Re: Jimmy, jimmy, jimmy, the honky tonk blues

On 20 Aug, 17:15, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:35:23 -0700: Seán O'Leathlóbhair
<jwlaw...@xxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

I have just returned from a week's holiday (vacation) on the French
Mediterranean. One night in a bar a French guy was playing the guitar
and singing various old songs. His guitar playing was good but his
command of English frequently detracted from my enjoyment. He was
usually comprehensible but it was very obvious that his native
language was French. The most amusing bit was in Honky Tonk Woman.
He pronounced the "g" in "gimme" as /dZ/ rather than /g/ hence it
sounded rather like "Jimmy". I wonder what he thought "gimme" meant
since it would seem unlikely that he knew.

In Modern Portuguese, they pronounce gmail with the g of give and
gimme, not that of gin or espionage. What do English speakers do? I'd
expect "gee mail", and not "ghee mail" because google happens to have
a hard g. Am I right?


Well I say "gee mail" and that is also what I am used to hearing. I
would be very surprised by "Ghee mail" especially from a Portuguese
speaker. It would be less surprising from a speaker whose language
always pronounced "g" as /g/. It could be blind following of simple
spelling rules e.g. "g" is (almost) always /g/ if it is not followed
by "e", "i" or "y". I think that a non-native can be forgiven for not
accurately predicting how to say a name as odd as "GMail".

Another possibility is hyper correction. I remember an Italian
pronouncing "character" with /tS/. I expect that he was being careful
not to treat "c" and "ch" in their Italian way.

"Character" allows me to slip into another amusing less than perfect
command of English story. I was entering the Channel Tunnel once and
although I was still in England, the woman in the ticket booth was
French. She said: "Don't forget your character" as she handed me my
queuing ticket (which shows a large letter) to hang on my rear view
mirror. It amused me to think that she did not want Brits going to
France without any character.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

.

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