The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #48397   Message #727429
Posted By: Nigel Parsons
11-Jun-02 - 07:27 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: Shepherds' counting systems: British?
Subject: RE: Shepherds Counting Systems : british onl
Mr Red: The Ll is pronounced by moving the tongue to the roof of the mouth, leaving only a small gap above it, then exhaling so that most of the air passes under the tongue, with a small amount getting in above the tongue. The tungue is then brought down to touch the front lower teeth while pronouncing a 'soft' 'L'.
This is probably documented somewhere, but I have just been typing this while repeatedly naming that place on Anglesey, and analysing my mouth movements.
Mr Happy: The Dutch (o.k. the Netherlanders, I know 'Dutch' only covers part of their country) give a confusing telling of the time. They avoid saying the equivalent of "before" or "after" when stating the half hours, But When they say their equivalent of "Half Twelve" you need to remember that they mean "Half to Twelve" i.e. Half Eleven to us.
Their 'ten tos' and 'ten pasts' match ours (to = 'voor'; past = achter or over) but the also use the half hour as a standard, so it is not unknown to hear the time given as "tien voor half twelf" i.e. 10 before Half Twelve. i.e. 11.20. Similarly 'Tien over half twelf' would be 11.40
Apologies to any Nederlands speakers for misspellings.

Migel