Singing in Different Accents/Dialects

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 18 - 10:10 AM

Ye'll nivvor Knaa jist hoo much aa luv ye
Ye'll nivvor knaa just hoo much aa care
And if aa tried aa stiil cuddent hide me luv for ye
Surely ye ,knaa coz hevvent aa telt ye so,
A million an' mair times.....'

(from the singing of the late Foster Charlton, Northumbrian piper extraordinaire & occasional singer)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: jacqui.c
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 09:06 AM

Interesting thread, particularly since right now I'm learning Jock of Hazeldene (the Corries version). As a result of reading this thread I did a tiny bit of research on the song - very interesting!

As a Norf Londoner who has had to tone the accent down after the eight and a half years I've lived in Maine, I'm still a little concerned that my rendition of this song won't offend too many ears but have decided that, since I really like the song, I'll give it a go. Luckily the Corries version doesn't have too many dialect words, unlike Dick Gaugan's version, which I wouldn't even try to attempt. I'll use what dialect there is but won't even try to go all Scottish on this one.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 07:51 AM

As a Geordie, I'd have little hesitation in attempting most songs from Scotland or Ireland- I'd draw the line at bothy ballads and the Freedom come allye' where there are a lot of Scots language words- likewise in Irish songs, the Irish/Scots Gaelic songs being out of bounds completely. I'd be much more wary of songs from southern parts of England, and I am sure southern singers are aware of similar difficulties, which are not just of language but of culture.
A song I've sung in the south is Ed Pickford's anthem to old age- 'Nee bliddy good gettin' aad'- now that is fairly easily translatable, and I have given the words to several singers in the south- (Ed loves his songs to be sung!)but the rhyming is difficult for non- Northeasteners- examples being

Your pub's never hord of a domino board and
Aa think that ye'll find that ye can't get yer wind (short 'i' sound'

these are Shiney Row rhymes and are hard to translate to what is laughingly called Standard English (there's no such thing!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 06:49 AM

Damn - tag fail. Let's try again.

I wouldn't dream of anglicising a song like that - it wouldn't seem like 'anglicising', in fact, it would seem like translating it from Scots into English.

Perhaps we can distinguish between songs that are in Scots and those that are in English with some Scots vocabulary & word forms? Take Child's Sheath and Knife, for example (variant A):

He's taen his sister doun to her father's deer park,
Wi his yew-tree bow and arrows fast slung to his back.

'Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,
Shoot frae thy bow an arrow and there let me lye.

It looks recognisably 'Scottish', but it drops into standard English like shelling peas - you hardly need to change anything. A song like Twa Corbies, on the other hand -

As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"

- that's Scots. As an English singer you either sing it as it's written and take your chances with the accent, or you translate it (alone, two, moan, one, other, where, shall, go, today, and so on through the rest of the song). Or leave it alone, of course.

Having said that, I think I could probably do a passable impression of a Scot singing that song, just as I can do a reasonable impression of a Yorkshireman singing "Old Molly Metcalfe": when you learn a song from a single source, the accent and intonation of the singer sticks with you. But there would always be a temptation to "do" an accent, and (unless you're an impressionist) the accents you consciously put on are rarely recognisable to anyone else.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 06:48 AM

I wouldn't dream of anglicising a song like that - it wouldn't seem like 'anglicising', in fact, it would seem like translating it from Scots into English.

Perhaps we can distinguish between songs that are in Scots and those that are in English with some Scots vocabulary & word forms? Take Child's Sheath and Knife, for example (variant A):

He's taen his sister doun to her father's deer park,
Wi his yew-tree bow and arrows fast slung to his back.

'Now when that ye hear me gie a loud cry,
Shoot frae thy bow an arrow and there let me lye.

It looks recognisably 'Scottish', but it drops into standard English like shelling peas - you hardly need to change anything. A song like Twa Corbies, on the other hand -

As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"

- that's Scots. As an English singer you either sing it as it's written and take your chances with the accent, or you translate it (alone, two, moan, one, other, where, shall, go, today, and so on through the rest of the song). Or leave it alone, of course.

Having said that, I think I could probably do a passable impression of a Scot singing that song, just as I can do a reasonable impression of a Yorkshireman singing "Old Molly Metcalfe": when you learn a song from a single source, the accent and intonation of the singer sticks with you. But there would always be a temptation to "do" an accent, and (unless you're an impressionist) the accents you consciously put on are rarely recognisable to anyone else.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 20 Aug 13 - 05:48 AM

To return to the OP an example:--
[!] Owre the bauks and alang the riggin the gurly wind is soughin    blawin.
    And lood loods the blatter o the coorse rain ondingin.
    Nae fishin the nicht, the Guidman tae the fire is drawn.
    At the windae tae her bairn his young wife is singin.

[ch]Gyang awa frae the windae bogie man.
    Gyang awa frae the windae bogie man.
    It wis the wind and the rain that brocht yer daddie hame.
    Sae gyang awa frae the windae bogie man.

Now the chorus can be translated to a singable English but I doubt if the same can be done for the verse.

The song is about a young wife who is receiving visits from a young man when her older husband is away at the fishing. When there is adverse weather and the husband is at home his wife stands at the window and sings to her child as a warning to her lover not to visit her that night.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Mysha
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 10:03 PM

Well,

In Frisian, there are two large dialect groups, and the language of the capital is Stêdsk, which isn't Frisian at all. In such a setting, you learn rather early-on that there's no single correct version of a language.

I do sing songs in English, a foreign language to me, if one not that different from Frisian, and I also sing in other languages sometimes. I've always done so, sometimes even when I could understand very little of the words but just wanted to reproduce the nice sound of the song. And when recreating a song that way, I guess reproducing the country, dialect, and accent would be part of it, even if I'm not very good at doing so consciously.

But when I want to get the meaning of a song across, then it's different. Then I have to - understand it and - be understandable to the audience. Depending on the audience, I might have to stay close to Dutch School English, or try for something that sounds more, well, English. In some sessions, as the taste around here is for Irish Folk rather than English, I might even have to sound a bit Irish, to not distract the others with my language.

And over in England? Well, I've had one case where I could not make the difference between "head" and "hat", and so spoiled a good poem. But apparently my singing can usually be understood, and the listeners accept a foreigner trying to sing the language. (And that includes Twa Corbies, as it has to sound right to make it work next to Twa Roeken, in Frisian.)

I guess that it's by the kindness shown by the English that I can get away with accents and mistakes, even if those may sometimes be distracting. It does beg the question, though, whether there's a reason not to show that same kindness to native singers making a good effort, their distractions being much subtler than mine.

                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 03:38 PM

And where did I hear that the best English is spoken in Dublin? (Not necessarily referring to the accent, methinks!)

As for Eliza's idea: same song in different accents - let's do it!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 02:35 PM

Hahahahahaha! So funny, Jim!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 01:59 PM

There was a cartoon a few years ago showing a Centurian holding a candle in one hand and a Highland collie on a lead in the other.
The caption read " Roman in the gloamin' wi' a Lassie by his side".

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 12:55 PM

Thanks it was an interesting exercise. I must admit I anglicised just a couple of words,or at least didn't Borderise them as I could have done, to make the rhyme. So it threw up some problems but in the long run it gives you far more possible rhymes if you have the option to Scotticise or not :-)

The only bit I regret on the vid is using the word 'gloamin' as it is not something I'd use in everyday speech. Should have said "derk side o the road" rather than "glaomin in the road"

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Eldergirl
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 11:06 AM

Lol! Allan that's brilliant!
Just goes to show Dylan is universal!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 10:11 AM

Interesting Gutcher. I suppose language is always changing and there will always be people reacting against that change.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 10:03 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAZvus5Hh1o


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Not exactly a folk song Eliza but did it one night at the club one night as a bit fun.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 07:09 AM

With regard to the thread title, wouldn't it be fascinating to hear a well-known folk song presented and sung in many different accents by people born and bred in each locality? One could make a CD of it, and people could have opinions as to which version was the most effective/moving/successful etc. Perhaps such a CD exists, I don't know.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 06:56 AM

Allan--Trotter in 1901 was making the same remarks as the SND and he dates the corruption as having started near 60 years before that time.
He remarks that some of the older people in Glasgow were still holding out against the corruuption of the Scots language at the time of writing.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Aug 13 - 03:15 AM

The language snobbery thing isn't confined to speakers of Standard English. The dialect of Scots from West Central Scotland (ie Glasgow) may be the best known to people outside of scotland but it had a very low standing among the Scots purists themselves with many at one time not even recognising it as proper Scots at all. The Scottish National Dictionary, a work on the Scots language which was 70 years in the making, has in the preface

"owing to the influx of Irish and other foreign immigrants in the industrial area near Glasgow the dialect has become hopelessly corrupt"

It may be urban and less conservative than the other dialects, and it may be more anglicised than the rural dialects in their richer forms, but generally it is now regarded as being a form of Scots.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:23 PM

"The capital's own specific accent [Cockney in our case)"
Cockney is East London - accents can and do vary from Greenwich to Richmond as widely as they do from Luton to Birmingham.
I once worked with a painter who claimed he could tell where a Londoner came from by the way he spoke.
I assume that it's all different now that everybody seems to communicate in glottal stops.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:06 PM

That is a bit question-begging & cart-before-horsey, Bert. Such speech well preceded the BBC, which in no sense either initiated or 'defined' it [whatever you may mean by that verb here], tho it might at one time have acquired the sobriquet of 'BBC English' as the Beeb announcers tended to use it & so were heard nationwide doing so; because, following Lord Reith's principles, they came, originally anyhow, from the echelons of society in which such speech was the norm. But throughout the nation, long before invention of the wireless, that was how everyone, everywhere in the country, would have expected the vicar, the doctor, the schoolteacher, to speak... They would indeed have felt disoriented, & lost faith in such pillars-of-society's bona-fides and reliability had they spoken as they themselves [ie their parishioners, patients, pupils] did.

As you well know ~~ honest, now...

Innit.

~M~

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Bert
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 05:22 PM

~M~, so I guess that what you are saying is, that The BBC defined our language.

"Educated Southern English" is what intellectuals usually consider correct.

Jim, I'm just having fun. If I were to choose the BEST English accent I think it would be from Herefordshire.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 03:17 PM

Bert is obviously flying a kite ...... upside down!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 01:58 PM

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. The correct form of any language is that which is spoken in the Capital City"
.,,.
Sorry, Bert; nice try!: but an untenable statement. The capital's own specific accent [Cockney in our case] is as 'regional' as any other. "The correct form of any language" is that accepted as such by the educated; & here in UK that is so-called RP ['Received Pronunciation'].

You might not like it, but such is the fact. Sorry. And please note that this is no sort of denigration of any dialectal variants, but simply a semantic comment on the only acceptable connotation of the word "correct" in the particular context of this dialogue.

I have no more to add to this thread, as we have been thru it all before, at least twice, within the past year or three; in such threads as my "Why 'mid-Atlantic'?", which drifted to make all the points now being made here.

Er ~~ Innit!

~M~

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:30 AM

"much to my delight they were speaking broad Cockney"
Why not?
Years ago we were staying on the island of Poros on the Peloponnese in Southern Greece.
One extremely hot day when we had slogged to the top of the hill, we found a tiny shop selling ice cream.
A middle-aged woman dressed entirely in black from head to foot was tidying up behind the counter and ignored us.
When she heard us trying to interpret the ice cream packet labels in the fridge she came over and said in broad North London Haringeyese, "them're vanilla love, and those are coconut, and them are chocolate....."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 06:00 AM

Oh Gutcher, here comes a confesion of my own. I'm not normally a pig when trying to find a parking space, but once (and it was only the once!) I was tired and stressed, and whizzed in front of a huge 4X4 Range Rover waiting patiently for the space just being vacated. My little Fiesta shot in and we parked. The man was (understandably) incandescent. His eyes glowed red with rage as he leaned into my open window. My daft husband just sat there terrified, but I used my noddle and started to speak in rapid Noushi French. Hubbie got the idea and chimed in with more Noushie French. The chap stood there with steam coming from his nostrils, but as we waved our arms about and smiled engagingly, what could he do? Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 18 Aug 13 - 01:49 AM

Thanks Phil--there were usually two cows to each biss, so do we have a latin word still in current use as a description of a cow stall,interesting, although I still like to think it is connected with the fact cows have cloven feet.

Bert,overheard in a roadside cafe South of Glasgow, three lads boasting in broad Glaswegian of how they had just fooled the police and avoided a speeding fine by pretending to not understand English and only being able to speak in their native Pakistan tongue.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Bert
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 08:09 PM

MLE, it had to come of course.

I remember some years back following three young black girls at Earl's Court Station, and much to my delight they were speaking broad Cockney.

I still claim that Cockney is THE CORRECT ENGLISH. People don't speak with Scottish or Welsh or whatever accents. They are trying to speak English and are getting it wrong :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:45 PM

Bis is Latin for 'twice', if that's any good.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:26 PM

While we are plouterin amang the nowt, before the advent of the modern dairy parlour cows were tied by the neck in a biss--now you scholars does bis[s] in latin not have something to do with cloven feet. I have always understood that it had but can find no reference to it in my modern dictionary.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:47 PM

"Chambers Scots Dictionary gives a great name for a cow. "boo-lady"
Interesating coincidence
Bó is Irish for cow, as in "Cailin Deas Cruite na mBo (pron. Bo)" - Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 08:17 AM

Interesting stuff Gutcher. Of course you are right it could also be bow or boo as in 'bull'. Chambers Scots Dictionary gives a great name for a cow. "boo-lady"

I looked in Nicolaisen's "Scottish Place Names" and it isn't listed.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:31 AM

ROFL!
Thanks Eliza! I can just picture that!
Re.Innit, I've tended to think of it as a Hertfordshire Cockney variant(sorry Bert) but it obviously goes further afield. But an Indian lady I know, good education, well-spoken, often says 'isn't it' as a kind of punctuation: "we're going to the Rose Restaurant this evening, isn't it?" Similar to the Brit habit of "well, y'know, I never said that, y'know" or the U.S."and I was like, duh! and she was, like, get Over it.." Etc etc.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 06:17 AM

"Tam O'Shanter"
Surely the most memporable cliff-hanging line is Scots verse;
"He shouted "Weel dune Cutty Sark"
And in a moment all was dark".

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:53 AM

Bert, there is now apparently a recognised (by phoneticists) accent called Multicultural London English (MLE), spoken not just by ethnic minorites, although it started with black London youngsters and spread in popularity until most young people in the Home Counties now use it. It fascinates me. I prefer to call it Innit, as many statements seem to end with that word. (eg "I'm not goin', innit?") I wonder if there are any new songs composed in Innit? I bet there are, and there'll be more no doubt over the years. One song that makes me totally cringe when sung by southerners is Auld Lang Syne. Imagine a Middle Class English party on New Year's Eve, everyone standing in a circle, arms crossed, warbling away at this fine old noble Scots anthem in public school Posh. Definitely an 'Oh No Moment'. (And why do they insist on sticking 'for the sake of' into the chorus? I feel like hitting them over the head with an uncooked haggis.)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 05:36 AM

Allan-interested to see your mention of a place cried Bowgyhill in Lanarkshire-- now it could be bogie as in "Bogies Bonny Bell" on the other hand I had some discussion with the lady who takes to do with the S.N.D. on the word BOW as used in song and poetry, my contention being that a BOW was a dairy cow as in the last verse of the sang "Bonny Buchairn" we get:--"It"s I"ll get some owesen, some sheep and some BOWS,tae plenish the toon o Buchairns nowes", bows being differentiated from owesen and to rhyme with ploughs.
Burns in his poem "Halloween" mentions BOW Kail,which is kail specialy grown to feed the cows-not owsen-to keep up the supply of milk.
We had an occupation called BOWING [pronunced booing]which is the contract management and milking of a herd of dairy cows. On her death certificate the mother of George Douglas Brown was referred to as a Bower. I have seen a 17th. C. reference to BOWING.
Not all places with the prefix Bow had anything to do with bows and arrows, we have the obvious Bowbutts but I am sure many referred to places connected with dairy cows.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 04:23 AM

Allan, you mentioned the use of both Scots and English by Burns in Tam O' Shanter. There is a line of thought that Burns switched to pure English to slow the poem down .
" .... but pleasures are like poppies spread .........evanishing amid the storm" and then straight into Scots ". ..... Nae man can tether time nor tide, the hour approaches Tam maun ride", a neat trick.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:46 AM

In a literary work I suppose the best known use of the word Bogle is from Tam O'Shanter. After the title Burns quotes the early scottish poet Gavin Douglas "Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke" then Burns himself uses the word in the verse describing a drunken Tam making his way home in the storm

Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,         
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow'rin round wi' prudent cares,         
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:34 AM

Eric Ghost is a nice thought right enough. His 'Bogle' supposedly comes from a place name though. In Black's "Surnames of Scotland" it is given as being derived from Bowgyhill in Lanarkshire. The hill may have got its name from the supernatural though.

Bogle can be widened to mean ghouls or other unwordly creatures. Locally we have the Bogley Burn which is a little burn near the foot of the Eildon Hills. The minor road (used to be the main road) between Newtown St Boswells and Melrose was also itself called the Bogley Burn Road. It is on the this read where there is a stone commemorating the supposed position of the Eildon Tree where Thomas the Rhymer was abducted by the Queen of the Fairies. This is also the start of the so called Fairy Dean. The local football side takes a lot of ribbing through their name being Gala Fairydean :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 03:34 AM

It was once said that the Liverpool equivalent pronunciation exercise to "How now, brown cow" is "Tarra Theresa, see yer Thersdy".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 02:59 AM

The beauty of being multilingual---English/Irish/Scots is that one has a variety of words to choose from to form a ryme:---
Sae and Tae in Irish for Sea and Tea.
Soom and Droon in Scots for Swim and Drown.
Anent the word Soom, the late Stanley Robertson and I had an ongoing discussion over a number of years about his use of the word Sweem to be followed by Droon ln the version he sang and recorded of the ballad "Clydes Waters" To my ear Sweem stood out like a sore thumb and as the ballad is by its very name from Lanarkshire the word used when it was composed and used to this day is Soom.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Bert
Date: 17 Aug 13 - 01:17 AM

'Innit' I love it Eliza. My Dad used to call it "aincha, carncha and woancha"

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The correct form of any language is that which is spoken in the Capital City. This of course makes Cockney, standard English. If you don't sing your songs in Cockney, the YOU are the ones putting on an accent.

So most of you are putting on an accent all the time. So get over it and sing the bloody songs.

And if you come from America and want to sing British Workman's Grave, then go to it. Us Cockneys will be delighted.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 08:40 PM

No, Tattie Bogle came from my Scottish mother: addressed to myself and my wee sister as weans, when we came in from playing in the gairden, looking like "a richt pair o' tattie bogles" we weren't even Worzel Gummidges!
Oh yes, we Bogles stick together, eldergirl!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 07:10 PM

So..this means that the famous Scottish songwriter is literally Eric Ghost?
Hmm.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 07:41 AM

Gutcher, yes there are many similar words, another is graede, Scottish greetin, i.e crying.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 06:43 AM

"Is 'Tattie Bogle' a Norfolk expression"

It is an old Scots term for a scarecrow. Literal translation being "potato ghost". Can also be a mildly derogatory name for a trampish unkempt person and also for a turnip lantern at Halloween.

Saying that when I was a kid my mother always used to call the wax in the kid's ears tattie bogles :-)

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:26 PM

Jim-- on entering a "big hoose" [castle] kitchen one morning in the early 50s. I remarked to Mrs. Barr, the cook, "we hae mair snaw in Mauchline the streen". Two young Danish girls who were in the kitchen at the time got very excited they having understood exactly what I was talking about and we ended up having an exploration of words we had that could be understoond by each other such as kirk,tow bund kist,ghaists,wist,eerie[a completely different meaning in Scots from the English meaning] etc..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim McLean
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 06:00 AM

I was working as a deck boy on a Swedish Merchant Navy ship once and the cook gave me a bucket of slops with the instruction "Tim de ut". Then, remembering I wasn't Swedish, said "empty that out". In my own Scottish language we would say "Tim that oot", almost exactly like Swedish.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:51 AM

Tattie Bogle, you're quite right! I didn't like to comment on the 'ooo arr' post, but truly, no-one here in Norfolk has an 'r' such as that spoken by natives of the West Country. It is indeed pronounced oh waah, and often denotes a lack of belief. For instance, "Oi now bought a noice little skat in Debenham's fer two pownds!" "Oh waaah?" Or, "Oi hent bin drunk fer yairs!" "Oh waaah?" I've discovered that Norfolk people get incensed at the Mummerset attempts to copy their speech. It's nothing at all like the Somerset accent. I visit my friend over in Congresbury, and the people's accent is delightful. But it in no way resembles Norfolk. I agree with eldergirl, all our many accents here in UK are a Treasure. I believe that nowhere else is there such variation within just a few miles between regional pronunciations. Bill Bryson wrote about this in Mother Tongue.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 05:48 AM

Tattie Bogle
I stand corrected - a Townie's take on the phrase
Will happily take your advice - unfortunately I don't think we recorded that particular conversation but there are plenty more to go through when I have time.
Is 'Tattie Bogle' a Norfolk expression - I always theought....!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 04:40 AM

Perhaps you could give a seminar in Oooo arrs.
Or are you geting little bit up your own oooh arrrrs?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 04:22 AM

Sorry Jim, but generally Norfolk ( and Suffolk) people do not say "oo- ar", there is never an r in it, which is more "West Country", tho' there they would probably say oo- arrrrr!
What they say in E Anglian is "Ooooo- waaaah" - very elongated vowels but no rolling rs, and also a sort of up in pitch on the ooo, coming back down on the wah! And definitely that w in the middle.
Have another listen to your Walter Pardon tape, and let me know...........r or no r....please!

(I now expect a backlash from West Country people, as I know there are differences in accents between Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Glos and Bristol!)