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Sounds Appealing
Sounds Appealing: The Passionate Story of English Pronunciation | David Crystal
12 posts | 1 read
It's not what you say, it's the way that you say it ... There have long been debates about 'correct' pronunciation in the English language, and Britain's most distinguished linguistic expert, David Crystal, is here to set the record straight. Sounds Appealing tells us exactly why, and how, we pronounce words as we do. Pronunciation is integral to communication, and is tailored to meet the demands of the two main forces behind language: intelligibility and identity. Equipping his readers with knowledge of phonetics, linguistics and physiology - with examples ranging from Eliza Doolittle to Winston Churchill - David Crystal explores the origins of regional accents, how they are influenced by class and education, and how their peculiarities have changed over time.
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annamatopoetry
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Finished Sounds Appealing earlier in the week, overall I really liked it and found it the best of Crystal's series about English. Could have gotten a little more agitated against idiots complaining about dialects on the radio, but 🤷‍♀️

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annamatopoetry
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Important questions.

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annamatopoetry
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Book, creamy Earl Grey, lemon poppy cake, and a small sugar cookie, in the sun on the roof. ☀

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annamatopoetry
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After work hours sun-and-tea on the roof with Dr Crystal

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annamatopoetry
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"The articulatory possibilities relating to vertical and horizontal tongue movement are clearly very numerous, and many of the distinctions in regional accents are extremely subtle." such a lovely, dry as fuck, sentence.
I took my book and a cup of tea with me to the roof after I finished work.

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annamatopoetry
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Having a hard time reading in my apartment, but it's warm out and the roof patio is open. I'll need some lumbar support if I'm to spend more time here though.

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annamatopoetry
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Finished Birth of the Kingdom and got back into phonology. Lucas bought coffee and I have finally perfected my sugar cookie recipe.

Buechersuechtling You got me seriously wondering for a few seconds if it‘s tofloor tiles or a table cloth that your book is lying on. Even though “floor tiles” would be cool, I finally go for “table cloth”. 🤦🏽‍♀️😂 4y
annamatopoetry @Buechersuechtling close - it's a table with a tile style pattern on the tabletop itself 🙂 4y
Buechersuechtling @annamatopoetry I love it‼️ I surely can‘t claim to know you (very well), but from the photos you‘re posting I‘d say it fits you and your style perfectly. 😁 4y
7 likes3 comments
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annamatopoetry
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I like this one better than the rest of Crystal's series on the history of English (other than chapter 4, which had both the IPA and the diagram of a human voice box, the two reasons I'll never go into linguistics), although allergies and a very low sun prevented me from reading very much on the roof yesterday.

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annamatopoetry
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Coffee Works has closed but the other nearby coffee shop is open for takeout and I CAN DRINK COFFEE AGAIN, so I bought some on the way home from a walk, sliced up some of the bread I baked this morning, topped it off with unmeatballs, and went to our building's roof terrace to get started on Dr Crystal's book on pronunciation. Surprising no one, brits are as stupid about it as swedes are. I wish everyone would just shut up & listen to the experts.

Buechersuechtling I‘d really be in bad mood if I wasn‘t allowed to drink coffee. It would really take me a while to get used to it. – Your reading place looks lovely. Hope you enjoyed your afternoon. 😁 4y
5 likes1 comment
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annamatopoetry
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A day late #cleaningbookstack. Just things I'm planning on reading over the next few weeks. I work remotely full time, so there actually hasn't been as much dead time as I thought.

Buechersuechtling I know, I am persnickety but please don‘t talk about time as “dead”. Time that I can sit down relaxedly and read some pages to me is leisure-time, it‘s recouping. It just makes me feel sad when you think of free time as dead time. Even though no offence is meant, you may name it however you want. (Additionally, I admit that I might be a bit thin-skinned since my father is severely ill.) 4y
8 likes1 comment
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annamatopoetry
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... And his from me. Excited to read this as well.

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annamatopoetry
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Does anyone know if there's a way of getting your tracking code from Book Depository? #bookdepository