I've mentioned before that there are tons of Australian abbreviations for, well, any word longer than a syllable. Common examples include arvo for afternoon, sunnies for sunglasses and musos for musicians. The thing that gets me, though, is that, because these words are informal, there is no commonly agreed upon spelling for them. Some might argue that, as they are informal, the need for a commonly agreed upon spelling is limited, if not non-existent. However, I have seen such words used, or attempted to have been used, in various public settings (i.e., commercials, er, adverts on TV) and private settings (i.e., emails, where they drive me nuts).
Particular bugbears are any words with the whole "is it an 's' because it's written in the full word as an 's' or is it a 'z' because it's pronounced like a 'z'?" question -- mossies or mozzies for "mosquitoes," for example. Then there's the whole "ie" or "y" issue -- brekkie or brekky (McDonald's uses "brekky" on its commercials)? Or, even worse, combine both issues: pressys or pressies or prezzys or prezzies for "presents"? Then, there's "odd man out" issues: a docko or a doco for a documentary?
For now, I'll just have to make like the French and give up!
Monday, August 23, 2010
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Ah yes, back to the days of Samuel Johnson and his predecessors who, for want of a standardized spelling, required a dictionary to help settle things down.
What is of interest here, is that there are actually rules set down for these sorts of things by now, but when there isn't a standard spelling for a new shortened form - creating a new word really - then people resort to spelling as they hear it. Our English spelling system is actually quite dastardly done. Our phonology (sound system) does not match up with our orthography (writing system). So when people start resorting to spelling as they hear it, they are actually attempting to make the phonology fit the orthography. The trouble is, they also know some of the spelling rules that we use and that muddles up the suggested spellings for new words. This creates the 'ie' or 'y' problem because there are words that take one or the other and people recognize the sound but don't know which spelling to resort to. That is, which rule does it fit under?
The one about [s] and [z] is actually a difference between phonological rules and orthographic standards. These are allomorphs as in the example of [mossies] vs. [mozzies]. You can see the allomorphy more easily in [cats] vs. [dogz]. We voice the sound to a [z] when it comes after a voiced [g], but we unvoice it when it comes after [t]. The sound changes in our pronunciation but we spell them the same. That's technically a simplification of what's going on, but it makes its point about what people know intuitively about sounds versus what they know intuitively about spelling standards.
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