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I kinda like this, courtesy of Digg. A link: http://www.blogthings.com/amenglishdialecttest
My results:
70% General American English
15% Dixie
15% Yankee
0% Midwestern
0% Upper Midwestern
As an English speaker,from the Midlands area of England:
55% General American English
25% Yankee
10% Dixie
5% Midwestern
5% Upper Midwestern
Though why you’d call a course at uni a “gut” I’m not 100% sure…
Both responses that weren’t “blowoff” had me mystified.
In much, much belated response to one of the WLD recordings: it’s a rare american that doesn’t equate nearly all uses of “blow” with oral sexings. The strange exception, as you pointed out, is “blow off.” I cannot explain it.
Fanny, on the other hand, is very different. We never mean it as you do; it is generally used by people who are particularly adverse to cursing to refer to a butt. Most often, this means adults speaking to very small children.
“Sit on your fanny,” they’d say.
“Get your fanny out of here.”
“Move your fanny.”
“She fell on her fanny.”
Interestingly, I can’t think of a time I’ve heard it used with a boy. I suppose it’s because the word is generally regarded as cute and feminine.
Yeah. I just wanted to say fanny a lot. Fanny.
50% General American English
45% Yankee
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Dixie
0% Midwestern
Yeah, and guess where I am? North Carolina. I’m probably going to get shot.
So much Yankee. Either shot or slowly run down by a tractor, I suppose. If there were such a thing as being fished to death, you’d probably have to worry about it. 😉
Yes, I’m a virginian who is going to school in NC. How did I end up with so much yankee, I have no idea, but it still serves me well.
Actually, my favorite terms right now are “bloody” and “sod off” so I’m even weirder.
Canadians are somewhere in the middle. Lots of “proper” english and lots of North American. Within Canada there are many different accents too. I myself are about 1/3 each of rural Ontarian, Southern BC, and Middle England (thanks to summering with my Grandparents)
Face wrote:BIG snip of Face’s fanny fixation! 😛The difference can be entertaining at times.
In uni back in the 80s, there was a girl Daw-un (I’d never heard Dawn with 2 syllables before, but she was from the Mississippi delta which explained it, apparently) who lived in the same hall as some friends of mine. She’d had a pretty strick upbringing and apparently her day had “paddled her fanny” alot.
Now, we assumed a slightly different connotation on this, and a very confused and ultimately embarassing conversation ensued between us and her. When we realised what HER definition was, we found it hysterical. When SHE realised what OURS was, well I’d never seen anybody blush quite that much before! 😛
Ah, callow, innocent youth. 😈
errand wrote:Canadians are somewhere in the middle. Lots of “proper” english and lots of North American. Within Canada there are many different accents too. I myself are about 1/3 each of rural Ontarian, Southern BC, and Middle England (thanks to summering with my Grandparents)And there are always those Canadinas who are even cooler than the rest of you because the speak a fully different language, like french.
FREE Quebec!!!
Riddles wrote:… I’d never heard Dawn with 2 syllables before, but she was from the Mississippi delta which explained it, apparently…Oh lahwud, yes. If anyone from Mississippi or Alabama utters a word without adding 1-200 brand new syllables to it, they have failed at life. Further, if the new syllables aren’t spoken particularly slowly, I believe they are hung.
mchvlichldprdgy wrote:errand wrote:Canadians are somewhere in the middle. Lots of “proper” english and lots of North American. Within Canada there are many different accents too. I myself are about 1/3 each of rural Ontarian, Southern BC, and Middle England (thanks to summering with my Grandparents)And there are always those Canadinas who are even cooler than the rest of you because the speak a fully different language, like french.
FREE Quebec!!!
Nova Scota, and southern Manitoba also have a strong french speaking community. Quebec has failed in two referendums to seperate. After the most recent one, the premier blamed immigrants which angered alot of people and pretty much guarenteed that the next one will fail
It is frankly quite amazing for me that, even today, people recognise American English as little more than a dialect. There are dialects within American English, true, but unlike something just invented on the “street” and with little definiton, American English is a defined language with independent rules, grammar and a dictionary which is no more or less correct than its English progenitor. To say less would be to say that the British English of today is less valid than Middle English because Middle English predated it.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing with anyone in the thread- just getting out a gripe I have as an editor who works in Japan, where I have both British and Americans telling me that one way is “correct” and the other is unacceptable. We work with both. It’s a bit tricky. Unlike many countries, the base English in Japan was originally derived from England, but then swiftly changed to American (pre-war, not post, incredibly enough). However, as an imported language is often more a matter of literature than of a living, evolving language, there is a lot of misunderstanding.
The only English that changes in Japan is Janglish. The completely garbled local version which makes no sense as English (but perfect sense in Japanese – it was never meant to be “English”) but all Japanese people seem to think is internatioanlly understood. 😀
Err… sorry. I had some free time. And me being an editor doesn’t mean I will apply my “high” standards of editing to my posts. 😛
Brit copying an American accent: Robotic John Wayne
Yank copying a British accent: Renaissance Faire reject.
mchvlichldprdgy wrote:FREE Quebec!!!
Lots of Canadians here in Japan tell me the same thing, Mch. I’ll admit my only tangential knowledge on the subject. But according to them, but Quebecois and other Canadians might like to do this, they say it would ruin the economy of the country (or new countries). Can’t quite say if this is true – just what they told me. But it does make an odd bit of sense. I think it’s like the designed interdependence of Honshu and Kansai here in Japan , or the midwest and the east in the US. The worry I often hear is the “isolation of the Maritimes” Errand?
60% General American English
35% Dixie
5% Upper Midwestern
0% Midwestern
0% Yankee
Pure Southern gentleman. Ya’ll take care. ya here.
There is a worry that having a new country in the way may isolate the maritimes but Alaska doesn’t seem to suffer from the US. Economics is not a major issue. Over the last few decades the numbers of French speaking Quebecois has declined and that worries them. It’s a cultural thing.
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