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Chris -- 2018-04-11
I heard someone being interviewed and she used the expression “from all works of life”; as she was an intelligent and articulate character I assumed it was simply a slip of the tongue but a quick google of “all works of life” yielded 804 ughits. “All walks of life” refers to the full range of different cultures, lifestyles and ethnic, social and economic groups. ‘Works’ narrows it down, perhaps, to just occupation?
In order to finance and practically carry out the surveys it was decided to invite people from all works of life to come and enjoy this very special marine …
www.sealifesurveys.com/about.shtml – 12k – Cached
Yoga is fast becoming a daily practice, worldwide, for people from all works of life, regardless of race or cultural differences. ...
www.yogarts.com.au/?page_id=19 – 13k – Cached
More than 4 million men and women of all works of life, from all over the world have benefited from Toastmasters training. More than 1000 corporations, ...
acca.freetoasthost.info/files/ACCA_TMC_app_200708.doc
Last edited by Peter Forster (2008-11-04 17:54:13)
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Nice find!
How do you non-rhotics distinguish between the two so as to tell which was used on the radio/TV?
(Wanting to add to my collection of a-rhotic esoterica.)
Last edited by DavidTuggy (2008-11-04 08:23:27)
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Rhotic speech is alive and well in much of the West country and a remnant survives amongst older folk in Northumberland, so not all of us are a-rhotic; but even if we were, the difference in vowel sound is quite clear without the ‘r’ to guide us. Not for the first time, I wish I was able to convey sound in a written form but IPA to me has always meant India Pale Ale rather than anything to do with phonetics so I am unable to demonstrate using the appropriate symbols. Incidentally though, the Geordie and other pitmatic dialects do pronounce ‘work’ as if it were ‘walk’, though ‘walk’ itself sounds like ‘waak’.
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Recently attested in the wilds of CBC Radio in Montreal. A caller explained that she relaxed by going “dragon boating”, a kind of team boat racing, powered by ‘Armstrong’, where the other paddlers were from all works of life. This example was starkly rhotic.
The host replied that she had never tried “dragging boating”. Although it might look like she meant taking her boat for a drag, in context it sounded like she meant drag racing with boats.
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