The beauty and power of spelling
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I'm sitting in an Ethiopian restaurant eating lunch. I overhear the following conversation among the owner of the restaurant, a workman who had come in to fix something, and a helpful American sitting nearby.
OWNER: How much?
WORKMAN: That will be five niney.
[VHM: Of course, the two Ethiopians could speak Amharic to each other, but the owner was getting ready to write a check, so they had to get the amount right in English.]
OWNER: Five nineteen or five ninety?
WORKMAN: Five niney. Five nine 0.
AMERICAN: Five ninety; f i v e n i n e t y.
OWNER: Ohh! Thank you! Please repeat it.
AMERICAN: f i v e n i n e t y.
[The owner was writing on the check as the American slowly and clearly repeated the letters.]
VHM: That was wonderful!
ALL FOUR OF US [with big smiles on our faces, as the workman took the check from the owner and walked out to his truck]: Have a good day!
Selected readings
- "Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s" (11/21/13)
- "Spelling mistakes in English and miswritten characters in Chinese" (12/18/12)
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
September 3, 2021 @ 1:36 pm
That reminds me of when my co-worker, an immigrant from Romania that had won a visa lottery, was trying to make a reservation (or something – this was 20+ years ago) over the phone.
My Friend said “twenty”
Lady on phone: what?
MF: twenty
LoP: oh! You mean twenny!
MF: … ok
Antonio L. Banderas said,
September 3, 2021 @ 1:39 pm
Ninedy or ninty? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ninty
[ˈnaɪn(t̬)i] niner o
Antonio L. Banderas said,
September 3, 2021 @ 1:39 pm
[ˈnaɪn(t̬)i] Ninedy or ninty? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ninty
Niner – o
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
September 3, 2021 @ 1:40 pm
To be clear, the LoP was an American in the Midwest, and this happened sometime from 1999-2001.
Chips Mackinolty said,
September 3, 2021 @ 5:04 pm
Reminds me of working in the early 1980s in remote areas of the Northern Territory of Australia. Two way radio was critical from the mundane to the emergency, and we were all adept at using the "radio alphabet" to clarify exactly what we were talking about. [My call sign was, for example, Victor Mike Lima India].
The number nine was always rendered as "niner"; thus "90" would be "niner zero"; 19 as "one-niner".
Of course everyone in radio range could listen in. To my embarrassment I was once asked to clarify the "Foxtrot-word".
Stephen Hart said,
September 3, 2021 @ 5:43 pm
This reminds me of the various ways Toronto sounds when spoken by various Canadian radio folks:
Toronto
Torondo
Torono
(at least)
The Other Mark P said,
September 3, 2021 @ 6:06 pm
1999 was a wonderful year to listen to Australians.
Niney-niney-nine.
Philip Taylor said,
September 3, 2021 @ 6:15 pm
Stephen — I used to pass through Toronto on my way to Guelph and Waterloo in the late 80s, and to my ear the local pronunciation was /Trɒnə/.
Tim Leonard said,
September 3, 2021 @ 7:58 pm
When a man I knew tried to make a collect call to his parents, the interaction between the (very Southern) operator and the father went something like this:
Op: “You have a collect call from Capcantha in Fedveh. Do you accept the charges?”
Dad: “Who? Where?”
Op: “Capcantha, in Fedveh. Do you accept the charges?”
Dad: “Uh, could you spell that?
Op (exasperated): “Capcantha — C A P T A I N. K A L T E N T H A L E R. From Fedveh — F A Y E T T E V I L L E.”
Dad: “Oh! Oh, yes; I accept the call.”
Barbara Phillips Long said,
September 3, 2021 @ 8:57 pm
Spelling is often essential for communicating place names, even without the southern accent that was so confusing with Fayetteville. The village of Richmondville, In New York State, often gets misunderstood as “Richmond, Va.” by listeners.
It is not far from Oneonta, which the occasional traveler mispronounces as “WON-on-tuh.” It’s “OH-nee-ON-tuh.”
My late husband grew up in Lorain County, Ohio, where the county seat is Elyria. It’s “uh-LEE-ree-uh,” but I have heard national broadcasters butcher it any number of ways.
David Marjanović said,
September 4, 2021 @ 4:56 am
Can confirm for early 2010s.
Antonio L. Banderas said,
September 4, 2021 @ 5:54 am
/trɒnə/
That's c'(r)rect!
Antonio L. Banderas said,
September 4, 2021 @ 5:58 am
"Teh" is sometimes used in deliberately ungrammatical ways compared to the word the.
For example, teh can be applied to adjectives; "He is teh stupid" is an acceptable sentence within the universe of teh usage, whereas ordinarily "He is the stupid" is not.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teh#Usage_notes
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rekt#Verb
KevinM said,
September 4, 2021 @ 9:19 am
Me, NYC area: Very light tongue tap on the second t in twenty. Almost aspirated, almost inaudible.
Batchman said,
September 4, 2021 @ 12:58 pm
When I was a Linguistics major in college, one of our classes had a non-native English speaker, from Kenya, as a guest. As my institution was on Long Island, he had to take the commuter rail from his home to the campus. At that time, riders were required to transfer from an electrified train to a non-electrified one at the Huntington station. Our guest didn't comprehend the announcement over the railroad PA system that advised passengers they would have to "change at Hunnington."
Victor Mair said,
September 4, 2021 @ 3:36 pm
In the eastern part of Philadelphia and in western Pennsylvania, there are places called Huntingdon.
Rose Eneri said,
September 5, 2021 @ 9:14 am
If the Ethiopian restaurant owner was getting ready to write a check, he had a pen right there in his hand. Why did he not just have the worker write down the number?
My dad's family, in Philadelphia, had a term to express an undetermined dollar amount, "a buck three eighty."
Rodger C said,
September 5, 2021 @ 9:49 am
Our guest didn't comprehend the announcement over the railroad PA system that advised passengers they would have to "change at Hunnington."
At least he wasn't in West Virginia, trying to construe "Hunnickton."
David C. said,
September 5, 2021 @ 8:22 pm
Or Newark Penn Station and New York Penn Station!
I have observed that many non-native English speakers struggle with nineteen vs ninety, not being able to rely on the alveolar tap present in ninety (in American English), nor stress on the first syllable.
dw said,
September 6, 2021 @ 2:16 pm
British visitors to the US have notorious difficulty in making themselves understood when they ask for "water" in a restaurant.