Select the sentence with the correct grammar

Originally posted by econundrum
As long as the name is realistic. Don't go making up names that sound like words, nor should you alter the way a name is pronounced in order to make it sound like a particular word (I have never heard of a "kant," but "kann" is certainly acceptable).

i was thinking of immanuel kant (1724-1804) for that one. of course, it isn't an exact match unless one says "can't" with the "ah" sound instead of short "a" (as the british do) but then the same goes for "kann" since that was how he said it.
anyway, i'll work on something for this later.
unfortunately, i couldn't think of a good substitute for "wouldn't" so if i want to use that i would write it as "would not" (wood knot). naturally, though, "could" has no homophone that i know so i'd have to find a different way to use that, but then you allow verb forms anyway.
the number of homophones in english is astonishingly large!

Originally posted by BarefootChessPlayer
while i am not familiar with the aspects of chinese (mandarin, i preseume you mean), i know that it's a "character" representation so that many words have one symbol.
i was not aware of the existence of a wide variation in symbolization, definition, or prounciation for the same word--everything has one meaning.
i would presume that the same ...[text shortened]... "character representations".
am i way off base hee? can anyone else shed some insight on this?

I'm not too familiar with it either, but this is what I've heard from Chinese speaker and looking at stuff on the internet:
Mandarin has relatively few 'words' (in the sense of single characters), so uses an awful lot of compounds, far more than, say, German. Sometimes the meaning of a compound will be difficult or impossible to guess from the meaning of the individual components. Also, even outside what we'd think of as compounds, a word can have a number of meanings, depending on context. You also have different characters which are pronounced the same, even taking tones into account (a concept which is very alien to English speakers).
The characters bear only the vaguest of resemblance to either the sound or the meaning of a word, so you just have to learn them. But then if you hear an unfamiliar compound, you can't always tell which of the possible characters corresponds to each of the parts, unless you can work out by the context what the word must mean, and from that what the components of it ought to be.
Then you have the problem of two very different characters in meaning and pronunciation looking rather similar on the page. Good handwriting is much more important in Chinese than in English.

Originally posted by BarefootChessPlayer
i was thinking of immanuel kant (1724-1804) for that one. of course, it isn't an exact match unless one says "can't" with the "ah" sound instead of short "a" (as the british do) but then the same goes for "kann" since that was how he said it.
anyway, i'll work on something for this later.
unfortunately, i couldn't think of a good su ...[text shortened]... t then you allow verb forms anyway.
the number of homophones in english is astonishingly large!

Kant doesn't sound like a British 'can't' either. The short 'a' in German (and I'm pretty sure it is a short 'a' in this case) is of the same length as a short 'a' in English, but of a similar quality to the 'ah' sound, so it's not a phoneme that exists in standard English, as far as I know. Probably the closest is the way Americans pronounce a short 'o', so German 'hat' sounds more like American English 'hot'.

In British English, people tend to pronounce 'Kant' in an Anglicised way, to avoid confusion with another four-letter English word... 😉

Originally posted by econundrum
The only exception to this being the use of articles (since it would be rather difficult to write a paragraph without them) and verbs that are neither homophones nor homographs.

After some reflection, I have decided that this sentence needed some revision and clarification.

The use of verbs (if necessary) and any word for that matter (again, if necessary) that are neither homophones nor homographs are acceptable only if the sentence they are used in would not make sense without them. Even then, words that are not homophones or homographs should be used sparingly--very sparingly--since a sentence could easily be made using only homophones and homographs. Articles may still be used when ever needed because I do not believe that many--if any--of the articles have associated homophones or homographs.

How about the "correct" pronunciation for forte in the sentence:
"My forte in chess is my ability to anticipate my opponent's move."

fort or for-tay??

for-tay of course - because it's not an English word...well it is by now - but it's an italian word meaning strength/power

Originally posted by Richard Parker
How about the "correct" pronunciation for forte in the sentence:
"My forte in chess is my ability to anticipate my opponent's move."

fort or for-tay??

I must admit that forte is a bit tricky in this situation. I agree with asher123 in that the word is pronounced for-tay (though agreement is not necessary since the word is pronounced that way whether I agree or not), and so could not be used as a homophone of "fort." Though its spelling is almost the same as fort, but by one letter, it is not a homograph of the word either, so I don't think it would work.

Originally posted by econundrum
I must admit that forte is a bit tricky in this situation. I agree with asher123 in that the word is pronounced for-tay [shortened], and so could not be used as a homophone of "fort." Though its spelling is almost the same as fort, not a homograph of the word either, so I don't think it would work.

here is what my dictionary gives:
forte (for'-tay): in music, played loudly or a passage which is to be played loudly.
forte (fort) 1. the thing that a peson does particularly well. 2. the strongest part of a sword blade, between the middle and the hilt, opposed to "foible".
so, the correct pronunciation in the above example ("My forte in chess is my ability to anticipate my opponent's move." ) is "fort", not "for'-tay", since chess is neither musical nor played loudly.
while the term "forte" (literally, "strong" ) is not used in chess parlance, you do hear "piano" (literally, "soft" ), as in "giuocco piano", called "the quiet game" (adjective after noun in romance languages).
we have found another homograph!

Originally posted by BarefootChessPlayer
here is what my dictionary gives:
forte (for'-tay): in music, played loudly or a passage which is to be played loudly.
forte (fort) 1. the thing that a peson does particularly well. 2. the strongest part of a sword blade, between the middle and the hilt, opposed to "foible".
so, the correct pronunciation in the above example ("My forte in ...[text shortened]... "the quiet game" (adjective after noun in romance languages).
we have found another homograph!

I just checked it out as well. You are correct in all respects. For that reason, forte is a homograph and a homophone as well.