This comment isn't specifically about the current edition. On some other page, which I canโt find again at the moment, you speak of our tendency as native speakers of English to go all hypercorrect when explaining pronunciation to speakers of other languages. The example given was clothes /klouรฐz/ vs /klouz/. So anyway I thought you might be amused by this illustrative verse from the very obscure โSongs of the Pogoโ, 1956. In the song _Whither the Starling and Whither the Crow_, Walt Kelly wrote the following: โthe weaverโs wet daughter has dampened the clothes / with wavelets of water left over from snowthesโ.
Another interesting aspect of "Songs of the Pogo", which is readily accessible on YouTube, is the singer's conservative pronunciation of _whither_ and _whence_ with /ส/ or even /hw/: /สษชรฐษ/, /สษns/ โ which (/สษชtส/๐) is still a feature of my own idiolect and of that of the entire nation of Ireland !
>bought a cat in the bag (een kat in de zak kopen)
We do have "bought a pig in a poke", but I suspect that a lot of people don't know that "poke" here is an archaic word for a bag (related: "pocket"). In any event, "pig in a poke" might not be that common anymore, dunno.
re: porcupine. I like our tendency to name unfamiliar animals with more familiar names. As you note, "pig" is one of those kinds of ur-animals, at least for naming purposes. In German (and Old English), as you know, a porpoise is a Meerschwein. Plus we have aardvark (Dutch), hyena (Greek "hys" for "pig"), guinea pig, hedgehog, and and groundhog. If a new animal is big, it's a type of horse; if it's small, it's a kind of pig. :)
To an American English speaker, your translations are understandable but obviously British. To Yanks "interpretation" and "translation" are subtly different. In American, translation is replacing words whereas interpretation might be explaining the translation. Just different enough to sound a bit odd if not confusing. Nitpicking perhaps.
This comment isn't specifically about the current edition. On some other page, which I canโt find again at the moment, you speak of our tendency as native speakers of English to go all hypercorrect when explaining pronunciation to speakers of other languages. The example given was clothes /klouรฐz/ vs /klouz/. So anyway I thought you might be amused by this illustrative verse from the very obscure โSongs of the Pogoโ, 1956. In the song _Whither the Starling and Whither the Crow_, Walt Kelly wrote the following: โthe weaverโs wet daughter has dampened the clothes / with wavelets of water left over from snowthesโ.
Love it, Paul, thanks! I also can't remember when I mentioned it in the newsletter, but I have a little article about it here: https://englishandthedutch.com/language-usage/clothes-rhymes-with-nose/
Another interesting aspect of "Songs of the Pogo", which is readily accessible on YouTube, is the singer's conservative pronunciation of _whither_ and _whence_ with /ส/ or even /hw/: /สษชรฐษ/, /สษns/ โ which (/สษชtส/๐) is still a feature of my own idiolect and of that of the entire nation of Ireland !
>bought a cat in the bag (een kat in de zak kopen)
We do have "bought a pig in a poke", but I suspect that a lot of people don't know that "poke" here is an archaic word for a bag (related: "pocket"). In any event, "pig in a poke" might not be that common anymore, dunno.
re: porcupine. I like our tendency to name unfamiliar animals with more familiar names. As you note, "pig" is one of those kinds of ur-animals, at least for naming purposes. In German (and Old English), as you know, a porpoise is a Meerschwein. Plus we have aardvark (Dutch), hyena (Greek "hys" for "pig"), guinea pig, hedgehog, and and groundhog. If a new animal is big, it's a type of horse; if it's small, it's a kind of pig. :)
To an American English speaker, your translations are understandable but obviously British. To Yanks "interpretation" and "translation" are subtly different. In American, translation is replacing words whereas interpretation might be explaining the translation. Just different enough to sound a bit odd if not confusing. Nitpicking perhaps.