Occupational Forensics

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Since it's not "Loughburgh" that seems pretty straightforward.

I've heard "loogabarooga" attempted - and apparently so have others. Presumably there's a false friend in there somewhere for native Australian place names...

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Australians have particular fun with the pronunciation of Loughborough...

That feels like it should be pronounced "Low-burrow". Am I anywhere near correct?

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I'd try "luff-burra"

Possibly even "luff-BURRA".

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Possibly even "luff-BURRA".

That is how the locals pronounce it - I went to university there.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Possibly even "luff-BURRA".

That's what I guessed, even though there's 81 possible permutations for how it might be said.

Now I'm wondering what Australians The Colonel has been talking to and where they're from if they try "loogabarooga."

My guess it's tongue-in-cheek, like how we might say "champagne" as "cham-pag-nee".

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Now I'm wondering what Australians The Colonel has been talking to and where they're from if they try "loogabarooga."

My guess it's tongue-in-cheek, like how we might say "champagne" as "cham-pag-nee".

The locals in Loughborough have quite a few silly pronunciations. "Loogabarooga" is one, as is "Lowbrow."

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

That's what I guessed, even though there's 81 possible permutations for how it might be said.

Now I'm wondering what Australians The Colonel has been talking to and where they're from if they try "loogabarooga."

My guess it's tongue-in-cheek, like how we might say "champagne" as "cham-pag-nee".

...it is always possible that they had heard the rumor and were, in fact, having a laugh.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Technically, only verbs have conjugations. Nouns have declensions in the classical languages, but I don't think even that word applies for English nouns, which don't have case endings. On the other hand, Wikipedia refers to "declined for gender" and "declined for number" as alternatives to "declined for case," so maybe the broader use is valid.

The texts I've taught from use "declension" for nouns and pronouns.

And we decline some words for gender (sometimes more than just male/female, too), most for number (indefinite by adding s, sometimes root substitution), some for age (root substitution and/or unique adjectives).

Horses have 4 declensions in place, one being the plural-by-s.
Males by age: foal, yearling, colt, {stallion, gelding, rig or proud}
Females by age: foal, yearling, filly, {mare, dam}
by size: miniature horse, pony, (by gender and age for normal sized)

Most don't know all the terms (I had to look several of those up), but horsefolk generally know them and use them. Many people are unaware that a pony is not a young horse, but a breed-descriptor noted for specific small stature breeds.

Oh, and rig and proud refer to males who are "unmasculine"... rigs can be undescended testes, or can be incompletely castrated; prouds can be incompletely castrated or intentionally only given a vasectomy. THe largest perpetrator of rigging/proud-cutting horses is the US DoF&W.... rigs still act like stallions, and will gain a group of mares... but won't make any of them dams! Essentially, each proudcut gelding takes 4-5 mares out of the breeding pool, reducing the number of feral horses born.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

The texts I've taught from use "declension" for nouns and pronouns.

And we decline some words for gender (sometimes more than just male/female, too), most for number (indefinite by adding s, sometimes root substitution), some for age (root substitution and/or unique adjectives).

Horses have 4 declensions in place, one being the plural-by-s.
Males by age: foal, yearling, colt, {stallion, gelding, rig or proud}
Females by age: foal, yearling, filly, {mare, dam}
by size: miniature horse, pony, (by gender and age for normal sized)

Your texts are using the word in a way that is quite contrary to how it was used by classical grammarians. In ancient Greek, for example, aner is the nominative or subject case and singular number of the word for "man" (= male human being) and has a variety of other forms for the genitive, dative, accuastive, and vocative cases and the plural number of each case (for example the genitive singular is andros, from which we get "android"). It's in the masculine gender. Gyne is the nominative singular of the word for "woman," which also has a full set of other cases and numbers, starting with gynaikos as the genitive singular; and it's in the feminine gender. But it's not considered to be part of the declension of aner; it's considered to be a different word—in fact, Wiktionary calls it the antonym of aner.

A declension includes only "the same word" in different forms (in Greek usually with different endings, though the stem may also mutate, as with aner/andros) that represent different grammatical properties; it does not include different words that refer to different sets of entities. For example, it does not include sex, which is a biological property of (many) organisms. Ancient Greek does not have natural gender; genders are grammatical properties of words that need not be based on biological traits. (For example, anthropos/anthropou, "human being of either sex," is in the masculine gender, even though it can be used just as well to refer to a woman as to a man.)

In point of fact, Greek does not have different forms of nouns for different genders; each noun has one and only one gender, marked ultimately by the form of the word for "the" that's used with it: ho aner, he gyne, to theron ("the beast," which is neuter). On the other hand, adjectives do have form for all three genders, and are declined for gender as well as case and number: ho aner kakos, "the man is bad," but he gyne kake, and to theron kakon. That's one of the main things that distinguishes adjectives from nouns.

I won't say that your texts are wrong; their terminology may be standard in whatever field they're written for. But the terminology seems not to be consistent with the usage of the classical grammarians, or with the practice of lexicographers (who would class he, him, and his as different forms of the third person masculine singular pronoun, but she, her, and hers as different forms of the third person singular feminine pronoun, a different word); and I don't think it's used that way in the comparative linguistics I've read.

[Luke Bunyip]

In addition to the physiological and linguistic tells, how about behavioural patterns pertaining to class or industry? I know that there's been discussion of cigarettes upthread, but what other obvious ones are there?