The most common pronunciation of "would" in "I would like to"

If we're being very precise, or formal, or really want to stress it, it would be "wood"/

BUT while English makes something like 99.5% of its plurals simply by adding "s", you use "fora", the more obscure plural of "forum", rather than the obvious logical and consistant and first form "forums".

Listen to some actual conversations, David.

David, now there's a perfect example of inconsistency.

You decline to use spellings that are common

and that people read with no trouble that derive from past pronunciations of words or foreign derivation, in favor of spellings that people have to pause and decode and are consequently irritating and impede communication, BUT while English makes something like 99.5% of its plurals simply by adding "s", you use "fora",

the more obscure plural of "forum", rather than the obvious logical and consistant and first form "forums".
Language use is not supposed to be a continuous exercise in annoyance. Yours is.

BUT while English makes something like 99.5% of its plurals simply by adding "s", you use "fora", the more obscure plural of "forum", rather than the obvious logical and consistant and first form "forums".

Examples like 'fora' are pedantry,

Note the conspicuous flaw in your reasoning: forum is NOT an "English" word.
Therefore, English usages do not apply.

Note the conspicuous flaw in your reasoning: forum is NOT an "English" word.
Therefore, English usages do not apply.

Yes, 'forum' is an English word.

It's pronounced according to the sounds of English - you couldn't pronounce Latin words properly if you tried.

The description in etymonline.com show that you are mistaken, as would most dictionary entries.
Notice the word 'from', Dave.
That tells the language it came from, not what language presently uses it.

forum mid-15c., "place of assembly in ancient Rome," from L. forum "marketplace, open space, public place,"

There are numerous new meanings that have come from ex-Latin words,
including 'Latin' that never existed as meanings in the original language.

As Latin is a dead language, 'forum' can't be Latin.

You spout the word 'logic' a great deal, Om, but you all too often do not employ it. This is a classic example.

Really?? I thawt that the Forum Romanum was situate
between the Capitoline and the Palatine Hills.

I can pronounce "forum". Lots of people can.

The dead language is full of words, of which ONE is: FORUM, whose plural was and is: fora.

Logic is logic, Dave. If you were actually following/applying some manner of real logic,
it wouldn't have taken you this much time to reply to the other issues that have arisen in this thread.

MontereyJack wrote:
Listen to some actual conversations, David. David replied:
Yeah, as if I have not.

conversation between David and me:

Quote:

MontereyJack wrote:
Listen to some actual conversations, David. David replied:
Yeah, as if I have not.

No, David, you haven't, You haven't listened to the actual phonetics in the conversation, you haven't heard the sounds people ACTUALLY use. your brain parses it into words whose forms are conditioned by your reading knowledge, among other things. If people aren't stressing it the word comes out not "wood" but "wuhd"--the "uh" to be taken as a schwa.

Native speakers are notorious for not being able to see and grasp what goes on in their language, David,
and you are no different.

As I recall, correct me if I'm wrong but you recently said that you don't go for the old prescription about split infinitives
and your reason was that that described Latin but not English.

Native speakers are notorious for not being able to see and grasp what goes on in their language, David, and you are no different.

I am skeptical of your allegation, JTT.

So these are the "language mavens." Their foibles can be blamed on two blind spots. One is a gross underestimation of the linguistic wherewithal of the common person. I am not saying that everything that comes out of a person's mouth or pen is perfectly rule-governed (remember Dan Quayle). But the language mavens would have a much better chance of not embarrassing themselves if they saved the verdict of linguistic incompetence as a last resort, rather than jumping to it as a first conclusion. The other blind spot is their complete ignorance of the modern science of language -- and I don't mean just the often-forbidding technicalities of Chomskyan theory, but basic knowledge of what kinds of constructions and idioms are found in English, and how people use them and pronounce them.


http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

but when we use alien words we r speaking that language, however briefly.
Accordingly we shoud use those words as thay exist, by the rules of those words.

Native speakers are notorious for not being able to see and grasp what goes on
in their language, David, and you are no different.

I am skeptical of your allegation, JTT.

That doesn't change the veracity of the statement.

The Longman Grammar of Written and Spoken English,
the premier corpus study of the English language,
takes great pains to point this out.

I see this all the time in the field of ESL/EFL. Teachers who were very ignorant of,
not only how language works, but how it is actually used on a day to day basis.

So these are the "language mavens." Their foibles can be blamed on two blind spots. One is a gross underestimation of the linguistic wherewithal of the common person. I am not saying that everything that comes out of a person's mouth or pen is perfectly rule-governed (remember Dan Quayle). But the language mavens would have a much better chance of not embarrassing themselves if they saved the verdict of linguistic incompetence as a last resort, rather than jumping to it as a first conclusion. The other blind spot is their complete ignorance of the modern science of language -- and I don't mean just the often-forbidding technicalities of Chomskyan theory, but basic knowledge of what kinds of constructions and idioms are found in English, and how people use them and pronounce them.


http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

but when we use alien words we r speaking that language, however briefly.
Accordingly we shoud use those words as thay exist, by the rules of those words.

You think that by repeating something ignorant

you can change it into something factual.

It doesn't work that way, Dave.

You idea is nonsense because you only follow this "rule"
for words that you happen to have learned.

As I have mentioned, there are thousands of words that have come from other languages
where you naturally inflect the plurals according to the rules of English, ie. you add an 's'.

Please tell me the rules for forming Japanese plurals, for Yoruba plurals, for Korean plurals, for ... plurals.

Also, tell me all the words that have come from other languages and from which language each word comes

so that I'll know that you are following the correct rules relating to plurals.

As I also said, if you think you are pronouncing these words as they said in the language
they came from, you are sadly mistaken.

JTT wrote:
You idea is nonsense because you only follow this "rule"
for words that you happen to have "learned".

Is that a non-sequitur, J ?
If I apply a rule only to words that I know
and I ignore words that I have never heard nor seen,
does that corrupt the logic of my application of that rule
to the words that I DO know??

JTT wrote:
As I have mentioned, there are thousands of words that have come from other languages where you naturally inflect the plurals according to the rules of English, ie. you add an 's'.

Offhand, I have no memory of ever having done that, J.
Do u have something specific in mind ?

You idea is nonsense because you only follow this "rule"
for words that you happen to have "learned".

Is that a non-sequitur, J ?
If I apply a rule only to words that I know
and I ignore words that I have never heard nor seen,
does that corrupt the logic of my application of that rule
to the words that I DO know??

Probably just devious behavior on your part.

What you "learned", I should have added quotes in my original to you, is specious nonsense.

As I have mentioned, there are thousands of words that have come from other languages
where you naturally inflect the plurals according to the rules of English, ie. you add an 's'.

Offhand, I have no memory of ever having done that, J.
Do u have something specific in mind ?

Of course you don't because you haven't had someone
specifically pound it into your head that such and such "should be the plural for X".

bronco, burro, burrito, cafeteria, chaps, coyote, corral, tsunami, shogun, vodka,
commissar, Bolshevik, beluga, apricot, artichoke, ... .