Word Choices That Irk Me
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I suppose it’s not the only thing we do that seems weird to everyone else. Our dialect is definitely “unique.”
"These ones" is a crime against language. The only time it makes any sense at all is when you are talking about something that could be referred to as a "one" such as a one dollar bill...that is the only instance I can think of in which "one" can be pluralized with any legitimacy whatsoever.
Indeed. It should be "these here ones"......
Having watched most of Ken Burns' documentaries I have often had cause to cringe when his most popular commentator Peter Coyote speaks. His pronunciation is appalling, especially to British ears. Here are a couple that I made a note of.
"They dootifly complied with their baddle orders"
"There were huge pardies all over the siddy"
"His good nooze made it into all the siddy noozepapers"
"There was much anxiedy among the stoodents"
"The democradic pardy showded foul"
"The baddle was a brudal one"
"The caddle were herded into the caddle trucks"
I have to wonder, if asked to spell these words how he would go about it.
We have a TV news journalist over here called Beth Rigby and her speech grates with so many folks that there is much mention of it on the web. For some reason only known to herself she always misses off the final 'g' in words, such as "it was startin to rain as he was goin to 10 Downin Street".
Regards,
Jay.
"They dootifly complied with their baddle orders"
"There were huge pardies all over the siddy"
"His good nooze made it into all the siddy noozepapers"
"There was much anxiedy among the stoodents"
"The democradic pardy showded foul"
"The baddle was a brudal one"
"The caddle were herded into the caddle trucks"
I have to wonder, if asked to spell these words how he would go about it.
We have a TV news journalist over here called Beth Rigby and her speech grates with so many folks that there is much mention of it on the web. For some reason only known to herself she always misses off the final 'g' in words, such as "it was startin to rain as he was goin to 10 Downin Street".
Regards,
Jay.
Very good Bengel 
You ought to hear broad Yorkshire, that would sound like double Dutch to you!
Regards,
Jay.?
You ought to hear broad Yorkshire, that would sound like double Dutch to you!
Regards,
Jay.?
Frank- Good observations. "How are you?" seems to no longer be a question, but simply a greeting. If cheers is confusing, how about "Ta". "Ta very much...." ?
Really bothers me, the latest customer service phrase “perfect“ as a response to everything one says on a call.
It's good that you and I have a good online relationship. I enjoy and respect the written word, however my speaking voice is south Baltimore tempered by 30 years in the US south.
Along with the intermittent stream of expletives, I'd possibly make your ears bleed.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going for a cool, tall glass of "wooder". nana
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going for a cool, tall glass of "wooder... "
Now as a Yorkshireman I would say a glass of 'watter' but as I went to a good school I say 'water'. Also, if I'd ever have said 'watter' I'd have got a clip behind the ear.....both at school and at home!
Regards,
Jay.?
Now as a Yorkshireman I would say a glass of 'watter' but as I went to a good school I say 'water'. Also, if I'd ever have said 'watter' I'd have got a clip behind the ear.....both at school and at home!
Regards,
Jay.?
I became fascinated with Southern U.S. dialect when I watched the national political conventions as a young kid in the North in 1956 and 1960. After I'd gone to school in Chicago and Columbia Missouri, and rattled around California and the South China Sea, I washed ashore in Greensboro, N.C., to add a degree to my resume. When I went to order breakfast at the student union, I soon learned that I had to slow down my cadence of speech or the short order cook (who was an old Navy guy himself) couldn't understand what I wanted. Now people in Chicago think I have a Southern accent, but people in North Carolina know categorically I'm a transplant. Language is a funny critter. I think a really good linguist could suss it out pretty quick, a Midwesterner who's lived around the U.S., but most people can't guess. I'm probably more Midwestern in speech now that I married (after widower-hood) to a woman from the Midwest, northern Missouri. I had a friend in the Navy from Rome Georgia who did a terrific Northern accent imitation -- fast, clipped, and hitting those consonants hard, a good reminder that Northerners have accents too. Johnny Carson from Nebraska had the classic generic U.S. English, hard to peg the locale.
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Yes, it should be "them shits".
Referring to the boiled peanuts I had yesterday, "them shits, are good as hell"
“No problem” drives me up a wall, like fingernails on a chalkboard. De nada or de rien (Fr) are not the same at all
Buh-Un (With glottal stop, as in uh-oh) for button. Often heard from the same young people who say no problem.
This is not a sound, but forming the plural of a word using an apostrophe (tobacco’s) should be grounds for deportation. Yes I realize I just stepped on a lot of toes. There was a man in England not so long ago who went around with a ladder and paint brush correcting the same error in signage over a wide area. I think he was eventually arrested or something. He should’ve been knighted.
As regards the difference between Southerners and others further north, I feel qualified to comment. I grew up in Texas and now live in Maine. There are many differences in the people, too much of a subject for thIs space. But I will say that in Maine one doesn’t have to wonder whether someone is sincere. Southern language is much more heavily seasoned, and I do miss that a lot. It’s true people are not quite as friendly here but it’s also true they are more sincere. In my experience anyway. And the word liberal is not a pejorative.
As regards “sugar” (shug) and “honey” (hon) somehow I like to hear it. Maybe because it takes me back to the elderly lady clerks at Levy’s department store in Galveston, who used to paint their lipstick up above the line of their lip.
Buh-Un (With glottal stop, as in uh-oh) for button. Often heard from the same young people who say no problem.
This is not a sound, but forming the plural of a word using an apostrophe (tobacco’s) should be grounds for deportation. Yes I realize I just stepped on a lot of toes. There was a man in England not so long ago who went around with a ladder and paint brush correcting the same error in signage over a wide area. I think he was eventually arrested or something. He should’ve been knighted.
As regards the difference between Southerners and others further north, I feel qualified to comment. I grew up in Texas and now live in Maine. There are many differences in the people, too much of a subject for thIs space. But I will say that in Maine one doesn’t have to wonder whether someone is sincere. Southern language is much more heavily seasoned, and I do miss that a lot. It’s true people are not quite as friendly here but it’s also true they are more sincere. In my experience anyway. And the word liberal is not a pejorative.
As regards “sugar” (shug) and “honey” (hon) somehow I like to hear it. Maybe because it takes me back to the elderly lady clerks at Levy’s department store in Galveston, who used to paint their lipstick up above the line of their lip.
Buh-Un (With glottal stop, as in uh-oh) for button. Often heard from the same young people who say no problem. "
Mngslvs, I understand you perfectly!
Many southern Brits would say such as "he went to hospitoo in a ambalance". The deterioration of spoken English over here is heartbreaking. We have 'parlyment', 'febury', 'libry', 'seckertry'......you get the picture.
And often as not these are TV news presenters!
Regards,
Jay.?
Mngslvs, I understand you perfectly!
Many southern Brits would say such as "he went to hospitoo in a ambalance". The deterioration of spoken English over here is heartbreaking. We have 'parlyment', 'febury', 'libry', 'seckertry'......you get the picture.
And often as not these are TV news presenters!
Regards,
Jay.?
I must say that as a non native (and often poorly) English speaker I find this thread both enlightening and highly entertaining.
The grossly overused 'like' replacing every other word in a sentence....
Interesting; my dad (from Portadown) also said 'watter'.
He (and I) also say 'sospun' instead of 'saucepan' and if I make a sauce when cooking I'll use the 'sauce sospun'. (Oddly my three - or is that tree - brothers don't say 'sospun' but they all went to boarding school...). It used to infuriate my wife (who is Brazilian) but she no longer mentions and instead complains of all the Aussie I picked up living there, a few examples:
- thirdy instead of thirty, fordy instead of forty, etc.
- wadder instead of watter or, if you prefer, water
- bottle-o - off licence or bottle shop
- servo - pertrol or gas station
- garbies - bin men/women
- firies - firemen/women
- ambo's - ambulance men/women
- arvo for afternoon (as opposed to avo which is a green fruit usually served smashed on toast for breakfast or lunch - although its use for guacamole is acceptable)
- bonza for good/brilliant
- no worries for virtually every occasion that 'no problem' has been mentioned in this thread (although some Aussie's prefer to use "too easy" rather than "no worries")
- Poor girl is still struggling when I come out with some of the obscure Irish slang although she's got used to "that's grand' which is used pretty much as bonza/good or the one American (and seemingly Australian) phrase that I find really grating: awesome. Can anyone explain to me why a waiter/waitress finds it "Awsome" if I order something off their own menu?
- Aussie coffee has a different lingo too
- then there is a whole sub-dialect of Aussie slang...
Yup, that can be very irritating.
There is a (younger) generation in England who seemingly end every sentence with "init" or "init?"; sometimes punctuating sentences with additional "init"s for good measure.
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