Swiss or Switzerland?

Did you bother to click on the audio links, Landers? Are you just plain deaf? Do you hail from the land of the imagined "r"?

Just like people from across the pond seem to think that "America" is a valid abbreviation for the United States of America...

I always wondered why Argentinia, Brazilians, Mexicans, etc didn't say that they are "American". After all, they do come from the American continent...

This is probably the root of the problem - and the 'Swiss' global advertising on which someone else remarked.

I didn't, but now I have and everything there supports what I wrote so not sure what you're getting at other than trying to prove my other point about miscomprehension. In English 'r's are usually so soft to only function as vowel modifiers if you're meaning the lack of strong pronunciation of the 'r'.

There's a clear distinction between French and English Bale. Baaaaal vs Balle if you don't like the use of the 'r'.

Point being that the Englishified pronunciation of the French Bale, becomes the English pronunciation of the Englishified spelling of the German Basel. Basel/Bale is Basle in English but pronounced without the 's'.

https://dict.leo.org/pages/addinfo/a...p=ende&lang=en

https://dict.leo.org/pages/addinfo/a...p=ende&lang=en

https://dict.leo.org/pages/addinfo/a...p=frde&lang=fr

I suppose it's people exposed to the term "en Suisse" who think they're being a bit local by saying "in Swiss".

1. No need to be insulting.

2. An example pronunciation of "Basle" on one website does not make a fact of what a typical British native speaker would say, or what they would hear.

The pronunciation of R varies hugely across the country, with obvious rolling R in Scotland, dropping R from different parts of words in different parts of the country, blatant additions of R after an A in others (e.g. bath could be baf, bahf, barf, bath, bahth, or barth). Whether you hear an R in Basle will depend on your native pronunciation.

I've flown into Basel any number of times from the UK and I've heard Barl, Bahl, Basel, Basil at various times.

Next you'll be telling me you can't hear the "h" in which!

Thanks for your reply. I give up and welcome our new overlords with soft vowel modifiers – hail thee, soft “r” usurpers! May we all bend down and pray the (silent) R will continue to bring prosperity to countless generations of .....

The original French spelling is Basle.

In French, a circumflex accent indicates that an 's' has been dropped.

Tom

Like in cool hwip.

castello - château - precisely! However, the Britsh [sic] onslaught of the nefarious silent “r” overlords have already overwhelmed my puny defenses. I cry....

Can we move on to your use of 'sic'?

yes, that's why en anglais is translated into English as in English .

as in: "J'habite en anglais" or "I live in English".

why not.

Definition of sic

intentionally so written —used after a printed word or passage to indicate that it is intended exactly as printed or to indicate that it exactly reproduces an original

I don't see a problem.

Apparently, the only misguided people are the ones who have English as first language and living in French speaking Switzerland.

Schweiz it not Swiss. Svizzera is not Swiss. Suiza it not Swiss. Suíça is not Swiss. Zvicra is not Swiss. Švýcarsko is totally not Swiss.

I’m quite glad you mention “moving on”. As I understood various posts regarding wrong current usage of language and how it just has to be accepted, I didn’t really think my Britsh [sic] as a haphazard term for linguistically challenged Brits would cut it. Had fond hopes it would morph into something like beeech within a few generations...

It already has. As of now.

In past what? Who? Where? For what?

Swiss is still a legitimate adjective . Apparently, it's been legitimate since 1708. As an adjective . I may not be a linguist, but I'm a fast learner, even though I say so myself.

I've scrutinised your link and I searched for SWISS, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I made sure I typed it correctly into the search function, honest.

Ess, double you, aye, ess, ess, but nothing came up. Would you highlight it for me please?

I only found this, but it's not helping in clarifying your train of thought:

Schweiz

Die Landesbezeichnung S. leitet sich von der Kantonsbezeichnung Schwyz ab. Die erstmalige Erwähnung Suittes (972) gilt nicht dem Land, sondern der Bevölkerung. Auch im Fall des Begriffs S. spielen das Substantiv Schweizer und das Adjektiv schweizerisch eine wichtige Rolle: Wo die Schweizer wohnen und wo die Dinge schweizerisch sind, da ist die S.

Looking forward to your claim that German and English are the same, both today and multiple centuries ago.

Or that the device you wrote your post on has existed since times immemorial, as did the infrastructure it relies on and uses.

(FTW: Both are/would be equally nonsensical and irrelevant)

I find it funny how on the one hand you're arguing, essentially, that the devil's in the detail (bâle vs basle and how one's supposed to pronounce whip) after you started out with suggesting that comparatively massive differences (Suisse as the grounds for Swiss as " "Swiss" phonetically is at least an official name for the country") are Ok.

It can also be a noun - meaning a person from Switzerland, i.e. A Swiss, or maybe more commonly "The Swiss". That's probably a contraction dropping "person"/"people" from the end.

According to Wiktionary it also means to roll or pound meat or textiles to soften them, although the linking of "swiss" and "roll" in a wiki article makes me more than a little suspicious...

Agreed. When used together with a or the .

..... and we're right back in the world of pastries (well, cakes and their close cousins, to be precise):

Swiss roll: The cake is believed to have originated not in Switzerland, but elsewhere in Central Europe.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Swiss_roll The German-speaking Swiss in Switzerland call a Swiss roll a roulade, which is French. Pronounced ruulaad, but possibly not in all dialects.