Re: So it is true...

Vladimir Menkov wrote:
>
> In article <43930A24.5D84@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >> > Erm, no, it's not likely that any British dictionary, let alone
> >> > "Learners'" ones, would be available in an American bookstore _or_
> >> > library; who would buy or consult them?
> ...
> >The point is not whether large libraries have British dictionaries. The
> >point is that the Cambridge and Oxford Learners' Dictionaries would not
> >have an audience in the US.
>
> Well, there are some EFL/ESL students (either studying English at
> school or on their own) who happened to have started their education
> in a country where Oxford or Longman dictionaries are more prevalent
> than Merriam-Websters, so they can have a bit of brand loyalty, if you

But if they insist on maintaining British pronunciations (and
vocabulary) in an American ESL school, they will sound very peculiar
indeed.

> wish. Or they may just prefer IPA to the weird transcription system
> used in many Websters. (IPA apparently is commonly used in any kind of
> dictionary of foreign-language class in many countries, but not as
> much in the USA).

A nice discussion has been going on about the usefulness (or, mostly,
otherwise) of IPA vs. other phonetic transcription schemes in the SSILA
Newsletter (Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the
Americas). A major focus is IPA's poor treatment of affricates -- its
implicit claim is that there's no such thing, which makes it very hard
to use for American languages like Cree, Kwakiutl, and English.

> I don't recall whether I've seen them in a "brick-and-mortar" store,
> but both barnesandnoble.com and borders.com carry a decent
> selection of books whose tile matches "Oxford Learner's Dictionary".
> (The latter's web site is run by amazon.com though, I think).
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... keys found in English dictionaries, ... OED, isn't IPA. ... American pronunciation spelling in online newspaper articles that ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... found in English dictionaries, which except for the OED, isn't ... (Has IPA been inflicted on the whole family of smaller Oxford ... (I used to see it as an excuse for the parodic accent of American ... The last few years I've even seen American pronunciation ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... found in English dictionaries, which except for the OED, isn't ... (Has IPA been inflicted on the whole family of smaller Oxford ... This bizarre American atavism is getting increasingly common in undertranslated pocket dictionaries and travel guides to exotic places like sher-NAYV or KAHR-law-vee VAH-ree. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: "Pronunciatiopn Plus" (Cambriidge University Press) What alphabet are they using?
    ... American English) and audio materials. ... the symbols used in the most common dictionaries sold here - Oxford. ... the vowel sound in 'cap' as /A:/ not a strange combination of 'a' and ... vowel diacritics that had found favor here well before IPA was ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: cater-corner (how to spell)
    ... three British dictionaries I've consulted identify ... usage, but they all give the first vowel in the word as a ...
    (alt.usage.english)