• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Pronunciation: 'Forty-Ann' Or 'Fort-Ian'?

I say ...

  • Forty Ann

    Votes: 4 16.7%
  • Fort Ian

    Votes: 20 83.3%

  • Total voters
    24

_Lizard23_

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 23, 2001
Messages
1,587
Have we done this before?
I've always pronounced it the former, but a good friend of mine always says it the other way.

Which is right / most used?
 
I don't hear a difference. The word breaks down into three syllables, not two parts. Are you asking where the stress goes?

It doesn't matter anyway. "Correct" pronunciation is an illusion, says the air force brat with the Iowa/West Texas/South Texas accent who was once asked if she was from England because she pronounces the "g" at the ends of her gerunds.
 
beakboo said:
Forty-un. :?
Yeah, that's the first one, Beak - I just made it a name for dubious comedy purposes to match the other one. It's probably a schwa really, but I really didn't want to go there heh (see below ;) ).
PeniG said:
I don't hear a difference. The word breaks down into three syllables, not two parts. Are you asking where the stress goes?
Yeah, basically, although that sort of ends up with the letter 'e' part of the word being either IPA (limited notation, unicode adapted :p ) /i/ (like 'i' as in sit)or /i:/ (like the 'ee' in 'see)- I hoped my two supposedly humourous pseudo-phonetic-type name spellings made it as clear as I could without getting too technical or patronising anyone, but it is well tricky to talk about pronunciation, which is what the IPA is for, of course, but I can't remember it properly so I don't really know what I'm talking about and don't expect anyone else would either!

/edit for about the tenth time, heh/ How about a)"I'm forty 'n' I wish I was twelve again" vs "For tea 'n' toast you'll be wanting a nice café"? :D
 
The first one. It annoys me when ppl pronounce it 'fourteen' but I don't know why.
 
FORTY-Un, so the first one's closer.

An the private life of the Gerund. Actually Peni a lot of us Brit's don't sound the "g" in gerunds. Just us what talk proper....
 
I make no statements and have no opinion about how many British people drop their terminal gs; but in West Texas in the 70s, this was seriously given to me, more than once, as the reason why people thought I might be from England. It didn't make any sense to me then, either.

I've tried it out loud several times, and it seems I alternate between putting the primary stress on the first syllable and the secondary stress on the second syllable, and vice versa. The third syllable is consistently unstressed. Inconsistency in the stress placement is probably a result of my aforementioned hybrid accent. The chief hallmark of the West Texas accent is to place the primary emphasis squarely on the first syllable of most multisyllabic words regardless; the result, for me, is that I tend to distrust this emphasis and stress the second syllable. But in this word, the primary meaning is in the first syllable, and stressing the meaningful syllable makes the most sense.

If people understand you when you say it, that's the main thing. It's not a word I say aloud often, anyway.
 
I cop the "Are you American?" ALL THE FRIGGING TIME because I pronounce my Rs and Rs and not As.

Not sure if other accents have that issue, it's an Aussie thing I think.

For example: The word 'monster' is generally pronounced MON-stah.
I say MON-ster. "Mr" is pronounced MISS-tah. I say MISS-ter. It could be the Canuck coming out, or I could just talk proper :D
 
I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but people here in Tulsa ask me all the time where I'm "from" and get mad when I won't "tell them." I've heard guesses ranging from New Jersey and New York to England and Germany.

Anyway, the word should be pronounced "FORTRAN" just like in Comp. Sci. (That joke is fading into history just like the computer language.) Actually, I have glimpsed books with FORTRAN or FOURTEEN in the title and thought, "At last! A copy of Fortean Studies!"

Anyway, I always pronounced the word FOR--tee'--uhn, with descending emphasis. But the important question is, "Is the 'F' capitalized?"
 
amarok2005 said:
...But the important question is, "Is the 'F' capitalized?"
Yes, on the same principle by which which Elizabethan or Dickensian would be capitalised. It doesn't necessarily mean the subject in question is actually the direct product of the person named, but conforms to the spirit of their subject matter.
 
The FT writer's guide, at the back of every Fortean Times, asks you to use a lower-case "f". The idea, I suppose, comes from a proper or trademarked name eventually norming into the language, like "macintosh". Words like "Kleenex" and "Xerox" are well on their way to lower-case words -- nobody I know says "Xerographically reproduce fifty copies of this letter!"
 
a) Shows how much attention I pay

b) I'd disagree on a purely linguistic basis. But, hey hell, it's their mag.
 
Wouldn't a true Fortean hold that it was both and neither pronunciation. At the same time.

I suggest we institute a schism on this topic.

He said not entirely without irony...
 
Well, I'm on the Forty Ann side, which is apparently an unpopular one. But does anyone say Machiavell Ian?
 
Apparently I've been pronouncing IKEA incorrectly.

According to today's Guardian , it should be ee-kay-uh.

In my ignorance, I originally pronounced it eye-kia and, in recent years, switched to ik-ia, neither of which are correct.
 
I read "Fort-Ian" as if it were the name of a computer language. (Limitation of the font: a capital "i" is indistinguishable from small-case "L" and it's only the context that distinguishes them). So it made sense in my head as "FORTLAN".

now I'm wondering what a computer program or language called FORTLAN might actually do. My guess is that it would function absolutely normally for about 95% of the time - and for the remaining 5%, it would throw in things which are randomly odd, strange, non-sequeterial and otherwise inexplicable. It would cause no harm to the computer whatsoever and impede no vital functions. The weird things would be over and done swiftly while leaving no trace they'd ever happened (or better, an ambiguous and barely-there trace) and any attempt to investigate the oddity will be unresolvable.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top