Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Darleks
My children backward engineer language. So ... they have figured out that in Aus, many words that have an "r" sound in them have the "r" sound more or less dropped. Hence for instance here, for the word "here", people say "heeuh" rather than the Seattle pronunciation "heer". The backward engineering sometimes misfires for them, such as, for instance, with the Daleks from Doctor Who, who have now become "Darleks"--because they haven't seen the spelling--they're working from what they hear. How kewl is that?
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hypercorrection. btw we don't drop Rs, we just say them with subtlety...
ReplyDeletemy wife recently confessed that she thought there was an "r" in Daleks. i've known the spelling for years but she's a relatively Who newbie.
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