Haukur says:
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... You can say we're biased if you want to but it's hard to tell why all of
us should be
biased in the same way. For one thing, Óskar and I are Icelandic while
Konrad is Norwegian-American.
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Alright - you are not understanding the idea of BIAS as I'm using it. I
will make another
attempt because I believe that it is a valuable idea to grasp. To help you
to understand -
I will walk you through a little exchange that some of us were involved with
a little while
ago. It involved the pronunciation of the word skjótøx.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Strawson
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 6/13/2003 3:26 AM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: An answer for Mark Grass

OK, if I follow what's written below, does this mean skjótøx would be
written (very roughly) as "skyohterks" by a native English speaker or
writer?

Regards,

Paul Strawson

sk = [sk] in [sk]ull
j = [y] in [y]ellow
ó = [ow] in [ow]n
for t and x - use what you are accustomed to in daily English speach.
------------------------------------

Here I used Arnold Schwarzenegger's manner of pronouncing 'work' as a means
of getting at
the ø-sound. Ring a bell?

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Notice he said 'a native English speaker or writer'. This is very important
because I am
a native English speaker and writer and am pretty-near fluent. Therefore, I
concluded that
the guy wasn't getting it - so I went on

-----Original Message-----
From: Lewis, Raymond J.
To: 'norse_course@yahoogroups.com'
Sent: 6/13/2003 10:28 AM
Subject: [norse_course] RE:Characters

No - be careful. The representation I gave has to be kept strictly in
context. Arnold Schwarzenegger says "it doesn't w[ue...]rk that way." And
that [ue...] represented the
sound that I'm saying is SOMETHING like the sound associated with the
symbol ø. ...
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Following it up with some brilliant things to say about how he's taking my
EXAMPLE too literally.

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Finally - after further gyrations of logic - the truth comes out:

Paul says:
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Actually, it is possible to pronounce skjótøx as "skyohterks" in most
Australian dialects
and achieve a fair approximation of the 'ø' sound as we don't pronounce the
'r' in words
like "work", "word", "fir" or "furnace". Any other Australian members
willing or able to
confirm this? I'll leave it strictly up to you academics from now on!

Paul
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See there? Paul is a native English speaker - just like me - except - HE'S
FROM AUSTRALIA.
My U.S. BIAS was so strong that I couldn't read between the lines of his
reasoning - a
reasoning which was itself based upon a completely different BIAS.

This reasoning was further expounded by someone else with the same BIAS:

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Heill Paul,

Indeed, that's something I noticed some time ago. I'm not sure if it
works for a British accent, but in Australian "work", "word", "fir" and
"furnace" may as well be spelled "wøk" (or perhaps "wök", although the
disappearance of the r tends to lengthen the vowel, so ø is better than
ö (or should it be oe for the long form?)), "wød", "fø" and "fønace". It
seems the missing r produces the fronting necessary to turn a back
vowel+r into ø.

--
Daniel Bray
dbray@...
School of Studies in Religion A20
University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
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Now - you ON guys have your own BIAS that shows like a gleaming - blue and
violet,
neon sign when you joyfully exclaim:

"All of us are fluent in Old Norse".

Now, keep in mind that I am the guy who said:
"Therefore, I can't say that any of us should fault Haukur and Oskar for
their naturally
biased evaluations. It's the bias that we're counting on to give us
information not
available from any other source."

An apology for the long - drawn out argument - that may seem, to some,
without a point.

Raymond