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Is Spelling Important?


Tam & Di

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Discussion about the importance of spelling ability has cropped up yet again. In the boating world it is certainly useful to know the difference between 'boy' and 'buoy' or you could get into terrible difficuties.

 

Tam

 

 

DSCN3581 Buoys.JPG

DSCN3593 Boys.JPG

Edited by Tam & Di
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It's pronunciation that matters. Say "winding hole" like a traditional boater and the punters don't know what you're talking about, say it like a normal person and the boaters glare at you.

I use the modern pronunciation. What I do there is wind my boat round, like turning a key in clockwork. Therefore, that's how it should be said, even if Shakespeare used to say it different.

 

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1 minute ago, Arthur Marshall said:

It's pronunciation that matters. Say "winding hole" like a traditional boater and the punters don't know what you're talking about, say it like a normal person and the boaters glare at you.

I use the modern pronunciation. What I do there is wind my boat round, like turning a key in clockwork. Therefore, that's how it should be said, even if Shakespeare used to say it different.

 

Whenever this comes up I ask, "How do you know how the 'old' boatmen pronounced it?" 

 

There is evidence (eg Shakespeare) that wind as in the air that blows was pronounced w-eye-nd not w-i-nd as now. I have not so far been able to find out when the change occurred - the only likely evidence comes from verse where rhyming is indicated, not that reliable.

 

However, the use of wind to turn a canal boat does seem improbable. OK, if it was blowing the right way it might help but as often as not it would hinder or just be unhelpful. It seems to me much more likely that the original term came from the operation of turning a  boat around. In which case w-eye-nd is more likely to be the 'proper' pronunciation!

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Pronunciation will change from place to place, as it usually does. On the L&LC, if you want to use the traditional local pronunciation, we have whanning holes. The origin is Germanic, coming from the German 'wenden' to turn. Basically, there is no 'correct' pronunciation, you have to specify that you are using the sounds people in a certain locality would pronounce the word.

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1 hour ago, Tam & Di said:

Discussion about the importance of spelling ability has cropped up yet again. In the boating world it is certainly useful to know the difference between 'boy' and 'buoy' or you could get into terrible difficuties.

 

 

 

 

Spelling is important to me, as is grammar, but then I am fortunate to have had a good education. Not everyone is, and not everyone learned English as their first language.

 

Anything in the public domain -- signs, books, news articles, etc. -- should obey the rules of spelling and grammar, but it doesn't make someone a lesser person if they can't, any more than it would make them a lesser person for having a big nose or sticky out ears.

 

 

winding or winding - to wind (rhyming with inn) as a verb means to burp a baby or forcefully eject air from the lungs making it difficult to breathe. To wind (rhyming with wine) means to turn. A narrow-boaty friend says "winding holes" (to rhyme with inn), I think he's talking shite (to rhyme with fight)...

 

Edited by Bacchus
spelling... (c:
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2 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Perhaps @Ray T could ask his tame "old boatman" for the vcorrect pronounciation?

As Pluto says it depends to some extent to the boaters area of operation. Many boaters speak  with various accents in one sentence. 

As boaters mainly learnt by listening, picking up the pronunication of words as  the locals in the towns and villages they passed through.

Mike will say "Oxford" with a lovely drawl and in the next breath say " 'tis ar" with a Black Country accent.

Others: Welluck, Braaaunston, Brummagem.

To turn a boat he will say wind as in fart.?

 

Edited by Ray T
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Of course  it comes from the same root as windlass. English is a gloriously weird language. I read a book review the other day about oddness of phrasal verbs, things like to "get off with or "get on with", which if you take the words separately, are meaningless.

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3 minutes ago, Feeby100 said:

If we understand what people as spelling me included no very well 

dont Come here and move onto another topic instead of criticism 

 

Well, I've now read that five times and I still haven't a clue what point was being made, which must mean something, though admittedly I don't know what. 

The first seven words are fine, quite true it doesn't matter really if things get spelt wrong, half the time its predictive text anyway, but after that it loses me.

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10 minutes ago, Feeby100 said:

If we understand what people as spelling me included no very well 

dont Come here and move onto another topic instead of criticism 

 

What has moved to another topic, this topic is about spelling, and I am a bad speller as well

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Spelling is interesting, but nothing to get excited about. It just used to be the way you spoke  so everybody spelt differently - notoriously, Shakespeare himself spelt his name any old way. It only got standardised with printing and, probably, centralised education. It really doesn't matter, as long as what you write is comprehensible. Anyone who sneers at poor spellers is an eejit. Same as accents. And, of course, timekeeping that only got standardised with the railways. Didn't much matter to the bargees what time it was anywhere except where they were.

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When you talk about spelling as something is spoken, this is wonderfully illustrated around the canal system. A couple off the Staffs and Worcs Canal are Tunstall Water Bridge, which is by Dunstall, and at Wombourne, we have Houndel Bridge which is where Ounsdale Road crosses. There must be many examples over the country.

When one considers the standard of education of boatmen and canal employees, then spelling and pronunciation obviously suffered. I always wonder about helms being corrupted to 'ellums, the same material used for canalboat bottoms.

I think it is sad that our education establishments are dumbing down the importance of spelling and grammar. Apart from the lack of pride in our language, it can only lead to the possibility of misunderstandings due to the vagaries of our tongue.

Edited by Ex Brummie
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3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

It's pronunciation that matters. Say "winding hole" like a traditional boater and the punters don't know what you're talking about, say it like a normal person and the boaters glare at you.

I use the modern pronunciation. What I do there is wind my boat round, like turning a key in clockwork. Therefore, that's how it should be said, even if Shakespeare used to say it different.

 

 

I just say turn the boat around, turning point, etc, then everyone understands - boaters and non-boaters. Language is fluid, it changes over time. If people have issues about how things should be said then that's their problem.

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