I'm sat here listening to Classic FM radio. The announcer introduced a piece and said it was played by the philharmonic orchestra of such and such.
Which made me wonder what exactly philharmonic means, so I looked it up in the dictionary.
Philharmonic means devoted to music.
So then I thought to look up the dictionary definition of orchestra.
Orchestra means a large group of instrumental performers.
So two words sum up nine succinctly.
I sometimes do look up words in the dictionary. It's amazing what you can find out.
Take for example a particularly annoying tendency of some people to pronounce the word liquorice as lickerish. This particularly annoys me as lickerish is NOT an alternative pronunciation, it has a completely different meaning. Go on look it up in a good dictionary, and you'll find it has nothing whatever to do with a black coloured sweet. And...every time you hear someone say it that way in the future you'll find it difficult to not smile.
Enjoy your dictionary, it's a treasure house just waiting to be discovered.
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2 comments:
I'm afraid I pronounce Ireland in a very similar way to island but I blame growing up in Manchester. I am sure that Manchester is also to blame for a lot more of my errors in pronunciation - well I can't blame myself can I?
Linking this with car names - as the mondeo is known as the world car, should it not be pronounced 'mondo' (from the french le monde, with an o on the end)?
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