From: trixiefirecat	Date: August 31st, 2007 08:52 pm (UTC)		(link)

if you need additional help, watch some star trek next generation and look for the green man.

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:12 pm (UTC)		(link)

Oh Jesus, the day I start referencing Star Trek to back up my assertions is the day I truly have to admit what a dork I am. For once. Because nothing I have ever said before would indicate that. Ha.

	From: aslant	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:00 pm (UTC)		(link)

why only women?

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:09 pm (UTC)		(link)

I was just about to footnote that. It's not only women or only young people or only ... well, it is only North Americans ... but that is like the triple-crossover most-likely demographic for saying "datta."

This PSA is driven by the super annoying, elaborate form of upspeak employed by a panelist on the last session I was held hostage at. Her speech pattern made the pronunciation especially egregious to my ears.

	From: bing_crosby	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:34 pm (UTC)		(link)

I disagree with your demographic (deemo graphic?) having spent a lot of time with horrid market research people, mostly thick white dudes in bad suits. But I agree with the gist.

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:53 pm (UTC)		(link)

Don't try to apply my Latin-graft rules to Greek-root words!

Anyone in a bad suit is not to be trusted. (I forgot to add another qualifier: I think social science types err more than hard science or IT people.)

	From: macrame_owl	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:01 pm (UTC)		(link)

this was fun :)

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:10 pm (UTC)		(link)

I feel like a jerk for posting it.

A righteous jerk, mind you ;)

	From: redwill	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:25 pm (UTC)		(link)

um... therefore ''homicide'' is pronounced approximately as though it were 'home aside'? I've always thought that 'homicide' meant housekilling, anyway. :D

	From: trixiefirecat	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:53 pm (UTC)		(link)
	disqualified

three syllables

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:58 pm (UTC)		(link)

And "homicide" is an English word. I'm just talking about Latin words that have been adopted without alteration. I thought of more! Labor, donor, ego, apex, opus, favor.

	From: redwill	Date: September 1st, 2007 01:16 am (UTC)		(link)

I think you'll find that the root, ''homo'', not only is Latin in origin [in terms of how it became part of the English language], but is listed in your first post as an example of your pronunciation rule. But that is neither here nor there since homicide is not a two-syllable word, as rightfully pointed out above. :) And it wasn't meant seriously, anyway, as you no doubt know.

My friend, I read that you have been less than healthy. Sorry to hear about that. Hope you're going to be better and to stay that way long-term.

Lance

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 03:53 am (UTC)		(link)

Oh, I'm fine. It's just a minor hoof problem that doesn't exactly lend itself to traipsing about Chicago. Thank you, though.

Post more!

	From: redwill	Date: September 1st, 2007 05:01 am (UTC)		(link)

Done! Another self-indulgent bathing in musical words of surreality.

	From: redwill	Date: September 1st, 2007 05:02 am (UTC)		(link)

Get the hell out of Chicago before the winter starts.

	From: stevepollock	Date: August 31st, 2007 09:56 pm (UTC)		(link)

After twenty-one years of hearing people pronounce my name as if it were spelled Polock, I have half a mind to send you a fruit basket for this entry.

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 12:00 am (UTC)		(link)

I remember you had a rant of your own about this. Fools. It's simple common sense people! Holy, holly.

	From: ohmeohmy	Date: August 31st, 2007 10:02 pm (UTC)		(link)

i always say data (like the guy, sorry) and wonder if i am wrong because people say datta!!! good.

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 12:05 am (UTC)		(link)

People who say "datta" are always wrong, and yet they are often the type who put on the sort of air that they couldn't possibly be. Or not, I don't know, I just remember someone telling me that he'd heard a woman make fun of the (indisputably correct) pronunciation as "common" or "trashy" or something. OH HOW I WISH I'D BEEN THERE.

	From: bird	Date: August 31st, 2007 10:49 pm (UTC)		(link)

leave it to you to bring "penis" into this.

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 12:08 am (UTC)		(link)

I can't help but bring it, yo!

	From: bird	Date: September 2nd, 2007 10:12 am (UTC)		(link)

you've bested me again, you nefarious trickster!

i am shaking my fist at you. in my head.

	From: hazel_rah	Date: August 31st, 2007 10:57 pm (UTC)		(link)

Dr. Pulaski called him Commander Datta! He asked her not to though.

	From: macrame_owl	Date: September 1st, 2007 12:06 am (UTC)		(link)

haha i love this footnote!

	From: hollowuvula	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:07 pm (UTC)		(link)

But, vide 'massa'.

	From: hollowuvula	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:07 pm (UTC)		(link)

Oh, snap, first syllable ends in a consonant. Nvm.

	From: hazel_rah	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:44 pm (UTC)		(link)

Also, if you use the "datta" pronunciation, your syllables will be /d@t'&/ instead of /deI't&/, which is perfectly normal English syllabification.

	From: scythrop	Date: August 31st, 2007 11:49 pm (UTC)		(link)

Whenever I have a sleep-deprivation/adrenaline induced rant about language, your reasoned approval (if given! you're no pushover) is sweet, sweet heroin.

	From: hazel_rah	Date: September 1st, 2007 04:00 am (UTC)		(link)

My initial response was to see how many songs I could turn up with "data" in the lyrics and see how things shook out...

All the songs I can think of with "data" in the lyrics pronounce it datta, but most of them have relevant circumstances... Peter Schilling in "Major Tom" goes with "datta" but he's German, and German for "data" is "daten" to which datta is much closer soundwise (even more interesting is how in the German lyrics the word "daten" turns up, but not in the same place). The Space Lady, from San Francisco, also goes with datta in her cover of Major Tom but she could just be respecting Peter Schilling. In "Frontwards" by Pavement you have the lyric "I hear the natives fussin' at the data chart" again with the datta pronunciation, but he's rhyming off the previous line "And the stories you hear, you know they never add up" so clearly he's going for the assonance.

Ah wait... the mission control guys in the background at the beginning of "Hello Earth" use your favored pronunciation! But they're saying TACAN wrong! It should be TAY-CAN! Just kidding.

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 04:06 am (UTC)		(link)
	Roger that.

Columbia now at nine times the speed of sound!

	From: hazel_rah	Date: September 1st, 2007 08:25 am (UTC)		(link)
	Re: Roger that.

I've always been curious about that little snippet, because the pilot says "Columbia now nine times the speed of sound" and the response is "Roger that Dan..."

The only shuttle flight prior to the release of Hounds of Love with a pilot named Dan was STS-8, and the shuttle was the Challenger! What gives?

	From: sorenlundi	Date: September 1st, 2007 03:02 am (UTC)		(link)

Wait, I thought 'datta' was the British pronounciation? I'm pretty sure that's what they say on Doctor Who. Or are you just saying North Americans shouldn't use it?

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 04:03 am (UTC)		(link)

OK, I really need hazel_rah's intervention here, because Doctor Who + linguistics...

But the British are responsible for turning Latin pater (pah-TEHR) into PAY-tur, so I plead ignorance. But my advisor is British and has always said DAY-ta.

	From: chiffonade	Date: September 1st, 2007 08:34 am (UTC)		(link)

Haha, this is funny because I recently said "datta" at work -- I don't know why, it just came out that way -- and felt like an idiot for the rest of the day.

	From: scythrop	Date: September 1st, 2007 02:04 pm (UTC)		(link)

Egads! And you admit this??

No, I can remember being confused about the pronunciation myself at one point due to the proliferation of "datta"-sayers, and I'm sure I've said both in the past, which is why I made an effort to figure it out for reals.

	From: chiffonade	Date: September 1st, 2007 08:22 pm (UTC)		(link)

Nooo! I am not confused! For some reason it just came out incorrectly one time. :)

	From: mesopotamia	Date: September 4th, 2007 06:21 am (UTC)		(link)

I am very confused, and it reminds me of the time I sent a Jewish friend a text message asking how to pronounce a particular holiday just before I went on air and being confused by his response "pronounce like shaft" - but is that American like shaaaft or British like sharft? So what is this "datta" - do I say day-ta or datta (like matter, I assume) or do I say dar-tar (which is how I have always pronounced).

Also. This is the first time I have looked at LJ in many moons and I am glad to see that you are still challenging me (and also alive, hello!).

	From: scythrop	Date: September 6th, 2007 05:09 am (UTC)		(link)

Still alive and it's good you are as well. My prescriptive moment with data seems to have passed, but I definitely share in the frustration/hilariousness of pronunciation guides across English-speaking natgions. Those "extra" r's throw me every time! I remember trying to read a British guide to French ... fugettaboutit.

	From: malgre	Date: September 6th, 2007 10:52 pm (UTC)		(link)
	1001001 SOS

Images conflicting
into datta overload.


(and, because this is too good to be true:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11vlmjvxxdw )

	From: scythrop	Date: September 6th, 2007 11:22 pm (UTC)		(link)
	... _ _ _ ...

Is citing a pronunciation from a Rush song more geeky than referencing Star Trek TNG? I wonder...

What's funny is that just a couple weeks ago I watched at least a dozen Rush clips in a row. Somehow I didn't make it up to 1985 (although that "1001001 SOS/in distress" chorus still gets stuck in my head all the time).

It's too bad Rush didn't have the glamour to go with the geekiness. Binary code might get stuck in the head of someone who listens to it while learning COBOL, but only Kate Bush can sing Pi to 115 places and use waveforms to turn seascapes into birdsong.

	From: malgre	Date: September 7th, 2007 01:43 am (UTC)		(link)
	Re: ... _ _ _ ...

Kate Bush and Rush have another thing in common other than geekiness - singing that can best be described as 'Tolerable for some people, for the rest it is excruciating, eliciting a fingernails-on-chalkboard reaction.'