The Hendry Comeback

lhpirnie wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:If you knew Xu Si, like I knew Xu SI
Oh! Oh! Oh! What a guy
There's none so classy
As this fair laddie

You mean him?

Yes. He's a darling!

Xu Si and The Banshees

KrazeeEyezKilla wrote:Xu Si and The Banshees

Xu Si Sarandon

LDS wrote:I'm sorry, but this is really insulting.

You seem to be missing the point that regardless of how his name is pronounced, the English pronunciation of the written words Xu Si is Zoo See.

So the correct English dialect pronunciation of his name is Zoo See.

The fact that how his name is pronounced in his own dialect is different to how the English would pronounce the written version of his name is irrelevant.

If he wanted the absolute precise pronunciation of his name, or something vaguely close, then he shouldn't have chosen the words he did - or whoever chose them, the written letters should have been something closer to what English people can understand as more alliterative.

One assumes that at some point Chinese names get anglicised. There's little point anglicising the letters and then objecting when the pronunciation is not anglicised as well.

Either the name is being anglicised or it's not. It's rather absurd to just provide random letters that appear to be anglicised and then moan when the actual pronunciation is so far off-base that it quite clearly isn't an anglicised in the first place.

Either spell the name as it's closest pronunciation during conversion or accept that the spelling provided will be pronounced in accordance with the English dialect.

If I'm talking to an oriental person and they say Mycow, I don't immediately interrupt them and say "No, you ignorant fool, you should say Michael", because I understand the person is just speaking in a dialect. And if Mycow lived in China mostly surrounded by Chinese people, I feel sure he wouldn't mind at all being called Mycow by everyone.

no. it's romanised using a standard system called hanyu pinyin, this has defined rules for what the initials are, under which x is not a /z/ sound.

english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

i would hope that if someone asked you how to pronounce your name you would politely explain.

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:I'm sorry, but this is really insulting.

You seem to be missing the point that regardless of how his name is pronounced, the English pronunciation of the written words Xu Si is Zoo See.

So the correct English dialect pronunciation of his name is Zoo See.

The fact that how his name is pronounced in his own dialect is different to how the English would pronounce the written version of his name is irrelevant.

If he wanted the absolute precise pronunciation of his name, or something vaguely close, then he shouldn't have chosen the words he did - or whoever chose them, the written letters should have been something closer to what English people can understand as more alliterative.

One assumes that at some point Chinese names get anglicised. There's little point anglicising the letters and then objecting when the pronunciation is not anglicised as well.

Either the name is being anglicised or it's not. It's rather absurd to just provide random letters that appear to be anglicised and then moan when the actual pronunciation is so far off-base that it quite clearly isn't an anglicised in the first place.

Either spell the name as it's closest pronunciation during conversion or accept that the spelling provided will be pronounced in accordance with the English dialect.

If I'm talking to an oriental person and they say Mycow, I don't immediately interrupt them and say "No, you ignorant fool, you should say Michael", because I understand the person is just speaking in a dialect. And if Mycow lived in China mostly surrounded by Chinese people, I feel sure he wouldn't mind at all being called Mycow by everyone.

no. it's romanised using a standard system called hanyu pinyin, this has defined rules for what the initials are, under which x is not a /z/ sound.

english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

i would hope that if someone asked you how to pronounce your name you would politely explain.

No-one has ever asked me how to pronounce my name. I've never challenged someone about their pronunciation.

Well I suggest they change their standard system, because it clearly doesn't work for anglicisation. And asking English people to convert to Roman in order to pronounce Chinese written names is a rather silly workaround.

Words that start with an X are pronounced with a Z sound. Sorry about that.

If someone asked how to pronounce my name and somebody else answered with a pronunciation that was wrong and not particularly close, I would correct that person and possibly find their incorrect pronunciation amusing.

It’s ‘Ell, Dee, Ess’ I presume.

Iranu wrote:If someone asked how to pronounce my name and somebody else answered with a pronunciation that was wrong and not particularly close, I would correct that person and possibly find their incorrect pronunciation amusing.

Stop being so rational Iranu

Oh, I bet 'e 'ad lotsa nicknames at skool...

SnookerFan wrote:Whilst we're on the subject, wouldn't it be spelled "scandalised" in the UK?

The -IZE suffix is actually the older, "truer" version, as it is derived from the earlier Greek, where most of these words have their root. In English, it dates back to around the 15th century. The -ISE suffix is from the French and is much newer, with the first English usage around the mid-18th century. When the first English settlers went to America in the 17th century, -IZE was the only variant in use and has persisted since then, which is why Americans use -IZE.

This is in general, of course, there are exceptions (advise, surprise, chastise, despise, exercise, etc.) but these are words that didn't exist in Greek and came directly from the French.

Oxford still use -IZE in their dictionaries, while noting that both spellings are correct; if you look up the word in an Oxford dictionary it will appear as "scandalize (also scandalise)".

Prop wrote:It’s ‘Ell, Dee, Ess’ I presume.

I guess?

LDS wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:I'm sorry, but this is really insulting.

You seem to be missing the point that regardless of how his name is pronounced, the English pronunciation of the written words Xu Si is Zoo See.

So the correct English dialect pronunciation of his name is Zoo See.

The fact that how his name is pronounced in his own dialect is different to how the English would pronounce the written version of his name is irrelevant.

If he wanted the absolute precise pronunciation of his name, or something vaguely close, then he shouldn't have chosen the words he did - or whoever chose them, the written letters should have been something closer to what English people can understand as more alliterative.

One assumes that at some point Chinese names get anglicised. There's little point anglicising the letters and then objecting when the pronunciation is not anglicised as well.

Either the name is being anglicised or it's not. It's rather absurd to just provide random letters that appear to be anglicised and then moan when the actual pronunciation is so far off-base that it quite clearly isn't an anglicised in the first place.

Either spell the name as it's closest pronunciation during conversion or accept that the spelling provided will be pronounced in accordance with the English dialect.

If I'm talking to an oriental person and they say Mycow, I don't immediately interrupt them and say "No, you ignorant fool, you should say Michael", because I understand the person is just speaking in a dialect. And if Mycow lived in China mostly surrounded by Chinese people, I feel sure he wouldn't mind at all being called Mycow by everyone.

no. it's romanised using a standard system called hanyu pinyin, this has defined rules for what the initials are, under which x is not a /z/ sound.

english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

i would hope that if someone asked you how to pronounce your name you would politely explain.

No-one has ever asked me how to pronounce my name. I've never challenged someone about their pronunciation.

Well I suggest they change their standard system, because it clearly doesn't work for anglicisation. And asking English people to convert to Roman in order to pronounce Chinese written names is a rather silly workaround.

Words that start with an X are pronounced with a Z sound. Sorry about that.

given english uses the roman (latin) alphabet, i'm not sure what you would prefer it be converted to!? cyrillc maybe.

the system is designed for multiple languages using roman script and works well enough.

and no as i've pointed out, not necessarily. it's most common since most english words staring x are greek dervied, but that is not universal.

James Bentley wrote:

SnookerFan wrote:Whilst we're on the subject, wouldn't it be spelled "scandalised" in the UK?

The -IZE suffix is actually the older, "truer" version, as it is derived from the earlier Greek, where most of these words have their root. In English, it dates back to around the 15th century. The -ISE suffix is from the French and is much newer, with the first English usage around the mid-18th century. When the first English settlers went to America in the 17th century, -IZE was the only variant in use and has persisted since then, which is why Americans use -IZE.

This is in general, of course, there are exceptions (advise, surprise, chastise, despise, exercise, etc.) but these are words that didn't exist in Greek and came directly from the French.

Oxford still use -IZE in their dictionaries, while noting that both spellings are correct; if you look up the word in an Oxford dictionary it will appear as "scandalize (also scandalise)".

A lot of old English is still prevalent in the American language, such as Drapes for Curtains - the old word being a draper: a retailer or wholesaler of cloth. Likewise pants instead of trousers, pants deriving from the french for trousers, pantaloons. Modern english only has pants mean underpants.

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:I'm sorry, but this is really insulting.

You seem to be missing the point that regardless of how his name is pronounced, the English pronunciation of the written words Xu Si is Zoo See.

So the correct English dialect pronunciation of his name is Zoo See.

The fact that how his name is pronounced in his own dialect is different to how the English would pronounce the written version of his name is irrelevant.

If he wanted the absolute precise pronunciation of his name, or something vaguely close, then he shouldn't have chosen the words he did - or whoever chose them, the written letters should have been something closer to what English people can understand as more alliterative.

One assumes that at some point Chinese names get anglicised. There's little point anglicising the letters and then objecting when the pronunciation is not anglicised as well.

Either the name is being anglicised or it's not. It's rather absurd to just provide random letters that appear to be anglicised and then moan when the actual pronunciation is so far off-base that it quite clearly isn't an anglicised in the first place.

Either spell the name as it's closest pronunciation during conversion or accept that the spelling provided will be pronounced in accordance with the English dialect.

If I'm talking to an oriental person and they say Mycow, I don't immediately interrupt them and say "No, you ignorant fool, you should say Michael", because I understand the person is just speaking in a dialect. And if Mycow lived in China mostly surrounded by Chinese people, I feel sure he wouldn't mind at all being called Mycow by everyone.

no. it's romanised using a standard system called hanyu pinyin, this has defined rules for what the initials are, under which x is not a /z/ sound.

english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

i would hope that if someone asked you how to pronounce your name you would politely explain.

No-one has ever asked me how to pronounce my name. I've never challenged someone about their pronunciation.

Well I suggest they change their standard system, because it clearly doesn't work for anglicisation. And asking English people to convert to Roman in order to pronounce Chinese written names is a rather silly workaround.

Words that start with an X are pronounced with a Z sound. Sorry about that.

given english uses the roman (latin) alphabet, i'm not sure what you would prefer it be converted to!? cyrillc maybe.

the system is designed for multiple languages using roman script and works well enough.

and no as i've pointed out, not necessarily. it's most common since most english words staring x are greek dervied, but that is not universal.

Well it quite clearly doesn't work well enough. You may prefer it, but that doesn't mean its preferable.

I think the preference would be whatever works best for the country the person is going to be choosing to spend most of their time in.

In the old days, settlers would convert their name to fit their surroundings, not convert their surroundings to fit their name.

It seems to be a very recent thing to have people 'make an issue' out of things like the pronunciation of names. It ties in with a lot of aspects of modern society where the fear of second hand offence is greater than the reality of daily life from a common-sense point of view.

The paradox is seen quite clearly here, exposed if you will. Like, for example, 20 years ago there was a huge drive to ensure organisations like the BBC were inclusive of all dialects and not biased in their employment of only Estuary English speakers.

As a result, we have all kinds of accents saying all kinds of words in all kinds of interesting ways on the BBC now. Nobody cares. (Well, except enraged, from Tunbridge Wells).

But at the very same time the BBC also has to promote the notion that everyone's name has to be perfectly pronounced. Because morons.

So you have highly accented people doing verbal gymnastics trying to maintain their own dialect while at the same time trying to pronounce words that have so little relation to their dialect they are effectively being told to learn and speak a completely different language.

If you think that's an ideal way to manage society, then I'd say you deserve the chaos...

James Bentley wrote:

SnookerFan wrote:Whilst we're on the subject, wouldn't it be spelled "scandalised" in the UK?

The -IZE suffix is actually the older, "truer" version, as it is derived from the earlier Greek, where most of these words have their root. In English, it dates back to around the 15th century. The -ISE suffix is from the French and is much newer, with the first English usage around the mid-18th century. When the first English settlers went to America in the 17th century, -IZE was the only variant in use and has persisted since then, which is why Americans use -IZE.

This is in general, of course, there are exceptions (advise, surprise, chastise, despise, exercise, etc.) but these are words that didn't exist in Greek and came directly from the French.

Oxford still use -IZE in their dictionaries, while noting that both spellings are correct; if you look up the word in an Oxford dictionary it will appear as "scandalize (also scandalise)".

Put that in your pipe, Iranu

Dan-cat wrote:

James Bentley wrote:

SnookerFan wrote:Whilst we're on the subject, wouldn't it be spelled "scandalised" in the UK?

The -IZE suffix is actually the older, "truer" version, as it is derived from the earlier Greek, where most of these words have their root. In English, it dates back to around the 15th century. The -ISE suffix is from the French and is much newer, with the first English usage around the mid-18th century. When the first English settlers went to America in the 17th century, -IZE was the only variant in use and has persisted since then, which is why Americans use -IZE.

This is in general, of course, there are exceptions (advise, surprise, chastise, despise, exercise, etc.) but these are words that didn't exist in Greek and came directly from the French.

Oxford still use -IZE in their dictionaries, while noting that both spellings are correct; if you look up the word in an Oxford dictionary it will appear as "scandalize (also scandalise)".

Put that in your pipe, Iranu

CONFIRMITIZED

THE SPELLING REVOLUTION MAKE'S IRANU SCANDALIZED

LDS wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

LDS wrote:I'm sorry, but this is really insulting.

You seem to be missing the point that regardless of how his name is pronounced, the English pronunciation of the written words Xu Si is Zoo See.

So the correct English dialect pronunciation of his name is Zoo See.

The fact that how his name is pronounced in his own dialect is different to how the English would pronounce the written version of his name is irrelevant.

If he wanted the absolute precise pronunciation of his name, or something vaguely close, then he shouldn't have chosen the words he did - or whoever chose them, the written letters should have been something closer to what English people can understand as more alliterative.

One assumes that at some point Chinese names get anglicised. There's little point anglicising the letters and then objecting when the pronunciation is not anglicised as well.

Either the name is being anglicised or it's not. It's rather absurd to just provide random letters that appear to be anglicised and then moan when the actual pronunciation is so far off-base that it quite clearly isn't an anglicised in the first place.

Either spell the name as it's closest pronunciation during conversion or accept that the spelling provided will be pronounced in accordance with the English dialect.

If I'm talking to an oriental person and they say Mycow, I don't immediately interrupt them and say "No, you ignorant fool, you should say Michael", because I understand the person is just speaking in a dialect. And if Mycow lived in China mostly surrounded by Chinese people, I feel sure he wouldn't mind at all being called Mycow by everyone.

no. it's romanised using a standard system called hanyu pinyin, this has defined rules for what the initials are, under which x is not a /z/ sound.

english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

i would hope that if someone asked you how to pronounce your name you would politely explain.

No-one has ever asked me how to pronounce my name. I've never challenged someone about their pronunciation.

Well I suggest they change their standard system, because it clearly doesn't work for anglicisation. And asking English people to convert to Roman in order to pronounce Chinese written names is a rather silly workaround.

Words that start with an X are pronounced with a Z sound. Sorry about that.

given english uses the roman (latin) alphabet, i'm not sure what you would prefer it be converted to!? cyrillc maybe.

the system is designed for multiple languages using roman script and works well enough.

and no as i've pointed out, not necessarily. it's most common since most english words staring x are greek dervied, but that is not universal.

Well it quite clearly doesn't work well enough. You may prefer it, but that doesn't mean its preferable.

I think the preference would be whatever works best for the country the person is going to be choosing to spend most of their time in.

In the old days, settlers would convert their name to fit their surroundings, not convert their surroundings to fit their name.

It seems to be a very recent thing to have people 'make an issue' out of things like the pronunciation of names. It ties in with a lot of aspects of modern society where the fear of second hand offence is greater than the reality of daily life from a common-sense point of view.

The paradox is seen quite clearly here, exposed if you will. Like, for example, 20 years ago there was a huge drive to ensure organisations like the BBC were inclusive of all dialects and not biased in their employment of only Estuary English speakers.

As a result, we have all kinds of accents saying all kinds of words in all kinds of interesting ways on the BBC now. Nobody cares. (Well, except enraged, from Tunbridge Wells).

But at the very same time the BBC also has to promote the notion that everyone's name has to be perfectly pronounced. Because morons.

So you have highly accented people doing verbal gymnastics trying to maintain their own dialect while at the same time trying to pronounce words that have so little relation to their dialect they are effectively being told to learn and speak a completely different language.

If you think that's an ideal way to manage society, then I'd say you deserve the chaos...

i have no preference beyond it being commonly accepted and well defined. it's been used internionally and successfully by millions of people for decades. but no, we should throw it out because some dilettante on a snooker forum doesn't like it!

Remember everyone, foreign people should name their children based on what they think is easily pronounced in English.

Haha. LDS; the dilettante's dilettante.

Dan-cat wrote:THE SPELLING REVOLUTION MAKE'S IRANU SCANDALIZED

As does this!

HappyCamper wrote:i have no preference beyond it being commonly accepted and well defined. it's been used internionally and successfully by millions of people for decades. but no, we should throw it out because some dilettante on a snooker forum doesn't like it!

Ah yes, we've entered the disingenuous stage of the debate. You have no preference but you're going to invest your time saying how great a system it is. You're going to imply millions of people internationally is in any way relevant to people in the UK. You're going to imply I'm the only one who has ever had issue with it. All of which is unreplyable nonsense.

If we're employing someone with a Liverpudlian accent because we should be inclusive of people with Liverpudlian accents, then I want everything they say to be in a Liverpudlian accent.

Not Liverpudlian/Urdu/Liverpudlian/Bengalese/Liverpudlian/Mongolian/Liverpudlian/Dutch/Liverpudlian just because they're trying to commentate on a football match.

It not only sounds absurd, it's extremely disruptive and just puts another brick in the wall to a random Joe having a career in commentary.

Oh, they said Dayvid instead of Da Vid did they? Woo, such controversy...

SnookerFan wrote:Remember everyone, foreign people should name their children based on what they think is easily pronounced in English.

No. That would be absurd. They should name their kids what would be easily pronounceable in their locality. Unless you think differently?

Iranu wrote:

Dan-cat wrote:THE SPELLING REVOLUTION MAKE'S IRANU SCANDALIZED

As does this!

Hahaha I hate bad apostrophization too

LDS wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:i have no preference beyond it being commonly accepted and well defined. it's been used internionally and successfully by millions of people for decades. but no, we should throw it out because some dilettante on a snooker forum doesn't like it!

Ah yes, we've entered the disingenuous stage of the debate. You have no preference but you're going to invest your time saying how great a system it is. You're going to imply millions of people internationally is in any way relevant to people in the UK. You're going to imply I'm the only one who has ever had issue with it. All of which is unreplyable nonsense.

If we're employing someone with a Liverpudlian accent because we should be inclusive of people with Liverpudlian accents, then I want everything they say to be in a Liverpudlian accent.

Not Liverpudlian/Urdu/Liverpudlian/Bengalese/Liverpudlian/Mongolian/Liverpudlian/Dutch/Liverpudlian just because they're trying to commentate on a football match.

It not only sounds absurd, it's extremely disruptive and just puts another brick in the wall to a random Joe having a career in commentary.

Oh, they said Dayvid instead of Da Vid did they? Woo, such controversy...

i haven't been in the slightest bit disingenuous.

it is a good and proven system, which is how it became established and widely used. it is well defined and easy to understand. there is benefit to the standardization and widespread use. these are the main benefits. other systems had been used and since abandoned, i don't care about them as they are not widely used; outside of taiwan maybe, some old textbooks, or a few curiosities like 'peking duck' or 'tsingtao beer'. if they were still used or i had a choice i might prefer them. but having multiple competing systems would be obviously silly.

uk people do make up part of the millions internationally who have and used and benefited from the system. uk people also interact and communicate with other international chinese speakers. so yes, it is very relevant.

i never implied that you were the only person who had any issue it. that would be silly, by it's nature it will involve compromise that won't satisfy everyone. i implied that your objections are facile and based on a shallow at best understanding of the subject.

buck knows what the rest of your rant about liverpool or whatever has to do with the price of beans.

Yes, I'm sure you have buck all interest in the regional vagaries of English. That's not at all the whole point of what we're discussing

I can only repeat, it quite obviously doesn't work, even as a compromise, if the words Xu Si are not in any way close to being pronounced Zoo See.

And you are free to repeat "well hey, that's just the way it is", but that doesn't help the fact that those letters arranged like that do not help people pronounce the guy's name as intended.

In an ideal world we'd all speak everyone else's languages perfectly, but since that's impractical, to say the least, I really don't think learning a compromise language as a means to translate the written name of someone is greatly helping the situation. Especially when that middle language bares virtually no relation to anglicised pronunciation.

It might have been useful once upon a time as a means to translate texts, something specifically academic in nature, but for practical use for Orientals in the company of the populous of other nations? It appears not.

Or we wouldn't be having this conversation...

HappyCamper wrote:english pronunciations are driven by the root of the words, though correct for greek derived words like xylophone, people wouldn't use the /z/ for x in spanish or basque like xerez or xabi alonso (eg).

Just going back to this briefly, you sent me on a very interesting journey.

If you type Xu Si's name, as written in Chinese, into a google translate for ANY European country, it comes back Xu Si. However, and this is where it gets really good:

If you type it into Chinese to Greek, it comes back as Xu = Zou (with Zhou as optional, ring any bells?).

If you then type Zou or Zhou in the Greek to English translator you get = Zu.

And, yes, the Greek do pronounce the Zed as Zee.

Dan-cat wrote:If you knew Xu Si, like I knew Xu SI
Oh! Oh! Oh! What a guy
There's none so classy
As this fair laddie

But that doesn’t work does it? We know that for a fact now

Get with the pronunciation or get gan Dan man

LDS wrote:Yes, I'm sure you have buck all interest in the regional vagaries of English. That's not at all the whole point of what we're discussing

i don't know why you'd think that. another bizarre aside. i am interested in different languages and regional variations. yesterday i even listened to a podcast about friulano spoken in north east of italy

I can only repeat, it quite obviously doesn't work, even as a compromise, if the words Xu Si are not in any way close to being pronounced Zoo See.

you can repeat it but it is still wrong. there is no reason to assume 'zoo see' as the only possible pronunciation. just because your first guess was wrong does not invalidate the system. why would si not be 'sigh' like a diminutive form of simon, rhyming with sci-fi.

given combinations of letters in english don't generally have a singular pronunciation. i can think of at least three equally valid ways of saying the common english name niall, -ough is a minefield and so on. to know one looks at the context, usage, derivation etc of the words.

And you are free to repeat "well hey, that's just the way it is", but that doesn't help the fact that those letters arranged like that do not help people pronounce the guy's name as intended.

i have already expanded on the point that it an established system that demonstrably does help, and is used as standard in teaching mandarin as a second language. it's more 'that's the way it is, if it ain't broke...'.
the x has no precise equivalent in english, but it's pretty close to how x would be in some iberian languages, hence probably why it was chosen. this quite accessible to most native english speakers. is it perfect, maybe not. there likely can't be a perfect solution.

In an ideal world we'd all speak everyone else's languages perfectly, but since that's impractical, to say the least, I really don't think learning a compromise language as a means to translate the written name of someone is greatly helping the situation. Especially when that middle language bares virtually no relation to anglicised pronunciation.

there is no middle or compromise language. you learn the transliteration (note not translation - that is something different). so you know how to interpret chinese characters. there are no phoneme represented in 徐思. (afaik).

It might have been useful once upon a time as a means to translate texts, something specifically academic in nature, but for practical use for Orientals in the company of the populous of other nations? It appears not.

again it is actually useful today, not just for learning pronunciation, but inputting chinese on a qwerty computer keyboard etc.

Or we wouldn't be having this conversation...

you can't just be incredibly dense and obstinate then claim to be right as 'otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation' when people point out how you're wrong.

Careful. I just saw LDS oiling up in another thread.