Wednesday 21 November 2012

100 k pageviews

My blog has exceeded 100,000 pageviews. Its first entry dates back to the 4th of September, 2010. People from 175 countries have visited this blog. At present the blog contains 322 entries.
Most viewers had a look at the entries for professional, i.e. phonetic, reasons (at least that's what I believe).
My sincerest thanks to all of you, particularly to those who cared to write a comment.


In case you don't fancy being kissed by my smiley, simply ignore it.

Monday 12 November 2012

double idioms (5) or: she brightened my day


During the first weeks of a new semester I ask my phonetics students (aka young professionals) to come and see me for a diagnostic pron test. This morning a young lady came to see me and I had her read my list of words, phrases and sentences. One of the latter is a double idiom:

He has a finger in every pie.

1. Where would you normally place the main stress  - on finger, every or pie?
2. In case you don't know or are insecure - which general purpose, monolingual English dictionary would you consult?
3. How did my guinea pig pronounce the sentence?

The answers will be put online in a jiffy.

PS: Sorry for my extended silence, but I had (and still have) a lot of things to do which were/are of first priority.

Here are the answers:

credit: OUP
1.He has a finger in every 'pie. The main stress is on pie unless you explicitly want to put the focus on a different word.
2. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
3. /hi hæz ə fɪŋə ʔɪn evərɪ piː/

You probably understand why she brightened my day, don't you?