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Post by bluehare on Jan 12, 2009 23:38:26 GMT
Ha! No, it doesn't bother me at all - you asking me questions..... I was not raised in Bakersfield, but almost. I was raised more northerly - in Modesto.....still the Central Valley. Bakersfield is way more southern-bent than Modesto. In fact, it is a local saying that Bakersfield is the third largest city in Oklahoma. Modesto tries to look toward San Francisco and the Bay area for its behavior model. Still, growing up in the Central Valley where a lot of Dust Bowl refugees landed, I'm sure their dialectic roots added to the local color. Maybe they're the ones responsible for a-monds (like the "a" in "bat") and ape-ricots - as opposed to almonds and apricots - that one hears so commonly in the valley.... As for my usage of the word "anymore" goes.....that one completely eludes me. I have no idea where it comes from. But in a family where various people called a couch a sofa, a divan, and a chesterfield, there's no telling where I picked it up! Could have just been from one of my wacky relatives. And speaking for myself, you could never bore me with talk about linguistics, dialects, and accents.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 13, 2009 0:12:05 GMT
Interesting! In Kentucky, we say all-monds and ape-ricots. Here's one: for greasy, do you say greaSy or greaZy? Greazy is the Southern version. I grew up partly in Kentucky/Indiana and partly in New York/New Jersey, so I'm a mix, and I say greasy!
The "anymore" is really something, because I have one parent from KY and one from Arkansas and neither of them used it - I never remember hearing it at all until I came to KY to go to college and it kind of jumped out. It seems pretty unique.
But what it comes down to is that the things that are so annoying - the "um", "you know," all that stuff has a purpose - a way of signaling you're still talking, or an attempt to see if you're connecting with the other, or with "think about it," a way of emphasizing something or of just saying "let's not move away from this just yet." But the literal meaning certainly is obnoxious!
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 13, 2009 0:16:06 GMT
Yep, that's stranger. Interesting reading material you're exploring these days, mate. Anyway, don't tell her but I've got a chunk of her husband up in my closet, in my memory box. And I'm not allowing any conjugal visits! He's mine, all mine.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 13, 2009 0:22:34 GMT
Do you know why we spell those words differently? That is your trivia quiz question for the day. I cheated but I should have guessed it'd have something to do with Webster. Cheers, Jioffe. Webster, you mean, "that bastard?" You cheated! I can't believe it! Well, for those who didn't cheat and who might be interested, when Noah Webster wrote the first all American dictionary, he changed those spellings (and also things like theatre/theater) to deliberately make American English different. What's so interesting about that is that hardly EVER does an imposed, invented change like that really stick. That's one of the very few instances.
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Post by bluehare on Jan 13, 2009 1:00:07 GMT
Interesting! In Kentucky, we say all-monds and ape-ricots. Here's one: for greasy, do you say greaSy or greaZy? Greazy is the Southern version. I grew up partly in Kentucky/Indiana and partly in New York/New Jersey, so I'm a mix, and I say greasy! The "anymore" is really something, because I have one parent from KY and one from Arkansas and neither of them used it - I never remember hearing it at all until I came to KY to go to college and it kind of jumped out. It seems pretty unique. But what it comes down to is that the things that are so annoying - the "um", "you know," all that stuff has a purpose - a way of signaling you're still talking, or an attempt to see if you're connecting with the other, or with "think about it," a way of emphasizing something or of just saying "let's not move away from this just yet." But the literal meaning certainly is obnoxious! The "ums" and "you knows" never have bothered me. But they drove my mom nuts when we were growing up. I had a teacher in college who hated "you know" so much that when he came to one of those connector pauses you're talking about, he would replace it with "hu-"...kind of a guttural noise between "huh" and "hut". He said it helped him keep his train of thought without making him succumb to an overused non-expression. I think we all would have taken the overused non-expression. Every time he made that noise I sort of expected a sequence of football signals to follow. Very distracting. We lived in Michigan for a while about 12 years ago, and "and that..." seemed to be a substitute for "ya know". It was really a multi-use replacement phrase. But not one I've ever heard anywhere else. It's fun to see how language changes within even a small country's borders. Now in our case, you being from the east and me being from the west, one would expect a huge difference. There are differences, but so far they don't seem huge as yet. We do say greaSy out here. We also say "ant", and not "ont" for aunt.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 13, 2009 1:22:50 GMT
I think with your professor it would be so distracting to listen to those noises I'd have a hard time following what he was saying!
One interesting thing about differences is that mainly the tendency has been for people to stay in approximately the same latitude as they have settled west - this is how it worked for the most part - so the dialect doesn't changed that much (it does so more in the North because they had all that Scandinavian migration in the Great Lakes area, but here it's just the same folks moving left). It does kind of break down when you get to California, because there were so many distinct reasons people went, rather than just a population spread, but if Bakersfield was settled by people from Oklahoma, it holds up.
Here, ant vs. ont is a racial usage - African Americans say ont, but I think maybe in some states further south (the plantation states, which KY wasn't) a lot of white people do too.
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Post by bluehare on Jan 13, 2009 18:27:32 GMT
It does seem like just subtle differences here and there. But over the whole expanse of the country, that's where the changes are the most noticeable, I guess.
Years ago there was a guy on Johnny Carson (I think) - a dialectician - and he said each state had a distinct accent all it own. He then proceeded to do all 50 of them. Pretty funny to watch at the time, mainly because it didn't seem possible, and most Californians I know think we have non-accents. So when he did ours, well you just had to laugh sort of sheepishly. We did sound like that!
Sure, everyone has their own patois that they pick up from talking to others, but apparently there is a regional thing, too.
I would imagine that would be something to see in other countries as well.
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jioffe
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Post by jioffe on Jan 13, 2009 19:03:12 GMT
Sure, everyone has their own patois that they pick up from talking to others, but apparently there is a regional thing, too. I would imagine that would be something to see in other countries as well. Well, this should tell you most of what you might want to know about our patch: www.bbc.co.uk/voices/and specifically for regional accents: www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtmlCheers, Jioffe.
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coolraven
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Post by coolraven on Jan 14, 2009 15:02:18 GMT
Our Northern Irish cousins will emphasise a statement by repeating the last line ..'I said to him, so I did.. I was there, so I was' Ourselves in Dublin have a tendency to use 'like' to give breathing space between words.. I asked him like would he not like come with us like for pint like'. Most irritating here is a newish accent which apes English home counties speech..'clides' for clouds, 'rindabite' for roundabout, they go ite(out) of a hise (house).. seems to be mainly among a younger batch of university educated dolts !!
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 15, 2009 23:20:36 GMT
Yep, that's stranger. Interesting reading material you're exploring these days, mate. Anyway, don't tell her but I've got a chunk of her husband up in my closet, in my memory box. And I'm not allowing any conjugal visits! He's mine, all mine. Now I've been thinking of that chunk of the Berlin wall in my closet, and it is somehow associated in my memory with Minstrel in the Gallery. But I can't remember why that association exists.
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Post by bluehare on Jan 16, 2009 0:20:11 GMT
Sure, everyone has their own patois that they pick up from talking to others, but apparently there is a regional thing, too. I would imagine that would be something to see in other countries as well. Well, this should tell you most of what you might want to know about our patch: www.bbc.co.uk/voices/and specifically for regional accents: www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtmlCheers, Jioffe. What a great site - thanks for posting it, Jioffe! Don't know if we have anything like it.....but I'm going to look.
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Post by nonrabbit on Jan 16, 2009 8:27:39 GMT
T'is a good site. Amazing that small countries like Britain and Ireland have such a diverse mix of accents. Even village to village! but suppose it goes back to when people didn't travel or mix closely with their neighbours. My favourite British regional accent is the West country - if I had lived there longer I would have been happy to pick up the accent. Some people are more susceptible to acquiring the accent around them than others. Is that down to the 'type' of accent or personal preference? I have lived all over the UK/Ireland but still speak with a posh Glasgow accent - think Carol Smillie without the grin ! I can still hear a Scottish accent from Anderson -listen when he pronounces his 'rrrrr's'
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Post by bluehare on Jan 16, 2009 18:29:06 GMT
T'is a good site. Amazing that small countries like Britain and Ireland have such a diverse mix of accents. Even village to village! but suppose it goes back to when people didn't travel or mix closely with their neighbours. My favourite British regional accent is the West country - if I had lived there longer I would have been happy to pick up the accent. Some people are more susceptible to acquiring the accent around them than others. Is that down to the 'type' of accent or personal preference? I have lived all over the UK/Ireland but still speak with a posh Glasgow accent - think Carol Smillie without the grin ! I can still hear a Scottish accent from Anderson -listen when he pronounces his 'rrrrr's' I only have gotten over there twice, and it really was fascinating to hear the languages change so much. The languages down in the Cornwall region I really liked a lot. Loved the Glaswegian as well. Dublin had accents that were all over the place. Don't know if I ever heard a "true" Dublin accent.
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Post by bluehare on Jan 16, 2009 18:48:03 GMT
Now, because Jioffe got me curious.... this is one site I found that had some audio accents from our way... www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/radio/#If you click on the map, it opens in a pop-up window. There, various radio stations from all 50 states are indicated by red dots. Some take a while to load, but it is interesting to hear some of the different accents that are represented around the country. There are also other places on this website that have sound bytes, if this grabs your attention as much as it did mine on a lazy morning. I guess we have to take the hit for, "I'm like" and "I'm all". And having two kids who ingrained them in me, I'm as guilty of saying them as often as they are.
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jioffe
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Post by jioffe on Jan 16, 2009 20:54:16 GMT
Yep, that's stranger. Interesting reading material you're exploring these days, mate. Anyway, don't tell her but I've got a chunk of her husband up in my closet, in my memory box. And I'm not allowing any conjugal visits! He's mine, all mine. Now I've been thinking of that chunk of the Berlin wall in my closet, and it is somehow associated in my memory with Minstrel in the Gallery. But I can't remember why that association exists. Are you sure it wasn't Thick As A Brick? Cheers, Jioffe.
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jioffe
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Post by jioffe on Jan 16, 2009 22:14:21 GMT
What a great site - thanks for posting it, Jioffe! My pleasure. Glad it was of interest. Cheers, Jioffe.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 17, 2009 0:38:09 GMT
Now I've been thinking of that chunk of the Berlin wall in my closet, and it is somehow associated in my memory with Minstrel in the Gallery. But I can't remember why that association exists. Are you sure it wasn't Thick As A Brick? Cheers, Jioffe. In a logical world, it would be. Maybe by the time I'm, say, 75 or so I'll have reworked my memory so that it is.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 17, 2009 0:47:29 GMT
Now, because Jioffe got me curious.... this is one site I found that had some audio accents from our way... www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/radio/#If you click on the map, it opens in a pop-up window. There, various radio stations from all 50 states are indicated by red dots. Some take a while to load, but it is interesting to hear some of the different accents that are represented around the country. There are also other places on this website that have sound bytes, if this grabs your attention as much as it did mine on a lazy morning. I guess we have to take the hit for, "I'm like" and "I'm all". And having two kids who ingrained them in me, I'm as guilty of saying them as often as they are. Yes...it's hard not to pick it up. And really, there's nothing "incorrect" about it, I just don't necessarily want to sound like I'm that young!
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Post by steelmonkey on Jan 17, 2009 5:51:42 GMT
An obscure LA punk band, a few years ago, with the great name 'The Imperial Butt Wizards' had a song called: 'I was all yeah but she was like no'......I wanna hold your hand for the new century, no?
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Post by nonrabbit on Jan 17, 2009 9:08:41 GMT
An obscure LA punk band, a few years ago, with the great name 'The Imperial Butt Wizards' had a song called: 'I was all yeah but she was like no'......I wanna hold your hand for the new century, no? Over here in Northern Ireland ( pronounced here- Norn Ireland!) they also finish their sentences with a question or raised inflection. But then whats this theory that the American accent (in general) is based on Irish ?? Ps I once sat for a couple of hours in the company of a group of people from Galway, an accent I have great difficulty with and was able to 'join in' by nodding my head and saying 'oh' 'yes' and 'no' at the right time - hopefully!
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Post by nonrabbit on Jan 17, 2009 9:56:18 GMT
Since this thread seems to be taking all kinds of twists and turns..here's a question that perplexes me sometimes ;D
How much are we products of genes or environment or upbringing?
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jioffe
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... and the days of my youth!
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Post by jioffe on Jan 17, 2009 19:09:56 GMT
Since this thread seems to be taking all kinds of twists and turns..here's a question that perplexes me sometimes ;D How much are we products of genes or environment or upbringing? I'm not sure you'll ever get a definitive answer but this should explain the debate in plain(ish)speak: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurtureDon't know if you've heard of Dr. Robert Winston but he's made a lucrative TV (second) career out of popularising areas of this question. Cheers, Jioffe.
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rebecca
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Post by rebecca on Jan 18, 2009 19:20:36 GMT
Goodness, Nonrabbit, why don't you ask us something easy, like "is there a God?" My cognitive functions are impaired today anyhow, I'm trying to process the fact that my mother saw "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" and thought it was hilarious!
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coolraven
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Post by coolraven on Jan 19, 2009 17:53:39 GMT
I often wondered about the perplexing(to us) addition of the 'r' at the end of words ending in a vowel and the dropping of the consonant at the end where it should be pronounced.. example 'Maltar and Gibralta'.. even in the middle of words.. 'sawring' for sawing, and a castle is sometimes a 'carstle'.
Now I know we have our oddities, the non- use of the 'th' sound which comes from not having that sound in our own Irish tongue.. I used to get a fair amount of slagging when I worked on the railways years ago in London when I sold tickets to 'Tornton Heat'.
But, NonRabbit, I do love the 'pussy cyats' and 'motor cyars'of our Northertn Irish cousins !!
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Post by maddogfagin on Jan 20, 2009 8:38:09 GMT
I often wondered about the perplexing(to us) addition of the 'r' at the end of words ending in a vowel and the dropping of the consonant at the end where it should be pronounced.. example 'Maltar and Gibralta'.. even in the middle of words.. 'sawring' for sawing, and a castle is sometimes a 'carstle'. Now I know we have our oddities, the non- use of the 'th' sound which comes from not having that sound in our own Irish tongue.. I used to get a fair amount of slagging when I worked on the railways years ago in London when I sold tickets to 'Tornton Heat'. But, NonRabbit, I do love the 'pussy cyats' and 'motor cyars'of our Northertn Irish cousins !! Lived near Thornton Heath for many years. My Dad could remember when there was a pond in the centre of the main roundabout fed by the waters of the infamous River Wandle springs (I think). Two things that really annoy me although you can't blame the Americans. One is double negatives such as "I don't want nothing" or "We don't need no education" (apologies to Floyd fans). The other is the pronunciation of the letter H. When I was at school it was pronounced as "aitch", now everyone, seemingly under 25, pronounces it as "haitch" with emphasis on the H. Each to their own I suppose. It would be a dull world if we all spoke and liked the same things.
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Post by nonrabbit on Jan 21, 2009 6:34:41 GMT
I often wondered about the perplexing(to us) addition of the 'r' at the end of words ending in a vowel and the dropping of the consonant at the end where it should be pronounced.. example 'Maltar and Gibralta'.. even in the middle of words.. 'sawring' for sawing, and a castle is sometimes a 'carstle'. Now I know we have our oddities, the non- use of the 'th' sound which comes from not having that sound in our own Irish tongue.. I used to get a fair amount of slagging when I worked on the railways years ago in London when I sold tickets to 'Tornton Heat'. But, NonRabbit, I do love the 'pussy cyats' and 'motor cyars'of our Northertn Irish cousins !! I didn't realise that was why Dubliners etc didn't pronounce the "th" sound - should have looked into it more Now I can understand why a wee woman was talking to me the other day and as she was commenting on the cold wind also said that she had to get herself a "T'ermal vest !" My daughter was only about 10 years old when I met my partner ( who's from Fermanagh farming stock) and she used to get him to repeat words, her favourite was " Go to the cyar where the cyat is smoking a cygar " and him . the great lump, used to repeat it all the time to her
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Post by tullistray on Jan 21, 2009 14:31:09 GMT
I often wondered about the perplexing(to us) addition of the 'r' at the end of words ending in a vowel and the dropping of the consonant at the end where it should be pronounced.. example 'Maltar and Gibralta'.. even in the middle of words.. 'sawring' for sawing, and a castle is sometimes a 'carstle'. Now I know we have our oddities, the non- use of the 'th' sound which comes from not having that sound in our own Irish tongue.. I used to get a fair amount of slagging when I worked on the railways years ago in London when I sold tickets to 'Tornton Heat'. But, NonRabbit, I do love the 'pussy cyats' and 'motor cyars'of our Northertn Irish cousins !! I didn't realise that was why Dubliners etc didn't pronounce the "th" sound - should have looked into it more Now I can understand why a wee woman was talking to me the other day and as she was commenting on the cold wind also said that she had to get herself a "T'ermal vest !" My daughter was only about 10 years old when I met my partner ( who's from Fermanagh farming stock) and she used to get him to repeat words, her favourite was " Go to the cyar where the cyat is smoking a cygar " and him . the great lump, used to repeat it all the time to her beautiful
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Post by steelmonkey on Jan 21, 2009 18:21:14 GMT
The 'R' migrations happen in Boston and New York too...I never figured out why and how but you get people going in their 'cah' to get pizzar and sodar...unless they prefer watah'. On the West Coast, 'ask' is almost always 'ax'.
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Post by nonrabbit on Jul 20, 2011 12:49:15 GMT
The British Broadcasting Company is at it now...some of these examples I didn't even associate with America. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796my pet hate/s "Math" "my bad" So what do you hate about the mother tongue? ;D
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Post by maddogfagin on Jul 20, 2011 18:34:09 GMT
The British Broadcasting Company is at it now...some of these examples I didn't even associate with America. www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796my pet hate/s "Math" "my bad" So what do you hate about the mother tongue? ;D Can't abide the letter H being pronounced as " haich". I was always taught to pronounce it "aich" although my school days were far off in the 17th century. And don't get me started on the subject of double negatives . . . .
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