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Exactly. That was my thought #1, phonetically rough=ruf. Thought #2: I'd love to see the study repeated in my native German, which is nearly phonetic and has a
by zwieback 15y ago
Exactly. That was my thought #1, phonetically rough=ruf. Thought #2: I'd love to see the study repeated in my native German, which is nearly phonetic and has a different way of constructing words. My wife's favorite (she's American): Glove = Handschuh, a shoe for your hands.
Flipping through and English-German dictionary you'll find a lot of specific English nouns that have longer compound nouns in German.
- grandalf 15y agoThe rough <-> ruf example is a great one. One would have to argue that the "ough" spelling conveyed additional meaning in both written and spoken forms in order to support the hypothesis of the researchers, or else such examples are such a small subset of words studied that they are insignificant to the larger hypothesis. I am somewhat aware of thinking about the etymology of word when using them. For example, whenever I use the word conspire I picture two people breathing together. Perhaps if I didn't picture this I'd just use the word "plot" instead in such cases.