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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 1, 2010 4:09:04 GMT
I took "no accent" to mean that Jones speaks English with a neutral accent. A neutral accent would mean she is well understood by English speakers but the people of GC cannot place her speech patterns to any particular region or dialect. Nothing can really be determined from a neutral accent except that Jones has lived in two or more English-speaking areas for long enough to start picking up native habits. [Unless there's magic being used. It is a comic where there is magic and therefore nothing is impossible. Many self-contradictory situations could be perfectly workable.] It doesn't even mean Jones is a native English speaker. In fact I think she is not because I believe her to be Galatea.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2010 4:59:27 GMT
So, remember when Jones mentioned how people's personalities were suited to certain weapons and you can take stock of someone when you hand them one? Here?And Tom drawing Annie with a dagger (I think?) in a sketch somewhere that I cannot find? If Annie's being established as suited to knife, what would that mean?
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Post by Mr Pitchfork on Mar 1, 2010 6:40:09 GMT
A knife is suited as a secondary weapon (Like if you lose your sword, or if your opponent is too close for your bow to be effective), or for people who want to be and are more capable when they are more mobile in combat. The knife is not a weapon of strength, but a weapon of tactic and accuracy. It could be a sign of her intelligence, quick wit, cleverness, etc.
It could also mean that Annie defies Jones' weapon-to-personality rule.
It also could be that the rule still applies even with the defiance of the rule, meaning that Annie can only be judged when she is caught off-guard? IDK, someone else who is less tired and distracted try to go off this idea.
OH, it could also mean that the rule certainly applies and that Coyote knows alot about Annie.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 1, 2010 7:44:21 GMT
If Annie's being established as suited to knife, what would that mean? A knife is a tool as well as a weapon. Surgeons use knives to heal, cooks use knives to prepare food, millions of people use knives as an eating utensil each and every meal. It's not usually the first choice for fighting but it's often a last resort for defense. Use of knives transcends nearly all cultures and classes and their use long predates metalworking technology. That all would seem to fit in with Antimony becoming a medium.
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Post by warrl on Mar 1, 2010 8:39:34 GMT
No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. Think of it as "Accent Neutral." Accent Neutral means someone pronounces and emphasizes words and phrases as the standard dictionary says. It's also called "Region-Free," and many news reporters (at least in the U.S.) strive to talk in a region-free fashion. I prefer to think of it as a variant on "speaking in tongues". Instead of (or perhaps in addition to - has Jones ever spoken to Paz?) every listener hearing his or her own native language, every listener hears his or her own local accent. No matter what language or accent is actually being spoken. Edit: I see that someone already suggested that. Oh well... As for the discussion involving legion over "no accent", legion's point is that from the technical perspective of a person who studies spoken languages, speaking with no accent is simply not possible. Legion is trying to figure out the technically proper way to say what Tom meant (without having any further communication to help him understand what that might be - good luck on that). Of course, Tom isn't advertising himself as an expert on spoken language, so it wouldn't be fair to hold him to the standards of such an expert... and Legion isn't doing that.
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optern
Junior Member
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Post by optern on Mar 1, 2010 8:50:32 GMT
Casey: I was not referring to you; I was referring to legion. Sorry for the confusion.
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Post by sanguine on Mar 1, 2010 9:18:07 GMT
Another think for Annie to keep around her neck. First a stone, now a tooth. GK boys sure are finding odd ways to impress the ladies. I don't think a big jem makes a bad gift for a girl. Not at all. I'm curious now as to what the scientific-side boys would be giving as gifts. I keep imagining things but as soon as I remember the fact that their gifts might be battery powered, my brain turns off. I doubt it could close the ravine again. You can't fill in the Earth by cutting another trench in it, and you usually can't solve problems by doing the same thing that caused them. Though if I were to nitpick, I'd like to point out it was Coyote's paw that split the ravine. Doubt that technicality would matter though, but I though it fine to at least point out. ...magically perceived by all listeners as being in the same accent as their own. Which would make Jones highly magical, but of course that's hardly unprecedented. Or robotic. (The Tardis is scientific, right?)
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Post by Charlotte on Mar 1, 2010 9:26:22 GMT
Just as a piece of information that may or may not have any bearing in this case, it has been my experience that when an Englishman says to an American that someone has no accent, it has more to do with a transpondian rivalry than with how someone speaks, and it can be roughly translated as, "Even though there are more of you than there are of us, we were first, so we're right and it's still spelled "aluminium" and "amongst" is the correct rendering of the preposition, not "among"
The only way to understand what Tom means when he says Jones has no accent is to ask him what he hears when she speaks a word. I am particularly interested in how Jones pronounces "Parley" because the thing about "Parley".is her real name is George, but she goes by Parley, but is it because it is the gender-neutral American accent pronunciation of Parr-Lee or the feminine sounding British accent pronunciation which will come out as "Pah-lee", in other words, "Polly"?
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 1, 2010 9:48:14 GMT
If Jones' speech were magical and every listener perceived her as having literally no accent, I would think that everyone who meets her would mistakenly assume Jones was a native of the same region. Antimony didn't remark on that but I suppose we can't assign much meaning to it. It's very difficult to draw conclusions on linguistics here because 1. it's written 2. it's a fantasy work and 3. the format of a webcomic often stunts dialogue because of space considerations.
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Post by the bandit on Mar 1, 2010 15:40:28 GMT
re: the meaning of the dagger as reflective of Annie's personality I hear it's supposed to be considered a short sword. But I also know from experience that people who don't know much about linguistics and language tend to, very surprisingly, not know what they're talking about when they talk about languages; or sometimes they do know what they're talking about but don't know how to express it in a clear fashion. I'm going to be frank. My degree was in linguistics, and you don't seem to know what you are talking about when you talk about accents. First of all, your claim is more sociological/psychological than linguistical, id est, that people assume "no accent" to mean "accent the same as mine." But, in fact, people consider "no accent" to be just that: standard enough speech that ascertaining locality is impossible. I hail from Texas. Texans have a unique accent -- similar to Southern but distinct. When they hear another Texan, they don't say, "Why, there's a fellow without an accent!" They think, "Why, there's a fellow Texan, because they speak like I do." Which means it's an accent, because it's a localized manner of pronunciation. Furthermore, I hail from San Antonio, TX. San Antonio is unique amongst cities in America with a large population (over a million) in that it is an accentless city. Most cities form their own regionalized accent ... San Antonio did not. Furthermore, its metropolitan nature ground out the Texan accent from our pronunciation. So people from San Antonio speak English without an accent. It's the linguistics professionals who termed San Antonio as an accentless city. But according to your line of thinking, such a statement is impossible, and the linguistics professionals don't understand linguistics as well as you do. It's not your knowledge of linguistics in any case that's causing a dispute here. It's that you're being rigid and semantical.
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Post by legion on Mar 1, 2010 15:50:27 GMT
I'm not being rigid and semantical; on the contrary, I assume "accent" to mean the way one pronounces thing, and therefore not being necessarily tied with geography, but being also possibly a sociological accent, or a "standard" accent, or whatever.
It was indeed a mistake on my part to assume that people always think "the same accent than me" when they say "no accent", though that was at least partially corroborated by my experience; many French people do assume that, even when their accent differs notably from the standard. I think that mistake was however smoothly dissipated in the course of the thread, when it appeared that the sentence "Jones has no accent" was leading to a large variety of possible interpretations, some of which I had admitedly not thought of.
I appologize again if I have caused friction.
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Post by Casey on Mar 1, 2010 16:09:53 GMT
And Tom drawing Annie with a dagger (I think?) in a sketch somewhere that I cannot find? You might be thinking of this image, from the Gunnerkrigg wiki.
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Post by judgedeadd on Mar 1, 2010 16:55:05 GMT
Surgeons use knives to heal Surgeons, you say?... Note that knives can also be used to carve.
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Post by warrl on Mar 1, 2010 16:55:43 GMT
The only way to understand what Tom means when he says Jones has no accent is to ask him what he hears when she speaks a word. I am particularly interested in how Jones pronounces "Parley" because the thing about "Parley".is her real name is George, but she goes by Parley, but is it because it is the gender-neutral American accent pronunciation of Parr-Lee or the feminine sounding British accent pronunciation which will come out as "Pah-lee", in other words, "Polly"? But I think that's a poor basis on which to judge because it's (used as) a person's name. The proper way to pronounce it is the way Parley chooses - which, since we have no evidence that she has any speech impairment (I suspect her parents would agree with that statement!), is probably the way she pronounces it herself. By the way, "Parley" pronounced "par-lay" is an Anglicized spelling of the French "Parler", "to speak".
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Post by warrl on Mar 1, 2010 17:00:36 GMT
Furthermore, I hail from San Antonio, TX. San Antonio is unique amongst cities in America with a large population (over a million) in that it is an accentless city. Most cities form their own regionalized accent ... San Antonio did not. Furthermore, its metropolitan nature ground out the Texan accent from our pronunciation. So people from San Antonio speak English without an accent. It's the linguistics professionals who termed San Antonio as an accentless city. But according to your line of thinking, such a statement is impossible, and the linguistics professionals don't understand linguistics as well as you do. I would take "an accentless city" to mean that there is no accent that is characteristic of the city's residents - not that each individual person in the city has no accent.
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Post by the bandit on Mar 1, 2010 19:11:24 GMT
Yes and yes, and not contradictory to my statement either.
Though, for the record, "Standard Pronunciation" is arbitrary, as someone referring to Received Pronunciation pointed out.
Then I apologize for stirring up something already settled, legion. Though I think you just settled it best, right there.
EDIT: Hey, while we're on the topic of accents, I've always thought it funny that Americans speak English like the Britons did in Shakespeare's time. That's right. If you want to see an authentic pronunciation of Shakespeare, you've got to have it read by an American.
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Post by warrl on Mar 1, 2010 20:17:31 GMT
EDIT: Hey, while we're on the topic of accents, I've always thought it funny that Americans speak English like the Britons did in Shakespeare's time. That's right. If you want to see an authentic pronunciation of Shakespeare, you've got to have it read by an American. SOME Americans. But then, only some Britons of Shakespeare's time spoke with that accent. Perfessor 'Iggins could have done his linguistics work in that era just as well as three centuries later. My understanding (mildly-vague recollection of something I read several years ago) is that the American accent most similar to what was spoken in the immediate vicinity of the Globe theater during Shakespeare's time is the accent of the "ghetto black" subculture, which they sort of inherited from poor rural southern blacks who in turn got it from the lower classes of slave-owners and white foremen - who were immigrants from the lower classes of central England. The British royal court did not speak in that accent.
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Post by wynne on Mar 1, 2010 21:07:37 GMT
Yes and yes, and not contradictory to my statement either. Though, for the record, "Standard Pronunciation" is arbitrary, as someone referring to Received Pronunciation pointed out. Then I apologize for stirring up something already settled, legion. Though I think you just settled it best, right there. EDIT: Hey, while we're on the topic of accents, I've always thought it funny that Americans speak English like the Britons did in Shakespeare's time. That's right. If you want to see an authentic pronunciation of Shakespeare, you've got to have it read by an American. Not trying to fan the dying flames, but since American accents differ, much like British ones, Tom's description of "American" is a little vague. There's nothing wrong with that, but just to settle it, do you suppose we could narrow that down a bit? Personally, I've always thought it to be somewhere between "Native American" (which is probably a vague description of an accent in itself) and "neutral" American, like my relatives in Nebraska speak. I've got no linguistics background whatsoever, so please forgive me if my terminology or understanding is off. On Shakespeare, isn't it supposed to be a southern accent, more specifically? And how on Earth do they even figure that out?!
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Post by evilanagram on Mar 1, 2010 21:50:21 GMT
Just as a piece of information that may or may not have any bearing in this case, it has been my experience that when an Englishman says to an American that someone has no accent, it has more to do with a transpondian rivalry than with how someone speaks, and it can be roughly translated as, "Even though there are more of you than there are of us, we were first, so we're right and it's still spelled "aluminium" and "amongst" is the correct rendering of the preposition, not "among" Pfft. The Brits have a different accent for every square kilometer. Why would we pay attention to what you say is the right pronunciation when you can't even come to a consensus on that one little island?
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Post by the bandit on Mar 1, 2010 22:47:56 GMT
You're recollecting incorrectly, warrl. What happened is that there was a linguistic shift in Britain (resulting in the modern British accent) that occurred after the colonization of America, while the descendants of the American colonists continued speaking (generally) in the style of their forebears.
I can't say as authoritatively, because this is only to my recollection and logic, but the African American dialect (it's not considered just an accent because there are different grammatical rules) is descended from a pidgin of English, not from an accent of the slave owners.
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Post by Charlotte on Mar 1, 2010 23:10:33 GMT
. The Brits have a different accent for every square kilometer. And social class. I'm an American, by the way. That's what "yankeeharp" means -- Irish-American.
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Post by Nakanja on Mar 2, 2010 4:09:00 GMT
Coyote is so amusing. I love the "ding" for some reason.
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Post by King Mir on Mar 2, 2010 7:24:55 GMT
By the way, "Parley" pronounced "par-lay" is an Anglicized spelling of the French "Parler", "to speak". That may be the origin of the spelling, but by the rules of British diction, in ar the r is swallowed, as in car and tar. It's similar to a Boston accent in this respect. Usually people pronounce things how they are spelled, not by their linguistic origins.
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Post by legion on Mar 2, 2010 16:04:55 GMT
By the way, "Parley" pronounced "par-lay" is an Anglicized spelling of the French "Parler", "to speak". That may be the origin of the spelling, but by the rules of British diction, in ar the r is swallowed, as in car and tar. It's similar to a Boston accent in this respect. Usually people pronounce things how they are spelled, not by their linguistic origins. That is true, though it is also true that names are more likely to preserve odd spelling/sound relationships; see for instance how the name "Vaughan" is pronounced.
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Ruushi
Full Member
Touch the onion!!!
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Post by Ruushi on Mar 18, 2010 1:09:08 GMT
I got it all wrong. I just think it's when Coyote is Jolly he has a Spanish Accent. Not sure why I'm thinking about a Spanish Elf...
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