Accents

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 31 Jan 01 - 06:03 AM

Do youse see the difference between scunnered and scundered where scunnered means pissed off and scundered means embarrassed, or does that be a local culchie thing?

(take yer gamp, it's pishing down, and laave the door til when yer going out)

I like "She's so-and-so to her own name" or "who's he for an Adams?" - which a colleague's grandmother said about Bryan Adams when she told the granny she was going to see him.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Brendy
Date: 31 Jan 01 - 12:45 AM

Yousins from Shafty are a quare geg, tho

Couldn't bate yiz with a Swiss Roll!

B.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: alison
Date: 31 Jan 01 - 12:34 AM

See you Brendy! would ye jist howlll yer auld wheesht, wee lad, or I'll hit ye a quare dig in the bayek........ (why is Belfast much easier to do if you're insulting???....*grin*)

awww c'meer wee pet ye know I'm not meself.....

this thread has my hayedd turned... I'm fair scunnered so I am.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Brendy
Date: 31 Jan 01 - 12:08 AM

Us culchies pronounce it 'gaunch'. Fib.

Kyat idinnit

B.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 10:22 AM

I agree Jon,

I Live in South Wales, Uk (was on the paltalk last night) and lots of people here don't have particularly strong Welsh accents, as alot live on the borders of Wales... like me... My accent is very diluted, having moved away and come back again, though I can slip sometimes into quite a strong Welsh accent. But yes you can usually tell, who is likely to be able to speak Welsh when speaking to them....

I missed out on my Welsh schooling... It wasn't 'in fashion' when I was at school be be part of the curriculum. So when I moved back (still young) it wasn't on the agenda of my local schools... And really wasn't that strong... but in the event of the Strengthening of all things Welsh, and of course the Assembly - then Welsh has once again become popular in schools and is being taught at most, as part of the curriculum...

And hooray, but not fair....as I missed out!

Ella - who has a fairly weak Welsh accent....

Subject: RE: Accents
From: CamiSu
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 10:11 AM

My mother, who does have a bit (OK more than a bit) of a Long Island accent, has teased me about picking up a western twang when I lived in Colorado. Now that I am in New England, I love hearing the regional differences. These can change from town to town, and Vermont certainly isn't like Maine. (I actually heard on the CB once "You won't get too many muskeetahs in yor bandanna buggin today" i.e. There's enough breeze to keep the bugs from bothering you while you pull your lobsters...)

My older two kids have New England overlaid on Colorado. Joshua walked into Jessica's fraternity the other day, and was told he had a 'Buster accent'. i had no idea it was unique and so identifiable.

CamiSu

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Jon Freeman
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 09:46 AM

guest, I do believe what you are saying but to me in the UK, all these Canadian accents you are reffering to would almost certainly just sound American (or should I say Canadian/American).

Jon

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 09:38 AM

Eastern Canada has a huge varity of accents, I am from Nova Sctia and can often tell from in the Prevince a person comes by the accent, Cape Breton is a great accent but Lunenburg is the best..why do I think that ? Ha

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 07:38 AM

Ely,I have never heard you speak but I would be fairly sure that to me, you have an American accent. Accents are funny things and I think we all focus on the bits we can recognise and the bits that don't belong and much of this is dependent on how well we know a region or country's accent(s).

As an example, you would probably pick me up as being from the UK. I live in Wales but the Welsh tend to place me as having a rural English twang, say SW (not that I have ever lived there), outside Wales, people pick up on the Welsh bit in me,etc...

Wales BTW, or my part of it, is interesting. There are what I could call Welsh accents and English/Welsh accents - what I mean is you can be pretty sure of who's first language is likely to be Welsh.

Jon

Subject: RE: Accents
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 06:41 AM

Ok, the general consensus among the Canadians I've met so far is that with the exception of a few words (like house and about), I have a Canadian accent.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Ely (on someone else's computer)
Date: 30 Jan 01 - 01:40 AM

My dad has no accent (by American standards--he's from eastern Iowa). My mom used to have a very strong southern New Jersey accent (they drink "wooder") but she went to college in Pennsylvania and got teased so badly that she consciously got rid of it. The rest of her family still talks like B-movie bootleggers, though.

I don't know if I have an accent or not. I've lived all over the US (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas) so I probably don't have any accent very strongly. I think I used to have a muddled northeastern twang of some sort because friends in Colorado teased some of my pronunciations. I've lived in Texas 11 years and have probably picked up aspects of that, too ("bayou" is pronounced "by-o").

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 29 Jan 01 - 05:28 AM

"glipe" - I'd forgotten about glipe Den. And "ganch". And "scut".

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Brendy
Date: 28 Jan 01 - 01:29 PM

See me. See my woman. See cheese.
Bokes rings.

B.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 03:10 PM

To GUEST,tequilaron: No, sorry, I don't have the chords. But if you start a new thread with the prefix "Lyric & Chord Request" you might get someone else to help you out.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 02:48 PM

I thought a penal colony was the showing off in the high-school boy's shower room...

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,tequilaron
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 02:21 PM

Jim, Sorry to interrupt this thread with an off topic request. Jim, do you have the chords to Church Street Blues? I got the lyrics you posted and I thought I could save some time if you knew the chords. Much obliged. Ron

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Clifton53
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 10:15 AM

Ickle Dorritt, you brought up a very good point about accents and class distinction. Here in the U.S., some accents are also looked down upon by certain segments of our society. For instance, the southern U.S. accent has long been vilified up north, carrying the stereotype of stupidity and shiftlessness. By the same token, speak your Yankee accent in the south, and you will more than likely hear something disparaging from somebody, or worse.

I am from New Jersey, a northern state, and yet I have heard more than one or two remarks and seen more than one set of rolling eyeballs even in other northern states.

Just a shame that in this day and age this type of thing still hangs on in people.

Clifton53

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Snuffy
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 05:50 AM

Is that kerker kerler, Dorrit?

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Ickle dorritt
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 04:02 PM

I have a fairly neutral accent and speak a bit like Mo Mowlam who went to the same school in Coventry (near birmingham and has a strong midland accent which is very unpopular). I did have elocution lessons at school which probably ironed out a lot of the regionalaccent, and since I spent my early years abroad I did not form any sort of accent in my formative years. I tend to speak very quickly but just occasionally the odd phrase comes out in a broad Hull accent e.g'I'll ave a rum and curk'. Accent is definitely a class thing in this country and dneotes pretty much your social status.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 01:49 PM

Jim, I think you hit on something there with the grammar. I used to laugh at my husband on large animal veterinay calls when he would fall back into his farmer talk. "Where 'bouts is the cow? She ain't worth shootin'. We ain't got time for that."

Another dear friend worked constuction, and he routinely worked in Eastern Kentucky. He could put on the moutain talk whenever necessary. He also had a strong philosophy of communicating with people by whatever means necessary, whether accent, grammar, colloquilisms, or a pistol on his hip! He traveled a lot and loved to talk to children. He used numbers and counting to begin communicating with someone who didn't understand his language.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 01:35 PM

On accent and "class":

There is definitely a difference between America and Britain in attitude toward accents. In Britain, accent can be an indicator of social class as well as region. In Britain, upper-class people speak a so-called "posh" accent regardless of what part of the country they're from. For many generations, the upper-class had a habit of spending their summers at their country houses and their winters in London where they socialized with - and intermarried with - others of their class. As a result, their speech became fairly homogenized. They often brought their servants with them, so they didn't have a lot of contact with the London working-class.

A "posh" accent is somewhat like the "received" pronunciation that is (or was) usually spoken by BBC announcers (but I think the BBC has been loosening up a bit in recent years) and by Shakespearean actors.

I once saw a British production of "Julius Caesar" in which I was surprised to hear a group of actors suddenly begin speaking something that sounded to me like Cockney. This puzzled me: Why would they want to make a bunch of ancient Romans sound like they came from East London? Then it dawned on me: the actors in this particular scene represented working-class Romans - plebeians - in contrast to the patrician or upper-class Caesar, Brutus, and Marc Antony. It probably made perfect sense to a British audience, but it was a bit confusing to this American.

In America, there is no such thing as a "posh" accent. Rich and poor, in any given region, tend to sound alike. I suspect we miss some of the jokes in, say, "Fawlty Towers" and "Keeping Up Appearances" because we can't always recognize when a class struggle is going on.

In America, it is grammar, not accent, that labels people as working class. If you use "ain't," if you use double negatives, or if you say, "I seen it," you will be thought of as working-class, and, depending on the prejudice of the listener, possibly stupid as well.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Rowana (at work)
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 12:18 PM

I have to agree, NH Dave. While attending acting school I was told repeatedly that the person who sounded as though they came from Indiana would get the job. Not surprisingly, a number of national newscasters and morning chat show hosts have that Indiana accent. The reason? It requires less effort on the part of the listener to understand. I'm not referring to local slang, which could be misunderstood, simply the pronunciation of vowels and consonants. Personally I think it's all a crock. I want color and texture and interest in my life. I don't need bland and boring.

Reen

Subject: RE: Accents
From: NH Dave
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 10:03 AM

Having bounced around a bit I can only say, Home is where they don't talk funny.

Here in the states we used to have some really thick accents, and some still do, but with the growing influence of American TV with announcers that are urged to speak the US version of Oxbridge or BBC English, many regional accents are dieing out, as uncultured. As a sideline here, Dan Rather, although long enough from Texas that he has supressed his accent, still came out with a string of down-home aphorisms the long election night last year, a fact that was picked up and commented on by Time magazine. This is frequently rubbed in when folks like Tim Sample on the one hand and Marty Caine or Billy Connolly on the other, make a living portraying a local accent and way of thought to those from else wheres. In Great Britain, accents seem to be a tag that immediately classifies one into a class and/or lifestyle (these may well be synonymous.) Hence many people seem to try their best to adopt a neutral accent so as to conceal their roots. One Yorkshire born friend of mine sometimes tells of the trials he had going back and forth between a posh public school in the south, and his seaside home, so as not to be teased any more about his current accent. I lived for some time in East Anglia, and used to have troubles occasionally figuring out what was being said. Later on when I was working with British military from all over teh different accents I encountered served more to indicate where a friend was from, than social position - we were all living in mud and eating military rations.

I think it is human nature to atempt to blend in somewhat. I know that when I was in England I developed a generic British accent, my son developed a bit of an East End accent from playing and going to school with London Overspill children (a scheme where Londoners were relocated into different areas around the country to provide them with better jobs and homes), and when I was briefly in Norway, many of the US Forces there were speaking with a pronounced Norwegian lilt and accent in their offices, although few bothered to try to learn Norwegian.

I suspect that as television becomes more ingrained in any culture, that there will be a smoothing out of accents until only a generic national accent remains, just as good local bread gives way to a homogenized, even textured, commercial product on the gorcer's shelves, to the loss of everyone concerned.

Dave

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Den at work
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 10:00 AM

See him...see you. See you boy any more ould craic and I'll empty you, I'll drop ye like a snotther. I'll get me brother for ye, they'll have te dig him out of ye. Anyone from Norn Iron remember glipe (bagel) when refering to a dog, halion. Would ye look at the cut o that halion? Yer Da's piece? Den

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 09:28 AM

You know what is really frightening?? I understood every bit of THE FAIR ONE's and Seamus' postings the first time through and laughed till I damn near ruined my shorts. Great posts!!!

Mick

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 08:58 AM

just saw Seamus's post... very good...

Ha!

Subject: RE: Accents
From: alison
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 08:52 AM

lol....

Seamus, thon was so good I near wet meself...........

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 08:16 AM

Cool, Ella, I'll try to get there sometime when your on. I can put you on my Pal List. My Paltalk name is Matt_R. BTW yes, someone did once come in the room and say "Hello everyone." And I said "Wait..you're from Wales, aren't you?" Of course I was right. I knew them pretty Welsh accents! And you wouldn't believe how stupid some of the people are. They even peg Ozzies as English!

Subject: RE: Accents
From: InOBU
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 07:40 AM

Well, the general, everyday family way to speak, is a sort of Anglo, Irish - Trinity flat accent. However, like most musicians, I am an accent magnet, so after about six month is Dingle, my wife noticed I was putting a S in th sounds, Chrisht Sake! - more emphatic than usual. With family and friends from the north, a definate northern upturn creaps into the voice, to the point that my friend Liz (from Derry -Dheh-ry) said to her mum, when we first met... Try te guess where Larry's from? She thought I was from Derry.
When Liz's brother and I would get into the jokes, my wife would be left scratchin her head. We'd be rolling on the ground laughing, and Genie would not be able to understand word one.
When spending time in the west of England, especially when I was younger, I was seldom taken for Irish American, but was usually thought to be from London. So accents for those with a musical ear, ballad singers espcially, are, well... conditional.
Larry

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 04:35 AM

lol reen

very good!

Ella

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Seamus Kennedy
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:37 PM

Alison, Fib, Big Mick, Jimmy C.- Knock, knock! who's there? Gwen. Gwen who? Gwen Shite. Any more of this oul' guff, I'm gonna knock somebody's pan in. Here dear, I'm away in. If I stay out here, the wind'll wreck my shade, so it will. An' I think I'm gettin' the coul' - the snatters are trippin' me so they are.I'm up til me oxters in trouble as it is. I'm gonna send the childer round till the shaps to knock somethin' for their da's tea. I think I'll knock aff nye. This thread's not worth the full o' yer arse o' roasted snow, so it's nat. Bye bye nye (or as the say on the Malewn Rewd, bye bye nar.)

Seamus

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ruthie A
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:40 PM

Accents are great! Mine's very odd. It mutates every time I hear somebody different talk. It's part London, part Yorkshire and goes Geordie (which it should be, considering I live near Newcastle) when I'm shouting. When I sing, it has a funny turn and does God-Knows-What. On the subject of songs, I don't think it really matters which accent you sing them. It sounds good if you can get it just right, but a song sung in an unmastered accent isn't good to listen to.

Ruthie

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Rowana (at work)
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:08 PM

Ella, I'm shocked! Isn't Wales a London suburb like Ealing? ;-)

Reen

Subject: RE: Accents
From: wildlone
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 02:45 PM

I pick up accents very quickly, so quickly that somtimes I am sure people with strong accents think I am extracting the urine. I was once talking to a man from Eire on a train and he asked me what part of Clare I came from. but on the whole I have a hint of West country
dave

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 11:29 AM

meant they can't pick out where I am from...

And Matt... just discovered how to Paltalk, so when I get time from work, and my evenings I will be on the paltalk...

:-)

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 11:26 AM

awwww... Matt

you made me blush!!!

lol,

Thank you...

awww stop it..

Well, my accent is a mish mash, I've moved around so much... At best it is Welsh.. Now Mat, was going to tell you off about describing where UK people are from, I get a bee in my bonnet as some Americans insist that we all come from England, and Wales is In London right... argghhhh no!!

Anyways, they way I would describe my accent would be borders Welsh, as my village is on the border between England and Wales, I am Welsh, but don't have the strong, Swansea, Cardiff or Valleys lilt to it... Though ok, it comes out sometimes.

But I also have a hint of Lancastrian, from my dad... and a bit of Kent... from my mum.. All mixed up with Scots, Irish and who ever else in in our family.

I find it too easy to mimic people - simply because my family are from all over the place, and when you grow up with these people, for sure you are going to be influenced by them.

When I lived in Liverpool, they though I was posh, with my diluted Welsh accent... it's great fun, as usually people can pick out at all where I come from. It is I would say, a pretty unique accent to our town... a town of diluted Welsh people... ha ha aha

Ella

blush blush

Subject: RE: Accents
From: little john cameron
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 11:25 AM

Haud yer wheesht. ljc

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:34 AM

hould yer whisht! (if that's how you spell it...)

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Jimmy C
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:28 AM

Alison, Fibula, Mick and Seamus, how about

"You better watch it wee lad or I'll hit you a dig in the bake ".

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Rowana (at work)
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 10:19 AM

Southern New Jersey accents are similar to Philly accents but very different from Northern New Jersey accents. As a young child I had a So. NJ accent - much to the dismay of my Rhode Island relatives. Their mocking caused me to change the way I spoke. My speech has been influenced by old English films. Careful enunciation, no slang, etc. It's also on the sexy side, I've been told. Because of this, NY casting directors wouldn't consider me for any roles. According to them, I sound too educated for the average American audience and would make them uncomfortable. And all I wanted to do was some voice-over work on radio! Sometimes you just can't win. . .

Accents and dialects are what define us and make our language colorful.

Reen

Subject: RE: Accents
From: little john cameron
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:57 AM

oops,JACK an Victor then click on the sound clip. ljc

Subject: RE: Accents
From: little john cameron
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:54 AM

Here's a wee sample o Glesca patter.Check oot the twa aujd geezers talkin aboot the books they're readin an their opeenion o John Wayne.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/chewinthefat/neducation/index.shtml

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 09:07 AM

MSAH (aka Jon), I don't know either. Maybe it's just because we can actually understand a "foreign" language.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: alison
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:14 AM

humph!!!!!!!!

lol

haven't heard tube in a long time either.... "he's a right tube!!!"

One Ballymena duck says to another Ballymena duck, "Quack Quack!!"... the other duck says "I'm goin' as quack as I can!!!"

I know... oldies....... hahaha.......

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:29 AM

I just wonder what it is about my "sexy" accent and people (female) from the US (or perhaps N America in general). I have had these sort of comments from other chat rooms so I know it is not just Mudcat but I don't get them from anywhere else in the world.

Maybe things work other ways too... I love some of the Southern Ireland accents (sorry not too fond of Ulster) - they often sound sexy to me and many American accents (MV in particular)... just wondering what makes us read things into the accent of a person... could make an interesting study athough it has probably aready been done.

Jon

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:45 AM

ho ho - heavy rain in Ballymena?

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Brendy
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:29 AM

What's the definition of the word 'passion'?

B.

Subject: RE: Accents
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:00 AM

"Knock yer melt in" hee hee Alison - haven't heard that for a while. Or "knock yer pan in, wee doll". And why does no one get called "tubes" or "balloons" anymore?

Subject: RE: Accents
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jan 01 - 09:45 PM

I have difficulty only with those who are 'wedded' to their accents and colloquialisms, and will not or can not slow down or adjust when strangers are trying to communicate & understand. My wife had the experience of being ignored in England when she asked for 'water' in a restaurant...and when she tried for the 3rd or 4th time, the waitress finally asked in a condescending manner.."oh, do you mean 'wahwtuh'? "or something like that...clearly suggesting that she KNEW what was wanted, but wished the stupid 'tourists' would learn to speak 'prowpuhly'. *grin*

Many accents are facinating, melodious and truly important to the culture...I just wish more people were aware of how....umm..*grin*...'different' they sound to the uninitated. I know I have a "Kansas twang" with remnants of starting school in the southern U.S....I wish I could mellow it a bit sometimes. I suspect that in a number of years, some accents will blur at the edges even more as travel and internet conversation become more common.

I always was impressed by Jean Redpath's ability to slip in & out of broad Scots...even to doing American 'Country & Western'...Jean even used to do a routine about waiting for a bus and mimicing a VERY fast, colloquial Scots regional accent where NO one in our audience could follow the details...

(in Germany there are a number or regional dialects and accents, but there is also 'Die Umgangsprache' or 'general language' which almost everyone could approximate when they traveled...similar to that used on the national news programs...kind of a handy thing)

Subject: RE: Accents
From: alison
Date: 24 Jan 01 - 09:08 PM

LOL Seamus.... haven't heard "boke' in years......

and Mick "you watch yer tongue or I'll knock yer melt in, so I will!!!"

and Matt.. we can all do Ballymena.. but we choose not to.... hahahaha

slainte

alison