They were trying to ask about gerrymandering. It’s a hot topic in American politics right now, but it’s something that has been used similarly in other places as well so it’s worth being familiar with.
I sorry if you like hard Gs better. When you invent a technology and acronym for it and publically write and announce how it’s pronounced, I promise I’ll respect that too.
I know. I understood what they were trying to ask clearly from the phonetics they used. Did you?
My point here is what do you think the purpose of language is?
Is the purpose of language for people to “own” words and they can dictate how they are used?
Is the purpose to gatekeep communication and stop conversations if the language is not used “properly” or “as intended”?
Or is the purpose to communicate ideas, and as long as the idea is communicated efficiently the purpose of language has been served even if the usage is slightly different?
Aluminum has two very different common pronunciations and I understand both just fine. I don’t feel the need to tell people “actually it’s pronounced aluminum.”
Sure. But context matters right? I also wouldn’t correct someone if they said sontimeters instead of cenimeters, but if it was a specific conversation explicitly about how to say centimeters, I might chime in with an opinion and some historical facts right?
There is a whole famous book where words are spelled funny so that people understand how to pronounce them.
So we agree “jif” is not an intuitive pronouciation.
No. It’s ambiguous, hence the confusion. Just today actually I had a German guy asking me about GHAR-EE-man-dering actually!
“Someone else intuitively used a hard ‘g’ for a different word” is not the argument you think it is.
Did you understand what they were asking about?
They were trying to ask about gerrymandering. It’s a hot topic in American politics right now, but it’s something that has been used similarly in other places as well so it’s worth being familiar with.
I sorry if you like hard Gs better. When you invent a technology and acronym for it and publically write and announce how it’s pronounced, I promise I’ll respect that too.
I know. I understood what they were trying to ask clearly from the phonetics they used. Did you?
My point here is what do you think the purpose of language is?
Is the purpose of language for people to “own” words and they can dictate how they are used?
Is the purpose to gatekeep communication and stop conversations if the language is not used “properly” or “as intended”?
Or is the purpose to communicate ideas, and as long as the idea is communicated efficiently the purpose of language has been served even if the usage is slightly different?
Aluminum has two very different common pronunciations and I understand both just fine. I don’t feel the need to tell people “actually it’s pronounced aluminum.”
Sure. But context matters right? I also wouldn’t correct someone if they said sontimeters instead of cenimeters, but if it was a specific conversation explicitly about how to say centimeters, I might chime in with an opinion and some historical facts right?
And if it was a conversation about how to say “aluminum” a response of “it’s regional, both are acceptable” would be reasonable.