Assume v. Presume

<sigh>

According to another Breakfast interviewee, something "pales into comparison". I guess it's the early hour.
 
af123 said:
Me too - I learned the rule a long time ago but did spot it recently in one of the excellent books by Lynne Truss.
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I disagreed with a lot of what she said. I prefer a logical approach.
 
MikeSh said:
Plenty of place names have bits that aren't pronounced. So they shouldn't put them on signs either. Reductio ad absurdum - go entirely phonetic; the American tourists would like it. Gloster, Lester, Lufbrer (or would it be Luffbrer?).
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Borough is not pronounced "brer" though, or it shouldn't be... any more than police is pronounced "pleece", but lots do that wrongly.
There is an O in both of them which should be sounded.
 
prpr said:
Borough is not pronounced "brer" though, or it shouldn't be... any more than police is pronounced "pleece", but lots do that wrongly.
There is an O in both of them which should be sounded.
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In what country? pəˈliːs and ˈbʌrə, surely, but not Polees or borer.

(Roughly Perlees and burer)
 
prpr said:
Borough is not pronounced "brer" though, or it shouldn't be... any more than police is pronounced "pleece", but lots do that wrongly.
There is an O in both of them which should be sounded.
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Alternatively there is Middlesbrough which is abbreviated to 'boro. :)
 
And then there's Edinburgh which, as far as I know, has more letters in it when pronounced than when written (an exception to the norm). Any others?
 
Black Hole said:
And then there's Edinburgh which, as far as I know, has more letters in it when pronounced than when written (an exception to the norm). Any others?
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Edinburgh, pronounced Dùn Èideann?

I just discovered that both borough and burgh are derived from burh, which sort of explains the pronunciation.
 
gomezz said:
Alternatively there is Middlesbrough which is abbreviated to 'boro. :)
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And Brough in Cumbria, which is not pronounced bʌrə like most other broughs/burghs/boroughs, but as Bruff.

Cirencester has had an interesting history of pronunciation and runs against the Worcester/Gloucester mould.
 
Returning to a previous theme, why do we say Beijing instead of Peking, but not Zhōngguó instead of China? Why not Bharat, too, when we changed Bombay to Mumbai?
 
I know, I would rather stick with Bombay and Peking. We don't say "Paree", and the French have their own name for London.
 
Black Hole said:
I know, I would rather stick with Bombay and Peking. We don't say "Paree", and the French have their own name for London.
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Londres is one of France's bigger cities. Its sixth biggest, in fact, with a French population of some 300,000--400,000.

  • Paris - 2.3m
  • Marseille - 859,000
  • Lyon - 488,000
  • Toulouse - 447,000
  • Nice - 344,000
  • Londres - 300,000
 
And what's wrong with that? Everyone knows that a superlative is better than the best.:frantic:

Wiki here
Example of superlative: "she is [the] most beautiful [of all the women here tonight}]".
Simply put the word 'superlative' is defined as
  • (a noun) an exaggerated mode of expression (usually of praise): "the critics lavished superlatives on it";
  • (an adjective) the greatest: the highest in quality;
  • the superlative form of an adjective: "best" is the superlative form of "good", "most" when used together with an adjective or adverb.
 
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