waifs and strays

Re: waifs and strays


Never strive for this joint pronnunciation thing, many ESL students try because they see it as a sign of fluency. Thing is, it should be a natural evolution or it'll sound forced.

But since you are asking:

"waifs n' strays"

It's not particular to those words, it's just the way "and" is frequently abbreviated in speech.

Like: "this n' that"



Basically what they are saying (correctly or not) is that men liked the assertive nature of the women.

Hi Craven de Kere,

N' there should be pronounced as "en", that is, "d" in the and could be neglected. Right?

What I got from "Men were scared into loving them" is "Men were too afraid to loving them" -- that is, men dare not loving them." Right?

Well, it's hard to convey pronnunciation in writing but I think you got it.



Nope. "Scared into VERB" means "made to VERB because of fear".

E.g.

"He was scared into thinking he was going to die."

"I was scared into accepting the contract by the two big guys with clubs."

Hmm... in "I was scared into accepting the contract by the two big guys with clubs" , actually "I" was forced into accepting the contract. But, if a man be forced into loving a waman, the love will be unnatural and easy to be broken. So I could not understand what the writer meant.

But no doubt you are correct.

Thanks Craven.

Yeah, it's intentionally illogical. And it means to imply that those love-stricken men were inherently illogical when it comes to that aspect of love and lust.

Oristar A said:
"N' there should be pronounced as "en", that is"

I would disagree with this.

Do you mean you would pronounce it like the "en" in "hen"? If so that is wrong - for what it is worth - you would certainly be understood though.

The "n" sound in waifs n strays is pronounced like this:

Think of the vowel sounds at the end of "runner", "killer" and "driver" - the "e" sound in "en" is pronounced in the same way. The thing is, it is a vowel sound that lots of English speakers do not know they make!

When I used to have to transcribe English into the phonetical alphabet, during my honours English studies, most of my fellow students could never hear what was actually SAID in such examples - they would transcribe the "e" sound in such words as "driver" as though it was the same as the "er" in "her book".

The vowel sound in "the" is the same.

Ask people to transcribe into phonetics the normal "the " vowel sound, they will write the "the" sound in "The dog" as "thee dog". It is the same "e" sound as the e sound in driver. It IS a "thee" sound in "the" only before a vowel - as in "thee end".

English is weird!

And I have probably just confused you.

Craven , love is an ailment, some scientists say.

Hi dlowan,

I think I could understand most of the meanings you made in your reply. Yes, I am a bit confused by you. I will read it carefully later.

LOL
ask for clarification where you will
I don't know as I would still get it!

Hi dlowan,

The standard pronunciation of "and" in "waifs and strays" is the same of "en" in "different". The e here sounds as the same as in "driver", which is different to the pronunciation of e in her. As you have indicated.

But people seem used to pronounce "and" as "n" (the same as en in hen), because they write "waifs and strays" as "waifs n' strays". I guess that might be an informal pronunciation?

Yes, the in infront of vowel sounds different to the in front of a word the starts with consonant.

Those ladies were never hurting for companionship. Much of it had to do with the fact that they knew how to tell men where to go. .

The 'it' in 'much of it' is 'never hurting for companionship' - ie, never lacking companionship. I wouldn't assume from this that there was any fear involved - I would assume that the men involved were attracted to assertive women because (unlike with many women) the men feel they will always know where they stand with a woman who is in the habit of showing how she really feels.