# Post Something Interesting About English **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836 "2017-03-23T15:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/61 "2017-03-24T00:00:35Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > A minor offering of my own: because English has “pilfered” from so many other languages, we end up with situations such as that the word “lead” can either refer to a heavy grey metal, or the act of showing others how to proceed. It’s due to the evolutionary intersection of two words from unrelated languages, which changed over time until they were spelled the same, but pronounced differently. The town of Lead SD is pronounced the second way: the name is a mining term for a metal vein in the rock, which, in that case, has nothing to do with the soft grey element. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/62 "2017-03-24T00:02:47Z")
WRONG and BROUGHT are thrice removed opposites. wrong/right/left/brought ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/63 "2017-03-24T00:07:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > No, that angry and hungry have very short vowel sounds at the end but pedigree has a long, extended vowel sound at the end. They have EXACTLY THE SAME vowel sound at the end: “gree”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/64 "2017-03-24T00:11:30Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I’ve never heard pedigree _not_ rhyming with tree. I’ve never heard “angry” and “hungry” _not_ rhyming with “tree.” I’m still confused. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/65 "2017-03-24T00:15:36Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay;20087411 The Old English for avian animals was “fugol,” from whence we get “fowl.”.[/QUOTE] “From whence” is redundant. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/66 "2017-03-24T00:26:01Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > “From whence” is redundant. _Technically_, but, “From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part.” Shakespeare, Sonnet 48 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/67 "2017-03-24T00:26:55Z")
And then there’s [verdigris](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/pronunciation/american/verdigris), which has exactly the same ending as angry, hungry and pedigree… and lots of other words. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/68 "2017-03-24T00:31:36Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > _Technically_, but, > “From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part.” > Shakespeare, Sonnet 48 That’s why poets get licences. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/69 "2017-03-24T00:41:24Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’ve never heard “angry” and “hungry” _not_ rhyming with “tree.” I’m still confused. They don’t in any UK dialect/accent I’ve ever heard. Brummie is quite close though. You can have quite a lot of “had” in a row, and it makes sense as a sentence. It needs punctuation when written or intonation when spoken. [James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher) ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/70 "2017-03-24T00:45:52Z")
We raise “cows and pigs” but eat “beef and pork” because the Norman conquerors of England who were doing the eating spoke Old French, while the lowly farmers doing the raising spoke old English. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/71 "2017-03-24T01:01:57Z")
> [@ioioio](#): > > All your language **are** belong to us. FTFY ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/72 "2017-03-24T01:05:27Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > “w” is what is called a semi-vowel, of an order comparable to “й”. It _always_ modifies a vowel, either in attack (“wax”) or diphthong-like formation (“cow”). In normal English, it has no sound that is not dependent on a vowel. Apart from lenition, “h” behaves in essentially the same way – it is a sort of semi-consonant-semi-vowel that is always dependent on another single letter to define the sound it represents. “y” is a vowel-semi-vowel hybrid. I really wish we wouldn’t teach kids that letters are vowels. ⟨w⟩ is a letter. /w/ is a glide that the letter w often denotes but often does not. Kindergarten could have been so much less confusing. Although I think what threw me off the most back then was Mrs. W’s attempt to squish our vowel phonology into five vowels, each with a long and short version. Never mind that it’s pretty damn obvious to any 5-year-old that the sounds we’re saying don’t fit that. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/73 "2017-03-24T01:08:48Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’ve never heard “angry” and “hungry” _not_ rhyming with “tree.” I’m still confused. I don’t think “angry” and “hungry” rhyme with “tree,” but it’s not because the vowel sounds are different, it’s because if you have a two-syllable word with the stress on the first syllable, _both_ vowel sounds have to match for it to count as a rhyme. In other words, “angry” and “hungry” don’t rhyme with each _other_ either, but “hungry” more-or-less rhymes with “plum tree” (the consonant sounds aren’t a perfect match, but at least they’re close, and the vowels are the same). “Pedigree” doesn’t rhyme with “angry” or “hungry” either, but again, it’s not because the final vowel sound is different, it’s because the stress patterns are different. “Pedigree” is a dactyl and the other two words are trochees. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/74 "2017-03-24T01:22:23Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > “Curple” is a rare but technically English word, and rhymes with purple. > > Lots of English words don’t have a true rhyme. No real word rhymes with wolf, false, or gouge. Those are of course short examples; long words probably don’t have true rhymes more often than they do. > > In English, a word that just rhymes using the last syllable is a “masculine rhyme,” like set and net. Words that lack a masculine rhyme are rare. A feminine rhyme is a word that matches the last two syllables, like treasure and measure. In some words they really don’t “sound” like they rhyme uless they achieve a feminine rhyme. Words without a feminine rhyme are common. I once rhymed “Poseidon” with “to ride on” in a Limerick in the fifth grade. Got a star on my paper. Particularly since half the class either failed to grasp the form, or plagiarized something. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > You said > > [angry, hungry and pedigree end with the same sound] > > I was under the impression that “end with the same sound” was _the definition_ of “rhyme.” And in my neck of the woods, pedigree does not end with a “gry” sound, but a “gree.” Analogies for the angry/pedigree pair in the English I’m familiar with are fry/free, try/tree, buy/bee, my/me, goodby/degree, etc. No rhyme, no same sound. :dubious: \<– me. “Ang-rye?” “hun-grye?” > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So I started looking for examples of the word 'pedigree" on Youtube. First I thought of the Pedigree brand of dog food and looked for that, and found an Australian commercial where they indeed pronounced it so that it would rhyme with angry/hungry. But [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd09V2AkZv4) is an example discussing pedigree charts–note how pedigree has a long vowel sound at the end–and rhymes with tree, not angry. I don’t know where you are from, but angry, tree, hungry, bee, degree, free, and pedigree all end just the same to me. > [@panache45](#): > > And then there’s [verdigris](http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/pronunciation/american/verdigris), which has exactly the same ending as angry, hungry and pedigree… and lots of other words. I was going to argue that “pedigree” is way more common that “verdigris,” but now I’m realizing that “degree” is even more common. I should use that word as my third word. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/75 "2017-03-24T01:37:50Z")
Warning, poetry talk to follow! Angry and hungry are trochees. They have a stressed syllable followed by unstressed. Pedigree is a dactyl. One stressed syllable followed by two unstressed. In actual practice in writing in meter, the second unstressed syllable will often be promoted so that it could be used in iambic pentameter or (much rarer) trochaic meter. (While dactylic meter was THE meter in Greek, it’s pretty rare in modern or even modern-ish English poetry. Yes, there is the double dactyl, but doggerel is another beast.) So, no. Most poets would likely not rhyme angry/hungry and pedigree. They end with the same sound, but not the same stress (because of promotion). You need both for a rhyme, generally speaking. Since it was brought up: A masculine rhyme must rhyme the final syllable, which must be stressed. dove/above believe/bereave confess/address (what you do to a person or a letter, not what you look up on a map) A feminine rhyme begins with a stressed syllable and at least one unstressed following syllable. Higgledy/Piggledy measuring/treasuring funny/bunny An identity is a rhyme that has at least one exact sound and stress syllable shared between two words. Sometimes called rime riche. lighted/delighted Sometimes people will call homophones identities. cite/site/sight ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/76 "2017-03-24T01:44:26Z")
OK, here’s a fact about the translation of the bible into English that probably got an Aramaic saying wrong, and started a long tradition about the career of Joseph. There was an expression in Aramaic: "Only the carpenter con of a carpenter could explain such a puzzling situation (about a riddle or question in a text). The word used to translate “carpenter” was “tekton” in Greek, a word for a generic builder, but the Aramaic, when it pops up in other sources does seem to support “carpenter.” So, when Jesus returns to Galilee after wandering around Judah as an itinerant preacher, and has picked up a few tricks, goes back to Galilee, and they doubt him. They say something puzzling about the carpenter son of a carpenter, and probably in the original language said something like "Is this Jesus, the son of Mary who ran off to be a hippie come back to preach to us with supposed authority? What a strange situation. Who could explain his (literal, not spiritual) transformation? Only the Carpenter, son of a carpenter could do it. It got screwed up when the Greeks wrote the the gospels but was still a muddle. it got further removed from the original in an attempt to make sense of it. But there you are, a very old, and probably authentic story, when you dust away the effects of time, and evidence of Jesus using Aramaic as his vernacular. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/77 "2017-03-24T01:48:40Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Warning, poetry talk to follow! > > Angry and hungry are trochees. They have a stressed syllable followed by unstressed. > > Pedigree is a dactyl. One stressed syllable followed by two unstressed. In actual practice in writing in meter, the second unstressed syllable will often be promoted so that it could be used in iambic pentameter or (much rarer) trochaic meter. (While dactylic meter was THE meter in Greek, it’s pretty rare in modern or even modern-ish English poetry. Yes, there is the double dactyl, but doggerel is another beast.) > > So, no. Most poets would likely not rhyme angry/hungry and pedigree. They end with the same sound, but not the same stress (because of promotion). You need both for a rhyme, generally speaking. > > Since it was brought up: > > A masculine rhyme must rhyme the final syllable, which must be stressed. dove/above believe/bereave confess/address (what you do to a person or a letter, not what you look up on a map) > A feminine rhyme begins with a stressed syllable and at least one unstressed following syllable. Higgledy/Piggledy measuring/treasuring funny/bunny > > An identity is a rhyme that has at least one exact sound and stress syllable shared between two words. Sometimes called rime riche. lighted/delighted > > Sometimes people will call homophones identities. cite/site/sight I am aware they do not rhyme, except in doggeral, where you can play along with meter and syllabificaltion. I DID NOT CLAIM THEY RHYMED! I just said they all ended in gry/gree. Anyway, I’ve moved on to “angry, hungry, and degree” as my trio. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/78 "2017-03-24T01:54:37Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I am aware they do not rhyme, except in doggeral, where you can play along with meter and syllabificaltion. > > I DID NOT CLAIM THEY RHYMED! I just said they all ended in gry/gree. Anyway, I’ve moved on to “angry, hungry, and degree” as my trio. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you did. The word rhyme was being bandied about. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/79 "2017-03-24T01:55:41Z")
The letter P represents three different phonemes in English, but English speakers cant hear the difference. Speakers of some languages can. Tear off a little inch-long strip of paper, and put it just in front of your lips and say “pin” and “spin” and “nip”. When you say “pin” you blow out a strong puff of air,and a much weaker puff when you say “spin” and none at all when you say “nip”. But to an English speaker, they all sound the same. As for the angry-pedigree distinction, one ee is much longer than the other. In English, that does not constitute a distinct phoneme, but in many languages it does, the same way English regards the distinction between “could” and “cooed”. The fact that English does not recognize a phonetic distinction does not mean that one does not empirically exist. Some native English speakers pronounce the ‘ng’ the same in “finger” and “singer”, and some don’t. Some speakers pronounce “brood” and “brewed” the same, some don’t. That distinction is more obvious in “news” and “canoes”. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/80 "2017-03-24T02:06:00Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > That distinction is more obvious in “news” and “canoes”. These are identities for me, so I’m not sure what distinction you’re pointing out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836.md?page=5)