holadem]

BTW, minor peeve, "karaoke" is pronounced "kah-rah-oh-kay", not "carry-oh-key". It's Japanese, please don't Americanise the pronounciation

I have always said it the correct way, which also happens to be the french way. Which must have sounded terrible to everyone who heard me.

--
Holadem

 

[Matthew_Millheiser]

I like to say "lef-tennant" as well as "sheh-dyule". But then people beat me half to death with their dog-eared copies of Our Bodies, Our Selves.


I really shouldn't post at 2:25 am...

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't mean to be disagreeable, but the accepted etymology for lieutenant is that the lieu in lieutenant is indeed "lieu" -- from Middle English by way of Old French by way of Latin.

Jay, quite right. However, the reason it's pronounced 'lef' is because of a corruption/confusion with 'lief' (sorry, I should have made that clearer in the first post, but I was trying to keep down the words, and in doing so gave the wrong impression). I've been searching my shelves for the textbook that gives the full story, but I think I've left it at work.


Okay, 'Beauchamp' = 'Beecham', 'Cholmondeley' = 'Chumley' and before anyone asks, 'Featherstonehaugh' = 'Fanshaw'.

 

[JayV]

However, the reason it's pronounced 'lef' is because of a corruption/confusion with 'lief'

Go get that book! I'd love to finally hear the reason for leftenant. Everything I've read has been wishy-washy -- most sources said something about the "u" sound being pronounced with a hard "v" at the end for some reason, which then evolved to "f". They were pretty unclear, IIRC.

-j

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Go get that book! I'd love to finally hear the reason for leftenant. Everything I've read has been wishy-washy -- most sources said something about the "u" sound being pronounced with a hard "v" at the end for some reason

Well that's just like the British/Aussie accent issue where they can't say words that end in "a", and instead use "er"

"Mr. Dater, Warp 5" and so on

 

[Paul McElligott]

As for aluminium, since most metallic elements end in "-ium", I would've thought that was the "correct" spelling? Can't think of any other metallic elements ending in "-um" without the "i".

Platinum

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I like how National Review's John Derbyshire's name is pronounced: darby-sure.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I like how National Review's John Derbyshire's name is pronounced: darby-sure.

Well, in the UK, Derby (the city), Derbyshire (the county) and The Derby (the English horse race) are all pronounced 'darby' (but the Kentucky Derby is pronounced the American way). An explanation for this oddity has been lost in the mists of time, I think. I don't know the answer and haven't been able to find an explanation from (an admittedly quick) survey of my books. An oddity, however, is that Darby and Joan (meaning a happily married couple, in case the phrase isn't well-known in the USA) has to the best of my knowledge always been spelt with an 'a' even though the phrase originated at the very latest in the early 18th century.

And Derbyshire in the UK is pronounced 'Darbyshre' as near as I can represent it phonetically - the 'i' in 'shire' is clipped as short as possible. The same goes for all the other British counties ending in 'shire'.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, in the UK, Derby (the city), Derbyshire (the county) and The Derby (the English horse race) are all pronounced 'darby' (but the Kentucky Derby is pronounced the American way). An explanation for this oddity has been lost in the mists of time, I think.

Presumably it is related to a vowel shift which also give us "clark" for "clerk". BTW, I've never heard of "Darby and Joan" at all in the U.S. or even in any English texts, television shows or films that I can recall.

English, in all the places it is used, has odd spellings and usages for a number of reasons, in part because it has been bulit up by accretion as much as by normal linguistic evolution. Originally a language of the Angles and Saxons (themselves Germanic invaders who pushed aside Britain's native Celtic population), and much of the rest of our linguistic history is a matter of further waves of invasion and conquest. (The Romans, oddly enough, had very little linguistic influence on English. Nearly all of the Latin volcabulary in English entered through the French following the Norman conquest.)

Scandinavian warriors were brought in as mercenaries to help one local warlord against another, and were rewarded with land to settle on. They eventually sent for their friends and relatives and siezed large tracts of eastern and northern England, and bequeathed us a great many common words.

One reason English has such a rich volcabulary and so many synonyms is that we adopted words for common objects, places and concepts from several languages and often kept them all. Words like "husband", "window" and "knife" are all Viking words that entered English. "Knife" was originally pronouced "ka-nife" (just as "knight" was "ka-night") The "K" sound was dropped in one of those rapid and very rapid changes that languages sometimes undergo. The reason we still spell them the way we do is that printing was just beginning to take off in England at just the same time, and it was printing that really standardized spelling. So the written form of "knife" was fixed just as the pronounciation was changing.

In 1066, of course, the Normans invaded, made their version of French the court language and largely ignored Anglo-Saxon. (The Normans were originally Vikings themselves - "Norman" = "Norseman" = "North man" - and their origins were reflected in their language.) By that time the Vikings living in England had partially assimilated and the English nobility contained Viking blood - which is one reason why the defending King had the Viking name of Harald. Immediately before the Normans landed in southern England, Harald had defeated yet another invasion, this one directly from Scandanavia, in the North. So basically the struggle for the English crown that year involved three sets of Vikings hacking away at one another.
Regards,

Joe

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Sort of like America's lone shire: New Hampshire. Pronounced "New Hamp-sure"

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Platinum.

 

[nolesrule]

Aluminum
Platinum
Tantalum
Lanthanum
Molybdenum

It was actually a British science journal who changed the name of Aluminum to Aluminium after the fact because it wasn't classical-sounding enough. So, etymologically speaking, Aluminum is correct and Aluminium is just a British variant.

 

[Dave Hahn]

okay, while we're at it, just where do you Brits get The River "TEMS" from The River Thames, which here in the US, rhymes with James?

 

[andrew markworthy]

just where do you Brits get The River "TEMS" from The River Thames

The spelling (and we can assume, pronunciation) was Temese or Tamesis in the middle ages. This, by an obvious route, became 'tems' in pronunciation (though the section of the Thames that flows through Oxford is called the Isis, taken from the latter part of Tamesis). However, the spelling got changed to Thames. This was because it sounded more like Ancient Greek, and may reflect a belief common during Renaissance times (but which we now know is complete BS) that the ancient British tribes originated from the area around the River Thyamis in Greece. [Parts of this taken from other sources, e.g. Wikipedia].

 

[Chuck Mayer]

The reason the US adds those ranks in time of war is to allow Americans access to a rank suitable to by a theater commander, also in charge of allied forces. You can't have a 4 star Yank in charge of a 5 star Limeys' forces, or vice versa. That was the driver for the addition of the 5th star in WWII. Simple military protocol.

As for an easy memory aid in General Ranks (Air Force, Army, and Marines):
Be My Little General:

Brigadier promoted to
Major promoted to
Lieutenant (pronounced in the correct Yank fashion!) promoted to
General (no prefix)

For the Navy, there is no easy mnemonic that I remember.

Rear Admiral (Lower Half) - seriously, I'm not making this up
Rear Admiral (Upper Half) - sounds romantic, I know
Vice Admiral
Admiral

The "lower half" used to be Commodore. Oh well.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, New Hampshire is America's lone state that ends in "-shire", but hardly its lone shire. According to one on-line resource I just checked there are 30 place names in the U.S. based on "Yorkshire" alone. "Hampshire" (and variants) yields another 76.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Uhh, that would be "New Hampster" or (affectionately, by us here in Mass) "Cow Hampshire".

 

[DaveMcS]

What..no one likes to play Stratego anymore?

"Wikipeda":

From highest rank to lowest the movable pieces are:

10 or 1 : one Marshal
9 or 2 : one General
8 or 3 : two Colonels
7 or 4 : three Majors
6 or 5 : four Captains
5 or 6 : four Lieutenants
4 or 7 : four Sergeants
3 or 8 : five Miners (the only piece that can defuse Bombs)
2 or 9 : eight Scouts (the only piece capable of moving more than one space in a turn)
S : one Spy
There is one Flag piece and six Bombs, typically labeled 'F' and 'B' respectively

 

[Marianne]

A couple of old chestnuts:

Worcestershire (Sauce) pronounced Wooster

Jaguar pronounced jag-you-are (not jahgwire)