Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

angelfromanotherpin · Thu Feb 25, 2016 12:41 am

http://www.ralphmag.org/mothertongue.html

edit: Like a lot of English words which aren't pronounced like they're spelled, it's the result of change over time. The older pronunciation of 'wor-sess-ter' gradually lost the second vowel sound (and slurred the s-sounds together) and became 'wors-ter,' and then lost the r as well. The spelling just never changed to keep up with that pronunciation drift.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 1:00 am

Because the English hate everyone.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 1:20 am

If you told me that English added a few twists to their language specifically to fuck with Germans, I wouldn't roll to disbelieve.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:15 am

Stahlseele wrote:I am german. This means english is not my mother tongue . . but i think i have a pretty firm grip on the language.
And then shit like this crops up:
Worcestersauce is pronounced "wooster sauce"
WHY?
How?
Why the fuck?
How would you get to that pronounciation from that spelling?!
Or the other way around?
Is this like . . this stupid shit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

Not quite, there's actually a bit of obscure history and rare proper name grammar rolled into Worchestershire Sauce

The name is because the company Lea and Perrin's claims that its sauce originated from Worcestershire, in England.

Breaking that down into its phonetic elements we have

Shire: British term for the sort of land division we call a County where I live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire

Wor: Prefix and bastardization of the Weogora tribe name ( http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Worcester )

Cester: from the Latin Castrum, and to quote Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_( ... e_element) )

Names ending in "-cester" are nearly always reduced to "-ster" when spoken, the exception being "Cirencester", which is pronounced in full.[2] The pronunciation of names ending in -chester or -caster is regular.

To be pedantic and more confusing, please note that places which use the variants "-chester" and "-caster" do not omit syllables, as the Beatles came from Manchester and Queen Elizabeth II is from the Lancaster branch of the British Royals. It's only "cester" which gets shortened to "ster"

So it is a sauce that is made in the county where the Romans camp nearest the Weogara tribe of in the seventh century was located. Since the largest settlement in the area is the one from which the county takes its name, and since no other sauces are associated with that area, it's optional to drop the "shire" when referring to the condiment. And then as per an obscure rule of proper naming grammar, the second syllable is omitted for pronunciation.

Thus Worcestershire Sauce can correctly be pronounced as "Wooster Sauce", although I cannot give any historical context for why it's not "Worster Sauce", and am left to assume that's just linguistic drift, possibly due to the British pronunciation of "Worster' sounding a whole lot like "Wooster".

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 3:55 am

Stahlseele wrote:I am german. This means english is not my mother tongue . . but i think i have a pretty firm grip on the language.
And then shit like this crops up:
Worcestersauce is pronounced "wooster sauce"
WHY?
How?
Why the fuck?
How would you get to that pronounciation from that spelling?!
Or the other way around?
Is this like . . this stupid shit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

Because it's an English--as in the old country/territory-- name, and they often have rules that date back to the middle ages and don't crop up anywhere else in the language. Like "ham"--such as in Birmingham, Dunham, or Nottingham--becomes "-um". So they become Birmingum, Dunum, and Nottingum. Shire becomes a sort of "-sherr". Cester becomes 'ster", so Worcester sauce becomes, yes, Woostersherr or Worstersherr. And then you add in the ridiculous amount of accents and dialects England manages to pack into an area the side of a middle-sized US State.

So if you told me someone authentically English pronounced "Worcester Sauce" as "wowst sow" or "wowbagger the infinitely prolonged" I could believe it.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:12 am

I've never heard it called wooster sauce. I've heard woostersher, though.

Tom Scott on spelling, including ghoti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Q1cM7_ai4

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:41 am

Maj wrote:I've never heard it called wooster sauce. I've heard woostersher, though.

Tom Scott on spelling, including ghoti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Q1cM7_ai4

Well, around here, we do indeed buy Worcestershire sauce, instead of Worcester Sauce.

So it would have the -sher there.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 9:50 am

Ok, thank you all.
That was very informative!

vagrant · Post by **vagrant** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:43 am

I've always called it Wor-shes-tuh-shir sauce. Never heard it called wooster sauce.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:46 am

The Chaos (Poem on English Pronounciation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfRSvTSY0d4

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 12:56 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote: Not quite, there's actually a bit of obscure history and rare proper name grammar rolled into Worchestershire Sauce

This is how I've always heard it pronounced. Of course, without looking at a bottle, I'd be completely unable to tell you how to spell it.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 3:00 pm

Is there any place I can find eng subs of Digimon Frontier and Savers? Crunchyroll only has the hell-forsaken dubs.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Feb 25, 2016 4:12 pm

Stahlseele wrote:I am german. This means english is not my mother tongue . . but i think i have a pretty firm grip on the language.
And then shit like this crops up:
Worcestersauce is pronounced "wooster sauce"
WHY?
How?
Why the fuck?
How would you get to that pronounciation from that spelling?!
Or the other way around?
Is this like . . this stupid shit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

I always pronounced it woo-chest-sire sausce. But I'm American, not British.

Anyway, Worchestershire sauce comes from Worchestershire, which is a real place (strange, I know). Worchester is derived from the Latin Wor castra, castra meaning "camp" and which basically signifies that the Romans had a camp at a place call Wor. A thousand years of linguistic evolution, including an invasion by people who spoke french, did a number on local pronunciation and spelling conventions.

But in the end, it's just easier to say. It's especially easier to say, quickly. If you say Worchester three times fast, you're going to end up with Wooster or something similar. So why the fuck not?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:06 am

So, on space marines in WH40K, what's the deal with the scrolls attached to the armor with wax seals?

As seen on the costume above.

I feel like I've seen them in D&D art too, but I'm not sure where, and I'm just wondering what they're called and if there's actually anything like them in history.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:22 am

Purity seals!

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:42 am

Huh, interesting. It seems that similar things were used in medieval christianity, but I have no clue how widely, what they were called, or much of anything else.

Thanks.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:49 am

Additionally, I always drew a parallel between them and the sutras you'll see Shinto/Buddhist priests slap on evil things (undead, haunted buildings, kami/oni) in anime and manga.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 5:09 am

In 40k, the scrolls are sometimes also records/commendations for badassery. I think the purity seals might be the actual wax things used to stick them on something. Holy wax, or something.

It's a pretty good rule in Warhammer that the more bling someone has, the more badass they are.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 7:39 pm

In-universe, they tend to be various prayers or oaths; devastators might wear prayers of accuracy, assault marines might wear prayers of strength. They're a combination of battle honor and source of divine aid, and like all things in the Imperium related to divine aid they work to an ambiguous extent that is probably mostly but not exclusively psychological.

And while I can't say how much the exact form was used historically, writing prayers on armor or weapons was reasonably common.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:04 pm

Yeah, when I was looking around for real world similar things, TV Tropes pointed out that Ofudas and other asian culture paper talismans and amulets are pretty similar.

I was thinking about doing up embroidered patches that look like wax seals and selling them with streamers of canvas or linen made to look like that sort of thing. Sell 'em on etsy sort of thing.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:41 pm

Yeah, why not?
Give it a go.
Cozy Marines.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Feb 29, 2016 7:59 am

Anyone else get irrationally pissed off when you say something and someone replies with "Uh-huh"? You care so little about what I'm saying is that you're making a repetitive gutteral noise rather than engaging me in any way. I have multiple people in my life that will literally chant it and drown me out when I'm talking. Dudes, I'm not retarded, I know you don't give a shit about what I'm telling you. Just tell me to stop talking.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:26 am

I've also found that when you tell people that you'll stop talking if they don't want to hear it they either get pissed or stop doing it and tell me to continue. I don't know if they wanted to hear what I had to say or they are trying to save face after I put them on the spot. I'm not sure it matters.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:36 am

In my experience, it's usually trying to save face.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:27 pm

Yeah, almost certainly save face.

People have weird issues with various social contracts, and they like having passive-aggressive ways around them. They hate being called out on it, and will either get defensive or lie about their motivations. It's like this fucked up game we're wired to play.