• nikt@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    What about cat nip?

    My mom, who learned english later in life always says “nip cat”, maybe unconsciously trying to follow the rule?

  • mookulator@wirebase.org
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    1 year ago

    Bad boy, fat lip, cat toy, sad song, ad lib, bat wing, say so, far right, bar fight, fort night, lock pick

    • Acamon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s interesting! I’ve heard aussies refer to that campaign/guideline a lot and I’ve always heard it as “slip slap slop”, which follows the rule but doesn’t make sense as the order of activities. I don’t know whether they reverted to the vowel order when talking casually, or if they said it right and I subconsciously ‘corrected’ it in my memory.

  • Nachteule@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m from Germany, so no native English speaker. Why does it still sound wrong in my ears? Is it the way we have to open the mouth to make those sounds, and it feels unnatural in a different order?

    • tobor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not if you’re an EFL (English as foreign language) teacher and you needed a way to help your students understand adjective placement better: )

    • Acamon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I heard that child Tolkien told his mother he’d “written a story about a green, great dragon” and when his mum told him it had to be a “great, green dragon” he was so put off that he didn’t write again for years.

      So maybe track down that story?