What's the Point of "Ser" Instead of "Sir"

[MadKingDavid]

I'm not sure if it's about regional accents or not, but I think the way I say it is more

Ah-LOO-mi-num

Thanks everyone for the answers, I'm running out of time to do too much individual response. ;) :D

A girl must......................get to her real life. :o Soon, anyway. :lmao:

Oh, do you have one of those. What's it like? :D

I'd say we say it in Standard American English as "uh-LOO-mi-num.

[King Tyrion I]

It's an artistic stroke.

:agree: I quite like the quibble on the Spanish word 'ser' meaning 'to be'.

[Universal Sword Donor]

I'm British actually. Please, no need to try to be so insulting about British v American spelling

Untwist the bunch in your panties. It was humorous sarcasm, like I indicated earlier in the thread.

[theriveryeti]

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold.....

It's a real word.

So the plural of pea is "pease"? Odd that.

[MadKingDavid]

So the plural of pea is "pease"? Odd that.

Nope. That's the old Middle English mass noun, like "oatmeal," before the starting using the singular "pea" and plural "peas." :)

[HexMachina]

Nope. That's the old Middle English mass noun, like "oatmeal," before the starting using the singular "pea" and plural "peas." :)

Pease pudding is made of peas, to confuse matters even further.

[MadKingDavid]

Pease pudding is made of peas, to confuse matters even further.

Peas, no more! Pretty peas with pease on top!

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

I'm British actually. Please, no need to try to be so insulting about British v American spelling

Nah, I'm British and I say we all make fun of each others's dumb countries even more. The chuckles will bring us closer

Apparently your made up version is pretty close to the truth. According to my Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary it actually is pronounced SUTH-ron, and it originated in Scotland as a term for the English.

That sounds right, although in my mind the "ron" part is more like "run". But again, I have no reference. But if you look at the English word "borough" and the Scottish word "burgh", both used as a suffix in place names (e.g. Peterborough, Middlesborough, Edinburgh), they seem like they must have split from a common root word and evolved differently depending on how the locals spoke. (There's a similar German suffix, e.g. Brandenburg, Hamburg.) I suppose a similar thing must have happened in the real world with "southern". It's weird, I doubt I've ever read the word "southron" outside of ASOIAF, but I'm from England and it just sounds northern in some way.

Although not when it's pronounced "SOWTH-ron". They do it like that on the show and it grates every time! Most of the actors are themselves southrons putting on accents, so I suppose they've no way of knowing - and of course the producers can be expected to get it wrong, being damn dirty yanks...

Hey, is it okay for a Scot to say that the English can't pronounce anything right? :P

Sure, although it would be the very height of hypocrisy coming from those mush-mouthed idiots

[MadKingDavid]

Nah, I'm British and I say we all make fun of each others's dumb countries even more. The chuckles will bring us closer

I think that's what the original poster of the "British can't pronounce things right" intended to do.

That sounds right, although in my mind the "ron" part is more like "run". But again, I have no reference. But if you look at the English word "borough" and the Scottish word "burgh", both used as a suffix in place names (e.g. Peterborough, Middlesborough, Edinburgh), they seem like they must have split from a common root word and evolved differently depending on how the locals spoke. (There's a similar German suffix, e.g. Brandenburg, Hamburg.) I suppose a similar thing must have happened in the real world with "southern". It's weird, I doubt I've ever read the word "southron" outside of ASOIAF, but I'm from England and it just sounds northern in some way.

That's right about "burgh" and "borough." It literally meant a walled enclosure, and came to refer to towns in medieval Europe. It's the same root as in bourgeois and bourgeoisie, because the town dwellers formed a new class in between the hereditary aristocracy and the hereditary peasantry--this free non-nobles became the middle class, whom the French called the bourgeoisie. The term burgher for a town dweller in English, a town ruler in what used to be the Holy Roman Empire (which had essentially autonomous towns) and for an enfranchised person in South Africa, all come from the same Germanic root word.

Although not when it's pronounced "SOWTH-ron". They do it like that on the show and it grates every time! Most of the actors are themselves southrons putting on accents, so I suppose they've no way of knowing - and of course the producers can be expected to get it wrong, being damn dirty yanks...

That's actually how I imagined the word being pronounced when I read it in The Lord of the Rings, and that's how the reader of the CD version pronounces it.

Sure, although it would be the very height of hypocrisy coming from those mush-mouthed idiots

'ey thar laddie boy, careful wit yer sayn, itsa mattera pride!

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

That's right about "burgh" and "borough." It literally meant a walled enclosure, and came to refer to towns in medieval Europe. It's the same root as in bourgeois and bourgeoisie, because the town dwellers formed a new class in between the hereditary aristocracy and the hereditary peasantry--this free non-nobles became the middle class, whom the French called the bourgeoisie. The term burgher for a town dweller in English, a town ruler in what used to be the Holy Roman Empire (which had essentially autonomous towns) and for an enfranchised person in South Africa, all come from the same Germanic root word.

Interesting, cheers. Makes one realise there's not much of a middle-class in Westeros. The closest thing is probably Littlefinger, and he's a high and mighty lord now. Or maybe the Faith Militant - not exactly the bourgeoisie, but at least an alternative power structure to the feudal system.

That's actually how I imagined the word being pronounced when I read it in The Lord of the Rings, and that's how the reader of the CD version pronounces it.

Pfff, what does Tolkein know about ancient languages. I'm still annoyed about "SOW-ron", which growing up I thought was "SAW-ron".

'ey thar laddie boy, careful wit yer sayn, itsa mattera pride!

Calm doon, I dinnae mean tae hurt ye feelings, ken? Ya wee numpty

[LongRider]

I'm actually much more confused on the UK pronunciation of aluminum. The way it is said makes it sound like a totally different element than the stuff my foil wrap is made from.

I used to have a boss from England and the first time she said "aluminum" and "schedule" I had no idea what she was talking about. :dunno:

As time has gone on, I've learned to really enjoy the way different English speakers from around the globe all speak English. :thumbsup:

As the French say* "Via La Difference!" Plus, I've enjoyed GRRM's plays on words, it's his world after all.

ETA: Also, the variances in spelling on the boards can clue one into where a poster might be from. I like that. :cheers:

*_{or as we Americans say the French say, anyway.}

[MadKingDavid]

Interesting, cheers. Makes one realise there's not much of a middle-class in Westeros. The closest thing is probably Littlefinger, and he's a high and mighty lord now. Or maybe the Faith Militant - not exactly the bourgeoisie, but at least an alternative power structure to the feudal system.

I was thinking about class structure in ASoIF briefly this morning as I was writing. GRRM doesn't really tell us much about agrarian commoners--are they bound to the land as peasants, or are they free people? The commoners in King's Landing, the good, the bad and the ugly, all resemble the original European middle-class, but is there anything for them to be in the middle of? It's not clear. In modern (or postmodern) American we use the term "middle class" to mean "middle income," but the European middle class spanned the gamut from dirt poor to Rothschilds, wealthier than most nobles (and able to buy themselves noble titles). Littlefinger technically comes from the minor house of Baelish, so he's technically a minor noble, but so far he certainly seemed to have made his fortune more through "bourgeois" pursuits than by collecting land rents (or just land products in a non-money economy).

Looking at a wiki for more background on Littlefinger, I think it does seem like his aristocracy doesn't go back very far, as his great-grandfather was a Braavosi sellsword whose son became a hedge knight. In the reality of medieval Europe, especially as we come to the High Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages, the hereditary aristocracy wasn't by any means the impermeable class that medieval writers often painted it as. Professional fighters of the short that his great-grandfather was were also part of the class between in medieval Europe, and got more common with the rise of a money economy, where first cities and then kings could hire professional warriors in coin and not have to grant lands and noble titles.

Medieval Europe in a sense had two hierarchies--secular and religious, with the Catholic Church having its own feudal system, with the Pope the equivalent of king (or emperor) with cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and lay priests theoretically all owing him allegiance but in many cases independent of him (whether truly independent or in the pockets of local kings and lords). The Church even had vast lands worked by peasants bound to the land. I think probably by definition, the Church itself had no middle class, because to desert the church hierarchy entirely meant to not be part of the church. Actually, now that I think of it, there were Christians who developed orders separate from the Church, some of whom, like the Albigensians, the Church exterminated and some of which, like the Jesuits, Franciscans and Knights Templar, to which the Church decided to grant authorization. Probably in some sense members of those orders could be considered middle class--in between the hereditary peasants bound to the Church's lands and the Church's aristocracy.

In practice though the Church tended to draw its aristocrats from the secular aristocracy, so the Church aristocracy wasn't truly independent from the secular aristocracy, even though in some matters the two were from time to time at odds, sometimes violently.

I think the Faith Militant order resembles the Knights Templar (Gary Gaygax's basis for the cleric class in Dungeons and Dragons), with higher-ranking individuals coming perhaps from lesser nobility, but the order as a whole existing outside the theoretical two-class system of medieval western Europe, having been started by secular nobles on a crusade and then endorsed by the Church power structure, employing far more support staff than knights, and eventually destroyed, as was the independence of local clergy and local towns, by the rise of centralizing kinds with professional, money-paid armies. I think you're right in identifying the Faith Militant order as something that could, if there's a hereditary peasantry in Westros, qualify as a middle class.

One thing I've noticed in my historical studies, by the way, is that while Americans typically talk about "the middle class," European writings have historically talked about "middle classes," even though Marx tried to lump them all together as "the bourgeoisie."

In medieval Europe, the rise of independent cities came about in part because of the Holy Roman Empire, which granted corporate ("body") status to towns and universities alike, making them independent of local lords, while not being able to exercise much in the way of authority itself over them, since the emperor rarely had much in the way of central authority. The rise of independent cities gave abused peasants, landless second sons, and various and sundry others not happy with their lot in the two-class system a place to which they could escape to relative freedom.

Westros though has more a feel of medieval Britain, which had several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms before the Norse invaded and conquered them. England did have peasants bound to the land, but also free farmers, especially after the Norse conquered the so-called Danelaw, and by the early modern era, a class of yeoman who also weren't bound to the land they worked, and where the cities were under the control of, an in many cases had arisen around, the local lords, earls and kings. I guess that makes sense, as GRRM modeled the game of thrones to some degree on the English War of the Roses, which took place in the late Late Middle Ages (no, that's not a stutter :D ).

He doesn't tell us much about the commoners we barely see along the way. The innkeepers, for instance, seem "bourgeois" in the sense of running a business for money, rather than being bound to the land or members of the aristocracy. We do, however, if I remember correctly, see commoners fleeing from war (and winter) in the north to King's Landing, although I'm not sure that really resembles fleeing the abuse of the local lord to the relative freedom of the independent town. I have noticed, on the other hand, that the mob in King's Landing doesn't seem under control of the king, so in that sense perhaps they do actually have more freedom living anonymously in a big city, even the king's big city, than living on the land near a local lord who knows where you live. :D

Pfff, what does Tolkein know about ancient languages. I'm still annoyed about "SOW-ron", which growing up I thought was "SAW-ron".

Yes, I agree that he knew nothing of languages. If it makes you feel any better, I still say "SAW-ron." I think that "SOW-ron" bit is just typical English mispronunciation of the English language. :D

Calm doon, I dinnae mean tae hurt ye feelings, ken? Ya wee numpty

You're much better at the fake Scottish thing that I am! :bowdown:

[Florina Laufeyson]

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/958839-septs-and-sers-do-martin-s-slanted-spellings-work-or-are-they

:thumbsup:

Also Ser looks cooler. It really does.

I used to have a boss from England and the first time she said "aluminum" and "schedule" I had no idea what she was talking about.

The moment you realize you have been pronouncing 'schedule' the British way, but you arent British. :v

Or witnessing a Brit trying to ask an American man behind the counter, for unleaded petrol. Oh man...i felt so bad for that Brit.

[Northernmonkey]

On a slightly related note, it really annoys me in ASOIAF when people break their fast instead of just having breakfast. It just sounds stupid.

[falcotron]

I think his phrasing—start with modern English, move it just slightly toward late Middle English, then twist things around—helps get the feeling across even better than his spelling.

I think he made a few missteps in both cases (like when he came up with the phrases "much and more" and "little and less" and suddenly had people using them every other page), but for the most part he's done a great job.

The only part that's unrealistic to me is that Westeros would have standardized spellings at all, or such consistent dialects, in a medieval country as far across as South America. It shouldn't be a matter of a slightly different accent or an occasional different turn of phrase; the dialects should be borderline unintelligible. However, I can suspect my disbelief on that as it makes for a much better story this way.

[Hodor the Articulate]

:thumbsup:

Also Ser looks cooler. It really does.

The moment you realize you have been pronouncing 'schedule' the British way, but you arent British. :v

Or witnessing a Brit trying to ask an American man behind the counter, for unleaded petrol. Oh man...i felt so bad for that Brit.

You know what bothers me? When Americans say (h)erb. The "h" isn't silent, you ninnies!

[Pib_Juju]

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/958839-septs-and-sers-do-martin-s-slanted-spellings-work-or-are-they

Interesting. I've always thought Martin's use of "sept" for church was pretty clever. It recalls the Latin for seven (septem), as in the seven gods, and a part of a cathedral (transept).

[KING-OF-WINTERFELL]

Same reason the English spell aluminum, color, and many other words wrong.

Don't you mean right, don't you.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Interesting. I've always thought Martin's use of "sept" for church was pretty clever. It recalls the Latin for seven (septem), as in the seven gods, and a part of a cathedral (transept).

I reckon. It's so apt that I just thought it was a real word, some obscure Catholic term for an altar or tabernacle or the like.

You're much better at the fake Scottish thing that I am! :bowdown:

You gotta read Trainspotting, the whole thing's written like that. It's awesome:

“Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ah sound mind, ectetera, ectetera, but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whut they huv tae offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life. Well, ah choose no tae choose life. If the cunts cannae handle that, it's thair fuckin problem. As Harry Launder sais, ah jist intend tae keep right on to the end of the road...”

[Torrhen Blackwood]

Fixed it for you :D

It's the same deal as "southron," isn't it?

No, "southron" is/was used in the southern US. It was used during the Civil War.