h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In my Dublin accent, but rhymes with put rhymes with foot rhymes with mutt.

I was hoping that foot and mutt sounded different to you, they did in my cod-oirish when I tried them out

I can actually hear the difference between the way an English person says look and luck. I assume from what you are saying that the u in put is the 'look' sound rather than the 'luck' sound.

I agree with Kelli's pronuniation.

On a similar note one pronunciation that really annoys me is people who pronounce "push" to rhyme with "lush". (Hope this doesn't include you, Gnomon! )

RF

I go with Gnomon on this, put, but, mutt, cut all rhyme. Perhaps it is an accented thing with differences split on north/south (uk) lines.
ReddyFreddy why do push and lush not rhyme according to you?

Push is pronounced "poosh", according to me. Just as put is pronounced "poot" (to rhyme with "foot", not "loot")

RF

*agrees with reddyfreddy*

put does not sound anything like putt (which does rhyme with but, and indeed butt). Why 'but' and 'butt' should sound the same but 'put' and 'putt' sound different I have no idea.

My accent is a healthy mix of slight eastend London, some Suffolk, a fair bit of Lincolnshire and then some light Brummie on top.

'push' is like 'bush' but nothing like 'rush' which uses the 'ush' sound from Usher.

>>Nobody seems to have any etymology for it so jwf can run riot<<

If John ran a riot it would just descend into chaos

All the meanings of hunch relate to curvature and pushing, and the intuitive sense simply means you're being impelled towards an idea without knowing why. As for the origins of the word, the learned consensus is that it's unknown, but from my uniquely unlearned perspective I posit that it in fact comes from haunch, which is also all about curvature and pushing.

Gnomon, if all else fails use terms of reference no sane person can understand. The vowel sound in but and fun is shown as an inverted lower-case 'v' and is classed as an open-mid back unrounded vowel. The vowel sound in put and foot is shown as an inverted upper-case Omega and is classed as a near-closed back rounded vowel.

Thanks, Mycroft, for clearing that up.

What was the actual sound in the Czech that you were aiming for. Perhaps we can help you find a universal description for it.

Thanks, TC, but I'm happy to go along with the original commenter's suggestion of 'but' rather than 'put', now that I know there is a difference in RP English. For those of us who pronounce them both identically, it doesn't matter which I use, so changing the 'put' in the entry to 'but' should clear it up for everyone.

Huh? but rhymes with put? and push with lush? HELP!

>> If John ran a riot it would just descend into chaos...<<

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.


>> ..but from my uniquely unlearned perspective I posit that it in fact comes from haunch.. <<

The wrong end of the horse perhaps but certainly a possibilty. I am more inclined to (want to) believe that a race of pointy headed hunchbacks once ruled the world. Possibly up until about the battle of Troy in the old world and as much as two millenia later in the new.

Skulls of these superior creatures have been found throughout the Classical and ancient New world empires. King Tut may have been the last to rule Egypt, but 'their kind' leaves echoes throughout the world in images of conical hats on witches and wizards and all the tall and hunchbacked monsters we named above.

Or maybe the wizened hunchback is just a metaphor for the old, the crippled and the useless. Apparently beating a hunchback's hump was supposed to bring good luck in the Dark Ages and this may be the source of Blind Man's Buff.

The last hunchback of any great note in Literature (besides the Disney cartoon version of the Notre Dame Bellringer) was in Terry Southern's book 'Candy'.

The mystery and mystique of the hunchback was skillfully exploited in the film version starring Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, Charles Aznavour, Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau, John Huston, John Astin, Elsa Martinelli, Anita Pallenberg and Ewa Aulin but not necessarily in that order.


~jwf~

I have just been moderated for a post I made on 11th Jan 2002. This answered the Spearcarrier's question "How do you ask for a beer in Swahili?"
So, while you may get away with a whole article on Czexh pron., individual words posted in this thread will suffer a like fate, albeit in over two years' time.

Yes, I also was moderated two days ago for a posting I made in 2002. It was a coded message for one of Greebo's word games. Ironically, it has been moderated 2 years ago and I successfully argued my case and had it re-instated then.

How are they getting to the mods though - is somebody hitting yikes?

Vaguely back on topic - I'm having a little disagreement with my fiance over the word 'quite', stemming from the phrase 'quite good'. On the one hand quite can be interpreted as 'entirely' - so quite good is better than good. On the other hand quite can be interpreted as 'somewhat', so if something quite good got a bit better it would be good.

Are both of these valid?

The first usage is very English. You wouldn't ever hear it in Ireland or the US. The second usage is the more normal one. But I'd have to admit that both are valid.

In response to somebody asking after my health I am likely to say quite alright, meaning I am entirely well, the village I visited yesterday was quite pretty (positive overtones) but the average film I saw last night was only quite good (negative overtones).

I didn't realise I had all these meanings until my fiance described the dinner I cooked yesterday as quite nice