Easytalk - Advanced: A Dictionary Aid for Using American English

Easytalk

Advanced

A DICTIONARY AID FOR USING

AMERICAN ENGLISH

Tom Dillman

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 833-262-8899

© 2020 Tom Dillman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/02/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0333-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0332-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0331-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020919706

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

The Definition and Explanation of Easytalk Phonology

Preface

In Gratitude

Introduction

A Blend of Cultures

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘A or a’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘B or b’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘C or c’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘D or d’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘E or e’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘F or f’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘G or g’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘H or h’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘I or i’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘J or j’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘K or k’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘L or l’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘M or m’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘N or n’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘O or o’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘P or p’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘Q or q’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘R or r’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘S or s’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘T or t’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘U or u’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘V or v’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘W or w’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘X or x’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘Y or y’

Conflict word sets with the beginning letter ‘Z or z’

Bibliography

THE DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION OF EASYTALK PHONOLOGY

The compiling author of EasyTalk worked professionally with the science of Phonology in the high technology worlds of aviation, undersea observation and space exploration, all in the interests of long distance, clear, fast communications through all environments. This EasyTalk American Dictionary Talking Aid uses and simplifies phonology for everyday communications around the World.

One doesn’t have to understand the technology of phonology to access its benefits. All one needs is to listen or talk with audio clarity. The same voice clarity the most modern computer, cell and watch phones have achieved with this science.

But, even these modern communications gadgets have holes. Remember, the wrong message will be sent or received if conflicting words that sound similar, but have totally different meanings, are sent or received. This can have confusing, funny or even bad consequences.

An example demonstrates this:

One of the best and funniest conflicts happened in a T.V. live interview.

The journalist involved travels the country for his news company, testing our Nation’s grasp of important current events. In this particular case, he interviewed a New York City cab driver (called a ‘Cabby’) who had immigrated to the U.S. from India with the intent of getting rich, then perhaps returning to his original home fabulously wealthy.

The Cabby was interviewed close to Times Square in New York City. The journalist asked the driver where he spent most of his moneymaking time with his cab.

With reasonable English, the cab driver responded, I like to go back and forth to the airports. Big fees that way.

The journalist responded, And big tips too, huh?

The Cabby answered, Yes, but no matter how big the tips, I won’t pick up tourists at the airports.

The journalist blinked, Tourists? You won’t pick up tourists? New York and its airports are full of tourists. You have to pick them up to make a living.

The Cabby shook his head, No, no tourists. They carry bombs that can hurt people.

The journalist started laughing, Oh, you mean you won’t pick up terrorists in your cab. Tourists are okay, but not terrorists.

The Cabby affirmed, That’s what I mean, no tourists, er, terrorists, get to ride in this cab. Just good people, good visitors. Good, uh what you call them? Yes, tourists okay. Terrorists not okay. They bad.

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PREFACE

This book is organizing the fascinating American English for tens of millions of inquiring minds in our World, including over one million yearly immigrants to the United States, people who want to use their hearing, vision and cognition to grasp, embrace, work with and prosper with today’s most profitable business language.

America is an integration of nearly every culture and most sub-cultures of the World. These diverse groups needed to communicate to survive and thrive, and this has driven the American people to happily assimilate with each other. The basic mechanism for this communication is the American language. The net result is this one country---America---out of nearly 200 countries worldwide has a gross domestic product and consumption equal to nearly 1/3 of the rest of the world combined. Thus, nearly one-third (33%) of all business activity worldwide, is channeled in some way or another through America. The nearest business competitor country has only 1/5th of America’s volume (for a total of 6%), in spite of its having over four times as many people.

The explosion of the Internet has only served to increase the worldwide need for this EasyTalk American English book. This is not to defame other language systems, but merely to express why this book is useful to so many humans who want a share the World’s biggest economic pie.

Mistakes and confusions have crept in during the American English growth. Even people born within America have confusions that can limit their talking potentials. This book is designed to eliminate many of those nightmares – in fact, to make them melt away as the simplified learning process proceeds.

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IN GRATITUDE

As a young child, I was a barefoot street kid wandering around the outskirts of American military bases silently begging for food, before finally ending up in an orphanage. I was fairly bright, Mensa potential, but shy. Like many immigrants and even natural born Americans today, I seldom spoke my native American English because it was confusing due to the slangs and twists imparted by soldiers, sailors and airmen from all around our country, who in turn, had their own ancestors from across the world.

By my age seven, the latest Great Depression was waning and the Great World War II was over. My Dad returned from the Military and somehow found me. I got out of the orphanage environment, with its nuns hollering at me for never speaking, and into a stable home. That’s when my second grade teacher, Mrs. Strand, came into my life and changed it forever.

I tried to explain to Mrs. Strand my difficulties with the confusing American English, starting with words that sounded similar or much alike but meant completely different things. And then, of course, there were the many sound and meaning twists different ancestral groups put on these same words. It stunned my growing brain.

Mrs. Strand smiled sweetly and answered, Tommy, it’s easy. American English has evolved into a practical, everyday art form rather than a rigid science some want it to be. It is really quite simple if you get the basics. I will teach you the simple basics that anybody can learn. The expansion and fine tuning of these basics will happen naturally if and when it’s required.

And so it has come to be. I will use her basics for you the reader, starting with this first phonology book which found its origins during my many months as a recovering hospital patient while I was in the U.S. Military. During my last months in the hospital, finally conscious and on my way to recovery, I was ordered to do nothing but lay still. It was a boring time until I asked for an unusual book to read. A book recommended to me years earlier by Mrs. Strand. That was the first time I read a Collegiate Dictionary from A to Z.

In the Military Service, I discovered by shock that my IQ was in the Mensa stratospheres. That, along with Mrs. Strand’s motivating talks led to my becoming an Electrical Engineer, Physicist, Mathematician and Computer Scientist with MBA skills. Using American English as just another phonology form helped me move easily across every Continent, nearly every State in the U.S. and many countries of our World while improving my language skill set.

________

Recently, while taking a late night rest from editing this book, I turned on the T.V. to catch the latest news and weather. To my pleasant surprise, a bright lady from Wisconsin called our Country’s most prolific talk radio host, a Mr. Rush Limbaugh. What caught my ear was Mr. Limbaugh’s choice of words, in particular some words I incorporated in this book. Rush said that when he was starting his career he would place word or picture whetters in certain media to gain increased listener audience. Many of us have heard the term wetters applied to, for example, children who are bed wetters. Rush’s made up whetters words were instead, intellectual brain teasers. Ah, whetters versus wetters! Two sound alike words that present different spellings and meanings---perfect for this book.

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INTRODUCTION

The rapid expansion of computers, cell phones, watch phones and the world-wide Social Internet has caused the American marketplace and its version of the English language to become a prime language for commerce, trade, jobs, communication, upward mobility and immigration.

At the time of this initial compilation, there was about one computer type device on the Internet for every person in the world, that is, nearly 7 BILLION digital devices. In the next few years, that number is expected to explode to over 15 Billion new digital devices. Computer connected satellite devices are beginning to show up even on sod or stone rooftops in the once isolated, remotest valleys of Upper Nepal in the vast Himalayan mountain wilderness.

Current technologies on the Internet range from desktop computers, laptop computers, cell phones, wrist watches, social network devices, TVs, cash registers, manufacturing machines, nuclear reactors, and the complicated network server computers that tie this together. The list goes on, growing day by day, hour by hour.

This massive Internet has billions of multipath nodes that not only serve independent, single users, but provide strategic feedback to businesses, governments and other groups across the globe using predictive analyses so they can make decisions that are hopefully for the populations’ better good. Of course, predictive analysis is only as good as the cognitive (language) ability of key Internet server nodes. These underlying cognitive computer nodes are under development as we write. As are the abilities of the Internet to automatically repair and reroute itself totally transparent to the users other than possible speed slowdowns

The above developments can and will be a good thing, but it also has presented the world with some fascinating conflicts, not the least being able to get a handle on our sometimes weird American English. Let us give you one more of the many humorous American examples that I encountered as a child by military bases, or while traveling across the U.S. as an adult.

In much of America, people say, Let me park my car in the garage first.

On Cape Cod, Massachusetts it may sound like, Lat ma pak ma kah in da graj fast.

Can we predict, cognate and repair Cape Cod’s apparent language abuse? Probably not. One short term option might be to build a giant saw to cut Cape Cod away from the mainland and let it float out in the Atlantic somewhere. Then again, if one has ever visited the Cape, as I have many times, America doesn’t want to lose it, so sawing it off the Continent is a bad idea.

So, computer scientists will take years to gnaw away at these regional language idiosyncrasies and this first book of clarity should remain in demand for that whole time.

________

I was inspired by my editing partner, Ms. English, to compile and edit this EasyTalk solution to many of the American language conflicts. This manuscript started to evolve after Ms. English’s recent trip as an accident patient to our local Medical Center, one of the largest of its type in the world. This had a scary after-experience, a similar result that could easily affect us all.

Ms. English received a copy of her Doctor’s Notes after one Medical Center visit. This particular Doctor she visited was a very bright, young M.D. who happened to have been raised and trained in another part of the world.

Two glaring mistakes in the Doctor’s notes were brought to our attention. One concerned English’s pain scale and the other a description of part of her physically diagnosed injuries, an arm injury. In the old, pre-computer network days, the mistakes could easily turn out to be irrelevant. Not so in today’s digital environment. The two glaring mistakes?

‘Pain’ was misspelled as ‘pane’ and ‘humerus’ was misspelled as ‘humorous’. Let’s examine the impact of these misguided, misspelling situations.

In the computer-driven communication world, ‘spelling correctness’ means everything. To help avoid spelling errors, most computers now have generalized spell checkers. But that doesn’t solve a major class of spelling issues. In our medical example, doctors, nurses, transcribers, insurance companies, handlers of government forms and pharmacies ALL conduct many aspects of their businesses with computer devices. The medical people record visual and oral symptoms, test equipment measurements, prescribe drugs, fulfill prescriptions, send and receive monies and keep ongoing records for years based on these computer-driven reports. Thus, ‘spelling correctness’ means everything.

If different groups needed to do research on Ms. English they would type in the word ‘pain’ into their computer(s) and discover she had no record of ‘pain’. No one would think to change their computer search to the incorrect, but recorded word ‘pane’. Applied to the general medical electronic world, all pain treatments and related claims can be denied or ignored by insurance organizations, leading to increased debilitation or even premature death.

The other mistake involved the humerus, the long arm bone between the shoulder and elbow. In Ms. English’s case, it was confirmed to be fractured. Of course, when the Doctor and/or his transcriber typed Ms. English’s notes into the computer, it was typed humorous rather than humerous. Humerus means the arm bone, humorous means funny. The net results were not funny and only fixable a long time later after much insurance non-payment confusion, because unlike most folks, Ms. English reads everything.

To show that there can be no end to this without this EasyTalk Dictionary Aid, another misleading word showed up. Some nurse meant to input that Ms. English was feeling feint. The proper word should have been faint. Though they sound the same, a little error like this can make a huge difference in cost reimbursements and insurance covered follow-up care.

A bit later, we’ll talk more about these six words pain/pane, humerus/humorous, and faint/feint that are technically called homophones. Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and generally have completely different meanings that give incorrectly intended results.

________

A BLEND OF CULTURES

AMERICAN ENGLISH -- (for the eye, ear, tongue and mind)

In the approximately 200 countries in the world there is a multitude of languages and dialects within many of them. A number of countries share the same basic language so the exact language count is a guess except to a very few experts. In the nearest large American city to my home, it has been reported that over 100 languages in addition to American English are spoken. Busy places like excellent restaurants can sound like the old Middle Eastern Tower of Babble.

Nearly all of the speakers of the 100+ language groups are having or have had struggles with certain parts of American English. Not all of those we interviewed were doctors, nurses, scientists, engineers, or business people. Many were just ordinary folks who were looking to share in the American dream of freedom. Some had jobs translating audio tapes to computers. Others stress their ways through grocery stores weekly. Over 100 languages, but they all have had one struggle in common, becoming bi-lingual with the sometimes confusing American English.

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HOW DID OUR AMERICAN ENGLISH HAPPEN?

America has integrated and enfolded members of nearly every culture in the world, starting in this current Great Cycle with the beautiful and intricate societies of our Native Americans. It hasn’t always been easy and painless, but the results have left us with a culture and language blend that is as marvelous and sometimes twisted as the experimental process has been and will continue to be.

As our East Indian (now fully American) Marine Engineer who travels to most nooks and crannies of the world said, America is, by far and away, the best country in the world to live, do business and talk in, once the language is grasped. Grasping the language is the key and there appears to be no easy option.

I, the author, have also traveled to every continent of the world, enjoying almost every stop along the way. I agree the Marine Engineer is correct up until now. The change is that there is now a much easier American English option, this EasyTalk handbook. People from ALL over the world will find this book useful, whether they want to be immigrants or just partake in the world’s largest consumer economy.

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THIS BOOK HAS TO BE DIFFERENT TO BE USEFUL

There have been several attempts to tame our delightfully weird American version of English. A number on the market are written for children in the first few grades of school. A couple books actually do address teenagers, young adults and mature adults. But to date, they miss several critical links. They miss the ear-mind-sound phonology connections that my teacher Mrs. Strand impressed on me. They give inadequate sentence comparisons, they miss the array of alphabetical links for each word, and because of these problems, they miss the all too critical computer internet database relevance. This booklet is designed to eliminate those confusions.

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THE STRUCTURE OF EASYTALK

We shall use the ‘pain/pane’ examples as they are used in the following ‘alphabet dictionary’ to explain the homonym words in the delightfully weird American English. You can almost forget the word homonym once you grasp the concept. Most Americans grasp the concept and have little or no clue to the word homonym as they move through life. That said, let’s move on with the words pain and pane to decode and reveal the structure of American English.

We notice that pain and pain are highlighted for easy alphabetical search. But, if the reader doesn’t quite know where to look, he or she will find the same words later in the list, but in reversed order. This means they are cross-indexed with others of the same sound or near sounds which really eases the language building effort on the ear, eye and mind.

To aid the learner further, in italics and parentheses, the learner will see that both words are displayed per sound exactly the same. Pane sounds like (pān) and pain sounds like (pān). The mind is now getting a glimmer of hope. But, what is that funny mark above the letter ‘a’ in the sound (pān). That is a critical experts’ marker that accompanies a limited number of letters in the English alphabet called vowels.

The English alphabet has twenty six letters, of which, five are regular vowels. These are a, e, i, o, and u. Sometimes ‘y’ is used as a vowel. The vowels connect all the other letters together, letters that are called consonants, into things called words.

Each vowel can have a number of sounds. Most Americans don’t have a clue what all the sounds are. Complex dictionary editors do, and they are right in doing so. But this is not necessary for the initial functional eye-ear-mind training and successful communications. Let’s show this with the first vowel ‘a’.

The vowel letter ‘a’ has basically a long and short sounds. The long ‘a’ vowel sound is marked as in pronouncing ā and the short sound of the vowel is marked ă.

Examples of long ā sound are: pāne, pāin, bāy, sāy, māy, etc.

Examples of short ă sound are: băh, căd, măd, etc.

In excellent, more extensive collegiate dictionaries, the vowel ‘a’ and the other vowels have many other slightly nuanced sounds. I will list some other ‘a’ sounds, though they are not very relevant for most conversational and business American English. I will not give sound examples for all them in this booklet, because despite decades of business experience, I’ve found few people use them. Here they are anyway: à, á, â, ã, ä, å. And, I suggest, it only gets worse for the other vowels. So, we will focus on the most relevant long and short vowel versions, ā and ă.

Examples of the long ē sound are: bē, hē, shē, shēēp, mē, etc.

Examples of the short ĕ sound are: mĕt, bĕt, thĕft, chĕss, ĕbb, etc.

Examples of the long ī sound are: bīke, trīke, īdle, īdol, Ī, etc.

Examples of the short ĭ sound are: ĭt, ĭts, bĭt, mĭtt, sĭt, etc.

Examples of the long ō sound are: grōpe, lōpe, lōaf, dōpe, etc.

Examples of the short ŏ sound are: lŏt, nŏt, knŏb, nŏb, etc.

Examples of the long ū sound are: ūse, ūsage, ūtility, ūrine, etc.

Examples of the short ŭ sound are: ŭp, ŭntil, ŭptick, ŭnarm, etc.

Other sound clarifications involve certain vowels and consonants vowel combinations: The following are valuable communication examples:

Examples of the ŏŭ vowel sound combinations are: ŏŭt, bŏŭt, rŏŭt, etc.

Examples of the ŏĭ vowel sound combinations are: ŏĭl, bŏĭl, tŏĭl, etc.

Examples of the s and z word sound consonants are:

s => miss (mĭs), cats (kăts), horse (hŏrs), this (thĭs)

z => was (wŭz), his (hĭz), has (hăz), haze (hāz)

Back to the pain and pain examples, we see next a short definition of the words in italics. This italics gives the learner a fundamental choice between the definitions. The definition is then further corroborated with a short generic sentence with the word in question in bold.

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SOUND SYLLABLES (sĭl ŭ būlz)

Each word is made up of sounds. One sound is a combination of vowels and/or consonants. In our preceding exampled, pain or pane, there is one sound and it is pronounced ‘pān’ with a long ‘ā’. It is very simple and straightforward.

If there are more than one sound, like in the word syllables, we have three vocal sounds: (sĭl ŭ būlz). Again, it is very simple and straightforward.

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ACCENT MARKS

The final mark is an accent. It is used in words with more than one syllable where the accent mark ΄ shows which syllable is emphasized stronger. An example might be:

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EXAMPLES: LOOK THE SAME – SOUND THE SAME – MEAN DIFFERENT

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EXAMPLES: LOOK THE SAME – SOUND DIFFERENT – MEAN DIFFERENT

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EXAMPLES: LOOK DIFFERENT – MEAN DIFFERENT – SOUND THE SAME

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EXAMPLES: LOOK SIMILAR – SOUND VERY DIFFERENT

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EXAMPLES: WORDS WITH SOFT VERSUS HARD ‘S’ ENDINGS

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EXAMPLES: WORDS WITH MULTIPLE MEANINGS

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EXAMPLES: ONE WORD WITH DIFFERENT SOUNDS

________

Thus we have the structure of this Dictionary Aid booklet. Simple, straight-forward, easy to use and it fits in a pocket, purse, and/or in an ‘internet cloud’ link for a computer, cellphone, intelligent watch and follow-on devices.

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EXAMPLES: SIMPLE CONFUSIONS BETWEEN SINGULAR AND PLURAL

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EXAMPLES: AMONG THE MOST OFTEN CONFUSED WORDS

________

Thus we have the structure of this Dictionary Aid booklet. Simple, straight-forward, easy to use and it fits in a pocket, purse, and/or in an ‘internet cloud’ link for a computer, cellphone, intelligent watch and follow-on devices.

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CONFLICT WORD SETS WITH THE BEGINNING LETTER ‘A OR A’