Gaugler – u06a2

In Freeman and Freeman Ch 5. complete the following application questions. Post your answers to the blog.

a.              #3 (minimum 10 words)

·      brothel – comes from Old English meaning of a word to describe something ruined or degenerate.  First used in 14^th century literature.

·      Cute – originally clipped form of ‘acute’ to mean quick or sharp-witted in 18^th century. Has become American slang for something adorable or attractive.

·      Picnic – derived from French pique-nique meaning a potluck meal. 

·      Soccer – did not originate in American English, is abbreviation for Association of Football formed in London mid-19^th century.

·      Taps – modern word for bugle call, term comes from lights out ceremony where drumbeats would be tapped after playing of bugle.  Predates the Civil War.

·      Texas- much like many western states word has Spanish origins from Mexican territory.  Means friends or allies.

·      Widow – old English word has many romance language cognates because of Latin root word vidua meaning to divide. 

·      OK- came from abbreviation of a misspelling in Boston newspapers of all correct (oll korrect), has been accepted into other languages

·      Bimbo – derived from Itailian word baby: bambino. 

·      Chili – Mexican-Spanish word for red pepper.  Has nothing to do with country of Chile in South America

b.              #4 (5 words per category)

Phonetic Demand	Semantic Demand	Etymological Demand
kit	Table/ tablet	Filet (French)
spat	Strategy/strategic	Futon (Japanese)
pit	Glossary/gloss	Gorilla (Greek)
mat	Penalty/penalize	Smorgasbord (Swedish)
lewd	Basket/bassinet	Moccasin (Native American)

And choose either #7, #8, or #9 (you will need enough examples to elicit strong patterns. Be sure to cite your sources.)

8.   hedge                                    garage

      bridge                                    charge

      budge                                    strange

      edge                                       rouge

The biggest difference is the existence or absence of the silent letter D.  Looking at the words that I was able to think of ending with these spellings it appears that a rule with vowels could be possible.  Perhaps the vowels E, I and U before the sound requires the usage of the silent D.  However, the letter U precedes the consonant combination on both sides of the list.  Because the letter U appears on both lists it does not appear that there can be one blanket rule for it's usage.  

Assignment (u04a2)

5.  There are two district allophonic variations  of the phoneme /p/ in English.  By contrasting the pronunciation of the two words spot and pot we will see the difference.  In the word pot you feel a definite explosion of air on your hand as the phoneme escapes your mouth.  However, when the word spot is pronounced, the puff of air is no longer there.  In the word pot the /p/ is aspirated, in the word spot it is non-aspirated. In Spanish, /p/ is also not aspirated.  I work very hard with the pronunciation of this with my students.  They will often hold paper to the mouths and practice saying words with /p/ and getting their paper to stay still for the correct pronunciation in Spanish.  It could be a challenge for a Spanish speaker to create the explosion of the /p/ in the word pot since they don't make that variation of sound in Spanish.

6.  When speaking with my cousin Danielle, I always notice a few things about her speech that are peculiar to my Pennsylvanian ears.  Danielle is from Michigan and uses words like pop instead of soda and adds a subtle  /k/ sound to the end of many words ending in -ing.  These are just two example of the differences in our speech.  In regard to the different dialects of English and the training that exists to reduce dialect, I would hope that we can appreciate the dropped /r/ of Ha(r)va(r)d, and be willing to take our time as we listen to the Southern drawl.  Dialects make us all unique and is not a quality that should be lost.  I do know that the New England regional dialect is often perceived as being the most trans-dialectal and most desirable in business and in education. Any language has dialects, and an English learner would hopefully be able to understand just as there might be a difference regionally with their language in vocabulary and pronunciation that the same differences exist throughout American English.  These differences certainly also exist in the comparison of American to British to Australian English as well.

Minimal Pairs Activity

Minimal Pair Race

1.  Students are handed a series of cards with words on them (one word per card)
2.  Teacher reads word aloud (not a word from any of the student cards) Teacher directs students to find minimal pair in their note cards
3. Students read their words silently to find minimal pair and then race to write their chosen word on the board.  First student to write the word correctly on the board earns one point for being first and a second point for writing correct word.
4. After all students have written a word on the board, teacher does "boardwalk" reviewing all words placed on board and has class pronounce all the words as teacher directs - teacher awards point to each correct word after class agrees that it is minimal pair.  In event of word error, students will work together to figure out why it is not a correct minimal pair.
5. Game continues with new teacher words, repeating steps 2-4 until all target pairings have been established.  


Objective is not to just find one word but multiple pairs of word that was read.  Organizationally, students could be given different color markers or sections of board to write on to allow for easy tracking of participation and to award points.