[Vranx]

Thanks for the tip! Does the Bessamatic lenses work on Pentax bodies with an adapter? Are the lenses any good? Thanks

Hi Hangu,

Stephen Gandy offered a Compur-to-PK-Bayonet adapter in the late 90ies, but it seems to be sold out.

The lenses are very compact, not very fast and beautifully made, all chrome and brass, but the lenses are fully uncoated. Nevertheless, they produce outstanding pictures, sharp, with natural colours and a, er, out-of-focus-blur or bokeh, that makes modern lenses blush!

If you are interested in those issues, contact me, because I feel it would be better to start a new thread instead of amalgamting it here, right?

[foxglove]

Ghoti is a fake word. In English, it's pronounced 'goatee'. Just because the components make those sounds in other words, doesn't mean that they make the same sound when moved to a different position in a different word.

Hou tu pranownse Inglish

I think mickeyobe covered this, but I must say, the link you give does seem to miss the point. Yes, "ghoti" is a fake word; Shaw was not being ignorant, he was making a humorous point about the oddities of English spelling. He was not suggesting that "gh" at the beginning of a word ought to be pronounced "f". Maybe this sort of thing is only funny to word nerds*.

A German co-worker who had lived in Canada for over 30 years complained bitterly about someone writing "Thanx" on a note - how the heck were new English speakers supposed to figure the language out if we keep messing with the spelling? She had a point! As if it's not confusing enough...

Julie

*more English oddities... -ord and -erd rhyme... sometimes...

[alohadave]

[B]

Ghoti
For people of western Bengal, see Ghotis.
Ghoti is a constructed word used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling. It is a respelling of the word fish, and like fish is pronounced /ˈfɪʃ/.

gh, pronounced /f/ as in tough /tʌf/;
o, pronounced /ɪ/ as in women /ˈwɪmɪn/; and
ti, pronounced /ʃ/ as in nation /ˈne͡ɪʃən/.

Mickey

Yeah, and what is your point? It's already established that Shaw (or some other person not attributed) made up the word for humor. Putting those letters in those spots doesn't pronounce as fish.

[mickeyobe]

Oh. Despite Shaw's intention, we are getting serious.
In that case I bow to your vastly superior knowledge.
The floor is all yours.

Aloha,

Mickey

[arp5792]

I use it in actual conversation......but I live in Japan and all my daily conversations are in Japanese. I have never used the term when speaking or writing English....I call it "background blur", which is precisely what it is. I wouldn't feel ridiculous saying it aloud in English, but I would feel extraordinarily pretentious, and I loath the pretentious.

Does anyone have any idea when the English-speaking photography community decided to borrow the term into English?

This whole borrowed words thing is a particular bugaboo of mine as the Japanese, who constitute 100% of my real-life daily interactions, have an extraordinary fondness for borrowing words, changing their meaning/usage.

For example, they borrowed "glass". But if you're referring to the material "glass" it is pronounced "garasu". If you're referring to a drinking glass it is pronounced "gurasu". They borrowed "gum". If referring to chewing gum it is "gamu". If referring to gum rubber (or latex condoms) it is "gomu". They borrowed "machine", which is "mashin"....unless it is a sewing machine, in which case it is "mishin". Just the other day in a phone conversation I got laughed at for inadvertently referring to an upcoming labor strike as a "sutoraiku". Silly me, that is the word for a strike in baseball.....a labor strike is "sutoraiki" (usually shortened to "suto"). Tell them that all of those word pairs come from a single word in English and they will look at you like you have two heads.

And they dearly love foreign buzzwords. Almost overnight recently the condition of being overweight is known at "metabo" (from "metabolic"). Naturally, being an English speaker I'm expected to know what somebody means when they say "You're metabo".

I had some trouble down at the container yards once because the gate clerk told me the container I had come to get was "free time ga sugite iru".....which I interpreted as meaning it had cleared Customs and was now unencumbered (free) and available to be taken out. No, what they meant was that the several days period during which the yard will hold a container with no additional charges after it is offloaded from a ship had expired and I was expected to make arrangements for paying several days storage fee. If they had said "muryou hokan kikan 無料保管期間 then I would understood them just fine from the beginning.

You see, for the foreigner here borrowed words give all the appearances of being a friend, a solid and reliable linguistic stone one can confidently step on while navigating the treacherous path of conversation.....but more often than not it is nothing more than a patch of quicksand.

Hell, we've got three different borrowed words to describe part-time workers, "paato" (obvious), "arubaito" (from German arbeit), and "furiitaa" (presumably from "free" "arbeit" and the Japanese pronunciation of the English suffix "er")......and there is some sort of distinction betweeen the meaning and use of the three.

Thank you for your explanation of "BOKEH". I am familiar with the term "BOUQUET" but when studying a picture where the background was superbly blurred and the writer spoke about "THE BOKEH", I was completely at a loss because there is no mention of that word in the 'Oxford English Dictionary'.

I have searched the forums for a "Glossary of Photographic Terms" but that search returns zero results. Do you know of any website containing a "Glossary of Photographic Terms"?

[SpecialK]

Do people actually use the term 'bokeh' in actual conversation? I feel ridiculous just saying it aloud

Apparently some people do, but I never use it.

[alohadave]

Apparently some people do, but I never use it.

I only ever use it when talking to other photographers, and only when analyzing pictures. It's not something I randomly toss out in normal conversation.

[mickeyobe]

WRATTEN ?

Rat - ehn? Like the rodent - as in end
Rotten? - Like eggs
Or something else?

I have seen it written many times but have never heard it pronounced.

Mickey

[boriscleto]

Thank you for your explanation of "BOKEH". I am familiar with the term "BOUQUET" but when studying a picture where the background was superbly blurred and the writer spoke about "THE BOKEH", I was completely at a loss because there is no mention of that word in the 'Oxford English Dictionary'.

I have searched the forums for a "Glossary of Photographic Terms" but that search returns zero results. Do you know of any website containing a "Glossary of Photographic Terms"?

Wikipedia is probably the best.

Bokeh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[adwb]

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f".. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

[Jodokast96]

That was great!

[extravagrant]

Ghoti is a fake word.

Yes, "ghoti" is a fake word;

What exactly makes a word fake? The fact that it was invented by a person?

Which words weren't invented?

[alohadave]

What exactly makes a word fake? The fact that it was invented by a person?

Which words weren't invented?

It's fake in that the way that it is spelled does not spell what the creator intended.

It was created to illustrate how nonsensical the English language is. It is supposed to be pronounced "fish", but in English, ghoti is pronounced "goatie".

[GhoSStrider]

This edition of The Sunday Photographer --Mike Johnston's old column on The Luminous Landscape-- describes the pronunciation of 'bokeh.' If you don't want to read the whole article (I highly recommend reading the whole series of The Sunday Photographer), here's the quote that explains it:

"it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable"

And as I understand it, the *ist was supposed to be called the "ist." The concept was that you replace the asterisk with whatever applied to you, e.g. "portraitist" or "artist" or whatever. I've always happened to like calling the camera the "Starkist," though.

[adwb]

And as I understand it, the *ist was supposed to be called the "ist." The concept was that you replace the asterisk with whatever applied to you, e.g. "portraitist" or "artist" or whatever. I've always happened to like calling the camera the "Starkist," though.

That's the first time I have see that and at long last *ist makes sense