8 minutes ago, Rockyroad said:

And Spanish. Casino is Spanish.

No its not.

The word Casino actually comes from the Italian word for 'a small house'—a throwback to the days when games were played in private homes. That first established gambling institution, Il Ridotto, was far from a standard house, however.

16 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

With quite a few words stolen from the French and the Vikings.

Nit in English means tiny. Nit (นิด) in Thai means tiny. Yet the origins are completely unrelated and is just coincidental.

1 hour ago, novacova said:

Signs of early dementia.

What are you saying here? Age 70 is a bit young to have confused memory things going on.

Some are confused as teenagers and never get over it, and some are rarely ever confused. Some, like my good friend, have Dementia and remember things from 50 years ago and forget much of the present.

1 hour ago, BeastOfBodmin said:

In these USA-type pronunciations, "t" or "tt" is mapped to "d" rather than being omitted. Why is that?

daughter = daugh-der

computer = com-pu-der

water = wa-der

heater = hea-der

letter = le-der

settle = se-dle

bottle = bo-dle

In Southern England it is dor-aah, compu-aah, wor-aah, hee-aah, le-aah, se-uw, bo-uw.

4 minutes ago, novacova said:

Nit in English means tiny. Nit (นิด) in Thai means tiny. Yet the origins are completely unrelated and is just coincidental.

The only nit I know in English is a small, very annoying fly.

19 minutes ago, marin said:

No its not.

The word Casino actually comes from the Italian word for 'a small house'—a throwback to the days when games were played in private homes. That first established gambling institution, Il Ridotto, was far from a standard house, however.

You're right. 1st time ever. Well done. The Spanish adopted it. 3 cheers for Marin.

14 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

The only nit I know in English is a small, very annoying fly.

Is commonly used as an idiom as in nitpick which literary means picking nits, which is a derivative of small, trivial insignificant. Now, how about nitnoid.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by novacova

1 minute ago, novacova said:

Is commonly used as an idiom as in nitpick which literary means picking nits, which is a derivative of nit, small, trivial insignificant. Now, how about nitnoid.

Any other examples of English NIT please?

Only ever heard Nit-noy, never with a D on it.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by wil iam not

2 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

Only ever heard Nit-noy, never with a D on it.

Nit noi is little bit

2 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

Any other examples of English NIT please?

Only ever heard Nit-noy, never with a D on it.

It was slang carried over to the US from folks who were stationed in th during Vietnam, it was quite common in the 70’s

1 minute ago, novacova said:

It was slang carried over to the US from folks who were stationed in th during Vietnam, it was quite common in the 70’s

What are you talking about, English Nit, or Thai Nit-Noy?

2 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

What are you talking about, English Nit, or Thai Nit-Noy?

Both

10 minutes ago, novacova said:

nitnoid

11 minutes ago, novacova said:

nitpick

3 minutes ago, novacova said:

Both

I think that nitpick came way before the Vietnam war. But I am only nitpicking. Is it the same as Pedantic?

Edited June 11Jun 11 by wil iam not

7 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

I think that nitpick came way before the Vietnam war. But I am only nitpicking. Is it the same as Pedantic?

Was referring to nitnoid as to surfacing during the Nam era.

2 minutes ago, novacova said:

Was referring to nitnoid as to surfacing during the Nam era.

I can understand that Nit-Noy from Thai could have been taken over to USA to mean small or tiny.

But nitpick came from old English nurses having to pick nits (eggs) from the hair of their pupils.

I remeber the Nit Nurse coming to Primary and Secondary schools looking for them, and if found, some foul smelling insecticide was ordered.

On 6/9/2026 at 4:01 AM, flaming dragon said:

So I asked him which 'shool' taught him how to speak that way. He was not impressed

On 6/9/2026 at 4:01 AM, flaming dragon said:

Do you not mean 'skool'?

Just now, wil iam not said:

On 6/9/2026 at 4:01 AM, flaming dragon said:

So I asked him which 'shool' taught him how to speak that way. He was not impressed

On 6/9/2026 at 4:01 AM, flaming dragon said:

Do you not mean 'skool'?

No idea why it went to the wrong place.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by wil iam not

3 minutes ago, wil iam not said:

I can understand that Nit-Noy from Thai could have been taken over to USA to mean small or tiny.

But nitpick came from old English nurses having to pick nits (eggs) from the hair of their pupils.

I remeber the Nit Nurse coming to Primary and Secondary schools looking for them, and if found, some foul smelling insecticide was ordered.

Nitpick idiom used as a descriptive as in nagging over insignificant details

1 hour ago, Rockyroad said:

Nit noi is little bit

Wow, so you DO speak Thai.

1 hour ago, Rockyroad said:

Nit noi is little bit

Hey Kreeps why the thumbs down? You really are a weirdo.

5 hours ago, Bredbury Blue said:

I'll tell my wife a farlang (thinks he) knows more about Thai pronunciation than she does 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Go ahead. After teaching and working with Thai people for over 20 years (often in academia), I most certainly do. More importantly, I know how to find and use a good reference. citing wives as references, you will come to realise is a risible cliché.

PS - "farlang" ? - seriously? Guessing you're a Brit!

Edited June 11Jun 11 by kwilco

9 hours ago, wil iam not said:

Missing two letters out of many words could change the meaning. And yes, I was an E..lish te..her m..y y..rs a.o. so notice these spelling mistakes.

Am I wrong to correct them, the same as I correct my 6 years old grandson if he says something incorrectly?

Yes, you are wrong to correct it here, as that is said to not be a thing we should do. If you were an English teacher, then you just have to leave that as your retirement surely sat in already.

Just now, kwilco said:

Go ahead. After teaching and working with Thai people for over 20 years (often in academia), I most certainly do. More importantly, I know how to find and use a good reference. citing wives as references, you will come to realise is a risible cliché.

4 hours ago, novacova said:

That was nothing more than a bunch of fluff no one is interested in.

You took the time to answer... TWICE!

4 hours ago, Rockyroad said:

And Spanish. Casino is Spanish.

Casino is Italian

5 hours ago, BeastOfBodmin said:

That's native to the accents in the South-East part of England (includes London = Lannan).

In these USA-type pronunciations, "t" or "tt" is mapped to "d" rather than being omitted. Why is that?

daughter = daugh-der

computer = com-pu-der

water = wa-der

heater = hea-der

letter = le-der

settle = se-dle

bottle = bo-dle

Maybe off topic, but when did the common USA intonation that makes so many sentences sound - to the British ear - like a question start, and where did it originate? I have a personal, untested theory that most of an accent can be described by analysing vowel sounds.

London Fields - Martin Amis

As I mentioned earlier, the "silent" T, especially in English, is a glottal stop.

The changing of T to D is more American, and in other countries like Australia, it's called an alveolar flap (or tap), which is a consonant sound produced by briefly striking the tongue against the alveolar ridge.

When you raise the tone at the end of a sentnce it's called 'upspeak' or 'uptalk'. Linguists and communication experts formally refer to this phenomenon as a high-rising terminal (HRT) – this creates problems for listeners whose first language is tonal, as they think you are changing the meaning like it would in their native tongue.

Edited June 11Jun 11 by kwilco

There are a lot of assumptions about language in this thread.

The OP is criticising the pronunciation of "Jomtien", but that's already a transliteration of a Thai place name into the Latin alphabet. The moment you transliterate between Thai and English, you're dealing with approximations because the sounds, vowels and consonants in the two languages do not correspond exactly. Add Thai tones and English stress patterns, and direct comparisons become even more problematic.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when learning a foreign language is assuming it works like their own. The reverse is also true when judging how foreigners speak English…. Or have to listen to you speak in any language!

Unfortunately, some English teachers are among the worst offenders, often believing that being a native speaker automatically makes them an authority on language.

Before making judgments about pronunciation, spelling or transliteration, it helps to understand how languages actually work. Linguists generally analyse language through five main domains: phonology (sound systems), morphology (word formation), syntax (sentence structure), semantics (literal meaning), and pragmatics (meaning in context).

Without considering those factors, arguments about whether a Thai word is being pronounced or transliterated "correctly" often miss the point entirely.

 

4 hours ago, wil iam not said:

We English still use Mad for angry, Sick, ill and poorly all mean the same, Lend not load as a verb, (dust) bin not trashcan,

While on about pronunciation, when did reVERB become REverb, reSEARCH become REsearch etc, and of course VINyl become VYnil.

Yes, this is why I said that too much is made of the difference between British and American English. A huge number of the words claimed to be "American" are, in fact, just older English words – the difference is the amount of usage the words get in each country. Also, many users and listeners are very parochial in their language abilities and may not have heard or used the words themselves. These days it is very easy to track word and language usage and see where any particular item is used and by how much. Stress on prefixes, etc., can differ often because in the last hundred years or so these words – many of which are recent – are spoken by non-native English speakers in America and they keep their native stress patterns.

Stress is extremely important in English, and putting stress in the wrong place in a word can make it incomprehensible to both native and foreign listeners – this is similar to getting the TONE s wrong in Thai, as a Thai listener simply won't understand the word even if you have the right word in your mind but the wrong tone. Similarly if a Thai speaker is using the right word but has the stress wrong, you simply won't understand them.

Try. "supper-gut-tee" (= spaghetti), "com-put-TEERR", "batta lee"

In America try telling someone you're "pissed" , they won't understand you're "wankered" or "squiffy" – many won't understand wa*k

Edited June 11Jun 11 by kwilco

Deleted

Edited June 11Jun 11 by roo860

7 minutes ago, roo860 said:

We had the Nit nurse at infants school checking for headlice

A nit is the egg of a (head) louse...it's also the abbreviation od "nitwit". I'm sure some will recognise that word from personal experience

On 6/9/2026 at 12:10 PM, GanDoonToonPet said:

Americans use Middle English and pronounce French words like the French.

Brits use Modern English and pronounce French words like the English.

You mean like "Notah -daime"????