User talk:Cassowary/2008

Australian vowels
Hi, I belive you are the person who's created the Australian English vowel quadrangle images. I was wondering what the source was for these images because a recent article in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association covers Standard Australian and has a similar table. If your source is old enough, it might behoove us to update the images. If yours is also new then we can attribute the differences to minor variation but we can still source it. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The actual images themselves are largely based on http://www.ling.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonetics/vowelgraphs/AusE_Monophthongs.html and other similar pages, and checked against other works cited on that page and the Australian English phonology page. The information is therefore from around the early to mid 1990s.
 * I haven't had a chance yet to read this article thoroughly and this brief review that follows is based on a very superficial reading. However, this article appears to be significant for a for few reasons. Firstly, it has replaced the old division of Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English with Standard Australian English and added Aboriginal English and Ethnocultural Australian English alongside. I've seen other articles moving in this direction, but none that appear to take it for granted as this article does. It is an interesting move and presumably implies that Cultivated AusE is so minor as to be unworthy of much attention and that variants previously called Broad are also so minor that they can be discussed either as Standard, Aboriginal or Ethnocultural AusE according to the social background of the speaker. I'm not sure how much I agree with this move, as I would be surprised if lexically or grammatically Standard, Aboriginal and Ethnocultural Australian English clearly form a separate group from other forms of English. Phonetically, you would have to look at very particular things to group SAusE, AAuse and EAusE as separate from various forms of English used in London. I will have to read more to say anything, but this move looks like it's based on nationalistic, rather than scientific, reasons. A disappointment, because the authors are generally very good in my (limited) experience.
 * Secondly, it's the first published article I've seen other articles suggesting it's time to reform the AusE IPA spelling system that's used a revised spelling system for AusE IPA. (Including Cox's post-1997 work, when she co-authored an article proposing such a revision.) Of course, it's meant to be illustrating the IPA so perhaps it still doesn't count.
 * As to the diagrams they include, I am surprised at how low /&aelig;/ is shown. /e/ is likely an authentic change that's been hinted at as beginning even in the sources our article and images are based one (during my Phonetics & Phonology classes in 2006, the lecturer found it necessary to tell some people to say [e] with their teeth closed to get the cardinal value). /U/ is probably just a difference of drawing; I personally think theirs is a better representation but that would've been OR at the time I did the images. There's no significant difference between the values of /I@/ and /i:/ shown here and there; that's just a matter of opinion.
 * But as I say, I haven't had the chance to thoroughly read the article yet.
 * (05:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC))
 * Interesting. Well, if you'd like to use the C & P vowel charts, I've got them drawn and ready to upload.
 * Hey, while I'm here, maybe you can weigh in on the issue of the vowel in nurse. I used Australian English phonology to determine that it's rounded, but I'm not sure how accurate or controversial that is.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  05:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Heyfield, Victoria
Hi, Mr Cassowary. Re this edit, please see my reply at Talk:Heyfield, Victoria. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 10:16, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Royal College of Surgeons
I do not see the copyvio you see except for an individual sentence or two. I'm restoring the article, rewriting those sentences. Please discuss on the talk page. DGG (talk) 14:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have figured out the problem--the link you gave was to the page for the College at Edinburgh, and of course it did not match--I see the correct page now & I'm rewriting the article to eliminate the copyvio. Sorry about that. DGG (talk) 14:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hm, sorry about mislinking. I don't even remember doing this; it's possible that the page changed since? or maybe I just got the wrong link in the clipboard or something. —Felix the Cassowary 06:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Redirect of Surname
Please do not turn a page into a redirect without a consensus on the talk page of page in question. Surname has discussions currently going on in the talk page and you should be able to reach a decision fairly quick. As it looks, editors are disagreeing about a surname being the same thing as a family name. That being said, a redirect at this time is not appropriate. Thanks. Undeath (talk) 05:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Disputed non-free use rationale for Image:STV GVT.gif
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