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   ENGLISH_TUTOR      English Tutoring for Students of the Eng      4,347 messages   

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   Message 3,640 of 4,347   
   Anton Shepelev to Ardith Hinton   
   New Year's Day.   
   11 Mar 21 00:29:41   
   
   MSGID: 2:221/360.0 60494854   
   REPLY: 1:153/716.0 047e7f0e   
   PID: Pineapple/OS2 1.3 20201107   
   TID: GE/2 1.2   
   CHRS: CP437 2   
   TZUTC: 0200   
   Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  Usage  note:   The English language has adopted   
   AH> many words from French .. e.g. "litre", "metre",   
   AH> and  "theatre"...  which USAians prefer to spell   
   AH> with an "-er" ending.  That's not the case here.   
   AH> USAians  make the same distinction between "tim-   
   AH> bre" and "timber" Canadians do in spelling,  but   
   AH> not  necessarily  in pronunciation.  A few years   
   AH> from now, of course, things  may  be  different.   
   AH> :-Q   
   AH>   
   AH>           The  first  pertains to tone colour or   
   AH> sound quality... the acoustical principle  which   
   AH> enables  us to recognize the voices of our near-   
   AH> est & dearest or to distinguish between an  oboe   
   AH> &  a clarinet when we can't see who &/or what is   
   AH> involved, while the second pertains to trees  or   
   AH> to the wood derived therefrom.   
      
   Thanks  for the explanation, Ardith. It was a mental   
   sleep, but you reminded me of this interesting  phe-   
   nomena,  when  the  same  word imported by different   
   routes acquires  different  meanings.  The  original   
   meaning  of  `timbre'  is  of  course  wood, but the   
   pecuiliar warm colouration of the  sound  of  wooden   
   musical  instruments  lent the French spelling a new   
   meaning.   
      
   Casting about for more examples, I looked up  `fric-   
   tion' and `frisson' and learned the name of the phe-   
   nomena -- doublet.   
      
   --- Sylpheed 3.7.0 (GTK+ 2.24.30; i686-pc-mingw32)   
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