| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/index.html |
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id love to know where some of these phrases are used. what the hell is an "easy course" ? I didnt understand what the question is referring too? that was fun. just scanning the map and results.....it appears our dialects are more alike than I thought. Like only 3% of the respondants use the term grinder. Surprising. i foudn myself sticking out, southern, in a few spots. Raining while the sun is out..."devil is beating his wife" a phrase from my grandmother. 6% of respondandts and mostly in the south. |
I thought it was interesting that some answers clearly showed a regional preference, and some were scattered all over the place. I got tripped up by the "coupon" question. I don't know which version I use...they both sound right to me. |
I say "Sunday," "Crayg," and "cray-on," for what it's worth. My accent is most noticeable in the way I say my Os....they're very nasal. "Cle-ose" instead of "close," for example. |
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of course, it often is 'youse guys'. I had no idea about easy course either. I thought the grandparent questions were interesting. I called my maternal grandmother 'grammy' and my paternal grandmother 'Grandma' with the 'd' nearly silent, although a lot of folks in my town used Nana for both. I called my paternal grandfather "Grandpa" with the nearly silent 'd'. I didn't know my maternal grandfather. it was neat to see the two locii of "bubbler" versus drinking or water fountain. |
To top it off Micki is picking these things up from Hayley now, so even Micki is running around calling them crowns. Ugh. |
I say "you guys" in informal settings, and "you" in formal settings. "Yins," I believe, is a Pittsburgh-area thing. A lot of Philly people say "youse." I thought is was interesting that the survey allowed a choice for spelling it "grandpa" but saing "grampa" -- that's what I do regarding my mother's father. I called my mother's mother "grandma." I never knew my father's parents. |
how do you get that from c-r-a-y-o-n? |
Cause you take-away your food. |
So many of the options on there I have NEVER heard before. I thought they were funny. I noticed the different spellings of Grandma vs. Gramma. The thing was that I referred to my grandparents by their last names (Grandma Giggy or Grandma Groat). So that didn't really come into play for me. It was the same with my Grandfathers, too. Grandpa Giggy and Grandpa Groat. My kids are completely different, though. My mother insists on being called Mamaw, my ex's mom is Nanny (she made sure to claim that one when I was pregnant), my mother in law is "Grandma Rocky" and my grandmother is law is "Grandma Marietta". Everyone chooses a different title. I just thought it was funny and weird how my mother and my ex's mother insisted that this got to be their title. |
PLease someone help me understand this. Is crow, the bird, somehow pronounced diferently? aughh all this confusion........... I dont know if I can go on with out some clarification on these ..... whatever... |
the problem i had was their "example" words, because maybe we say the example words differently. it would be interesting to get sorabji-only results. |
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Who says "crawfish" and who says "crayfish" btw? I say "cray fish" |
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Soon, you'll be able to see the breakdown by state, e.g., you will see how all the Missouri people answered the questions. I think it's neat that my mother has a different accent than her sisters, and that I have a stronger accent than my brother. My best friend has one sister who has a harsh Delaware accent, though no one else in their immediate family does. This interests me. |
He also says "berm" for the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk -- I've never heard anyone else use this word. My mom had an aunt in Nebraska who'd use the phrase "pretty near" but pronounce it "pertinear," as in "It's pertinear time for supper." My mom said she was around 10 before she realized "pertinear" is not a real word. :) |
I'd like to know that one. |
It was the term we used to describe the high dirt embankment that rounded the outter edge of a big curve allowing you to maintain speed around a curve. i dont think you'll get "results" right away agatha, sem. I think its a works in progress. |
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In Missouri, your second "education" class requires you to be in field working as an assistant to an elementary school teacher. You take notes, write reports, etc all based on your observations while working with these kids. My problem with this is that I could do this after taking 1 college class (education 101) and be a complete and total idiot teaching other peoples kids crap like "crown" for "crayon". It's scary how easy it is to be an influence on children's educations without having an education yourself. It's like the illiterate teaching our kids to read and it is ridiculous. Fortunately I haven't run into this in Texas. You have to have a complete background check, and police records pulled and all kinds of crap before you are allowed to plan a kids birthday party in the classroom. You can't bring cupcakes to their Valentine's Day party without clearances from both the police force and the school. Idiot's can't just get in and teach here, there are at least some standards here. I have also noticed that the teachers here don't talk down to the kids like they did in Missouri. They just talk to them, plainly, simply without being condescending. Hayley takes her TAKS (state tests) in Language Arts next week. Here's hoping that with the crap I am still trying to remove from her head (like the whole crowns thing) she does well on the test. If she doesn't pass the test she gets held back, so she needs to work hard and do well. She got a 72 on the practice test which is only passing by two points. |
It was interesting. Long. But it is neat to see where people say what. We say "berm" when we're referring to the section of the beach above the high tide mark. |
Rubbish bin. The boys were going on about berm's the night of the hill walk. They are building a mountain bike track, and were going to make some berm's. |
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So, instead of "I'm going to the store" it's "I go store" It's a fun way to talk, I think. |
Most people i know say 'meer'. I say 'meer-er'. How do you say 'tommorow'? I say 't'mahrow' Toronto = 'tuhronno' all this stuff is facinating. a girl in Florida called me. She had an accent. I can't describe it, it was so close to mine, but something else...... We had these family friends when i was little. The way they talked always confused me. Bread was 'breeead' and red was 'reeead'. My parents just waved it off as "They're american. that's how americans talk." But that's not how the people on tv talked.... Fucked me up for years! i wish i could finish that study. Stupid needing to do other things.... and i don't say 'aboot'! we say 'aboat'. yeah. |
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A davenport? Accents on tv confuse me sometimes. If all the actors in the show are american I don't notice the accent, but if one isn't then I do. Weird. |
Trace's family says "warsh" for wash and "crick" for creek. He jokes around and talks like that sometimes as a joke, but then the kids started picking up on it. Now he doesn't do it as often. |
We always called the refridgerator a "fridge" |
Wisper, I say "t'mahrow" too. How else can it be said? "Toomarrah"? |
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We always referred to refrigerators as "the fridge". Still do. I hate warsh and crick and other such sayings. Always thought it was a sign of being uneducated country hill folk. That drives Spunky nuts, because most of his family on his mothers side talk like that. He used to get in trouble for pronouncing the words correctly and not like that. Hayley used to have the funniest mispronunciation. The word truck. A big red fire truck would roll down the street and you would hear Hayley say "Look mommy a fire fuck!" all excited. She did that for about 3 years before we were finally able to get her to say it correctly. |
i say meer-or (mirror). my grandparents have always used the word davenport. rarely they say sofa. never couch. in hawaii they say things like, "You like go?" which means, "Do you want to go?" but hawaiian pidgin is just way out there. it took me a couple years understand it. |
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toronto - "Ter-onn-ta" wisper, how abt pronunciations for Scarborough? |
If you go to Missouri they will tell you that you aren't a true Misouran if you don't say it "Miz-er-ah". Idiots. One of the colleges even has bumper stickers that say "Missou-RAH". Also we have had arguments recently about whether you pronounce it "Poo-tang" or "Poon-tang". |
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hmmm. Scarborough= "Scar-bro" or if it's me saying it= "shit", as in: "no fucking way am i going near that shit" I hear some people calling it "Scarberia". These people are huge tools. HUGE. in college there was a girl from Trinidad. I LOVE how people from Trinidad talk, it's like they're always singing. So i would copy her, and she would sometimes copy me. Her version of our engligh was to draw out all the vowels, in a Valley Girl voice, and swear constantly. Like so: "Heiiii, omigawd you gieeeeeeys, lats fuckin deeeew this! lats go to the maaAAAAaaaawl! Shit!Liek yaaaAAAAAaaa!" it was offensive as it was accurate. |
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grrrrrrr. |
i have an affection she also says davenport |
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"I could care less" - I COULD care less, but whats the point? basically meaning the same thing. I personally use the second one when Im more indifferent to the situation. -'scar bura' was a popular pronunciation when i was there. (as was Shit, shit hole, hell hole, asshole(of the earth), etc..... 'bout the only place worse was Jane/Finch..... |
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my grandmother speaks just like James Brown. |
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It was the summer, and i was meeting a friend at a McDonalds near that very intersection. (and yes, he lived around there... so yes, he is a burned out drug dealer) It was really hot, so i was sitting on the grass beside my car. I had left the windows open. These two women come out of the McDonalds and walk across the parking lot towards the sidewalk. They pass my car and stop. One of them looks into the open window, looks around, and tosses her half-full coffe cup into my car. Onto the driver seat. As casual as anything. And i wasn't in a distant field or anything. I was sitting right beside it. On my right was a garbage can, btw. oh, it's a zany place. |
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I know it's a donut of some kind....? ...right? |
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