Which of these six is the best H.P. Lovecraft story?

[Guest 85555]

Come to think of it, "massachusetts" itself is spelled kind of weird. Were either of those "t"s originally voiced?

ALSO, has anyone else found that after reading this conversation for a while everything starts to look like it's spelled weird? Like even words whose spellings make perfect sense?

The ending is pronounced -itz. So the T isn't silent (not sure why it is doubled though)

 

[Clint_L]

English is functionally terrible in the written language being a poor match to the sounds of words. Ideally we'd have one letter per sound and it would be unambiguous how to pronounce something from how it is written. But English is an amalgamation of a bunch of other languages with different incompatible rules sort of jumbled together and overlapping and multiple letters doing more than double duty on sounds. It really bugs me that stuff from other languages get thrown into English with yet more different weird rules and so the spelling without context of those obscure specific rules gives a completely false impression of the spoken word.

This makes English a very subtle written language, meaning not "Sub tull" but "Suddle" where everything is weird.

It doesn't bug me; I love it! English is a big, unwieldy beast and I wouldn't haven't it any other way. Also, many if not most of the weird spellings in English result not from other languages being spelled more or less phonetically but from the evolution of English itself. Spoken English changed drastically between the late medieval and early modern periods as it lost a lot of its more Germanic pronunciations. So most of our silent letters when we spell a word were once pronounced. The classic example is knight/night, which were not originally homophones: knight was pronounced k-nic-h-t (the c-h is a Germanic sound where the two consonant sounds sort of ellide together; they are not exactly full syllables but it is hard to explain; it is distinct from the modern soft ch sound and you know it when you hear it), while night was nic-h-t (oh, and in both the i is pronounced as in "bit").

Edit: and knife was k-niff-eh (unless the subsequent word started with a vowel, in which case the final "eh" became silent).

 

[Guest 85555]

It doesn't bug me; I love it! English is a big, unwieldy beast and I wouldn't haven't it any other way. Also, many if not most of the weird spellings in English result not from other languages being spelled more or less phonetically but from the evolution of English itself. Spoken English changed drastically between the late medieval and early modern periods as it lost a lot of its more Germanic pronunciations. So most of our silent letters when we spell a word were once pronounced. The classic example is knight/night, which were not originally homophones: knight was pronounced k-n-i-c-h-t (the c-h is a Germanic sound where the two consonant sounds sort of ellide together; it is distinct from the modern soft ch sound), while night was n-i-c-h-t (oh, and the i is pronounced as in "bit").

I don’t think it’s a bad thing either. I like this aspect of English. Plus so many regional variations in spelling, dialect, pronunciation. Lots of other languages get this way. I studied Arabic and while it feels more like a complete system than English (in RPG terms it feels more like it has a core mechanic and logic to it than say a mid-80s RPG with lots of subsystems), the letters are not a perfect match (and there are floating rules you need to understand to properly pronounce the letters). A good example is the Sun and Moon letters in Arabic. Sun letters change how you pronounce the “al-“ prefix (the definite article). So The Sun is Al-Shams, but pronounced Ash-shams because the Shin letter is a sun letter. Moon letters keep the “l” in al-. And these can vary by region.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

 

[Clint_L]

So Lovecraft. He's one of those authors where I love the concepts and vibe, despite the writing being terrible by most normal measures: flat characters, nonsensical plots, and prose so purple Violet Beauregarde would be jealous. And of course he was hideously bigoted and misogynist, which comes across in his writing. Yet...basically invents cosmic horror. Not to mention sci-fi/fantasy/horror fandom. So I can't pick a favourite story because I think the stories are all basically bad and I don't want to re-read them, yet I cannot deny the power of his vision and how much I enjoy it in other contexts, and as interpreted by better writers who are sometimes less awful people as well.

 

[Guest 85555]

That is one of the best parodies ever. I love the Rachel Dratch cameo. This is probably the height of pedantry on my part, but I've always been mildly irked by the misuse of wicked at the 2:19 mark (its used to modify other words, but isn't used alone: i.e. "That was a wicked awesome party last night", "My cousin is wicked stupid" or "That display was wicked gross").

 

[Clint_L]

As a West Coaster I want to make fun of Bostonian's overuse of "wicked," except we use "totally" in almost exactly the same way, but even more so. Though generally a modifier, totally can indeed stand on its own. Totally. (Though you couldn't say "that party was totally." That would be confusing.)

I would enjoy reading a version of Lovecraft's stories where the characters speak in modern Bostonian accents. I think that would be wicked awesome!

 

[Bohandas]

Like a lot of American place names it is an American Indian name turned into English.

Endonyms​

The native name is written Massachuseuck (Muhsachuweeseeak) /məhs at͡ʃəw iːs iː ak/—singular Massachusee (Muhsachuweesee).[citation needed] It translates as "at the great hill,"[2] referring to the Great Blue Hill, located in Ponkapoag.

Exonyms​

English settlers adopted the term Massachusett for the name for the people, language, and ultimately as the name of their colony which became the American state of Massachusetts. John Smith first published the term Massachusett in 1616.[2] Narragansett people called the tribe Massachêuck.[2]

That makes it worse. It's a loanword from a language that doesn't use the latin alphabet, so the usual excuse of "that's how it's spelled in [whatever language]" doesn't apply

 

[Bohandas]

So Lovecraft. He's one of those authors where I love the concepts and vibe, despite the writing being terrible by most normal measures: flat characters, nonsensical plots, and prose so purple Violet Beauregarde would be jealous. And of course he was hideously bigoted and misogynist, which comes across in his writing. Yet...basically invents cosmic horror. Not to mention sci-fi/fantasy/horror fandom. So I can't pick a favourite story because I think the stories are all basically bad and I don't want to re-read them, yet I cannot deny the power of his vision and how much I enjoy it in other contexts, and as interpreted by better writers who are sometimes less awful people as well.

He told very good stories very badly, a trait that he shares with Charles Dickens and to a lesser extent J.R.R.Tolkien

 

[Ryujin]

Like a lot of American place names it is an American Indian name turned into English.

Endonyms​

The native name is written Massachuseuck (Muhsachuweeseeak) /məhs at͡ʃəw iːs iː ak/—singular Massachusee (Muhsachuweesee).[citation needed] It translates as "at the great hill,"[2] referring to the Great Blue Hill, located in Ponkapoag.

Exonyms​

English settlers adopted the term Massachusett for the name for the people, language, and ultimately as the name of their colony which became the American state of Massachusetts. John Smith first published the term Massachusett in 1616.[2] Narragansett people called the tribe Massachêuck.[2]

Yes.

English is functionally terrible in the written language being a poor match to the sounds of words. Ideally we'd have one letter per sound and it would be unambiguous how to pronounce something from how it is written. But English is an amalgamation of a bunch of other languages with different incompatible rules sort of jumbled together and overlapping and multiple letters doing more than double duty on sounds. It really bugs me that stuff from other languages get thrown into English with yet more different weird rules and so the spelling without context of those obscure specific rules gives a completely false impression of the spoken word.

This makes English a very subtle written language, meaning not "Sub tull" but "Suddle" where everything is weird.

Frequently misunderstood Native names.