BS: American speech

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Sep 26 - 02:30 PM

‘Argey-bargey’ and ‘innit?’ (a contraction of ‘isn’t it?’) are in common usage all over the UK. My parents (both Lincolnshire Yeller-bellies) used ‘argey-bargey’ when I was a nipper back in the ‘50s, and ‘innit?’ seemed to grow in popularity in the ‘90s possibly, as Helen says, as a result of ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ TV show.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Sep 26 - 03:02 PM

That Nicholl quote from SRS is something I once saw as a Youtube comment and I copied it down:

"English does not borrow from other languages. English foollows other languages down dark alleys whacks other languages over their heads goes through their pockets for loose words and phrases usually to misuse them."

Glad to have a source!

American speech of course began LONG before the United States. And since we are near the end of the American epoch, it appears it will be a part of Whatever Comes Next. India probably has more English speakers than our combined cultures right now. And I don't see Chinese achieving world domination just yet.

In the meantime I've enjoyed "RobWords" on Youtube. I do NOT know how learned he is, but he puts on a good show and appears to be quite literate and informed, and brings on good speakers to complement his spiel.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Sep 26 - 08:33 AM

Init was also popularised by Harry Enfield's Greek character, Stavros. He often started his skecth with "'ello peeps" and finished a lot of sentences with "init"

Stavros

I was once in the embarrassing position of having to teach a group of IT people from a Greek company the basics of UNIX. The first process kicked off by the OS and the one from which all others stem is "init"

They either realised that I wasn't taking the piss or had never seen Harry's show

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 02 Sep 26 - 09:12 AM

In Days Of Old, there was Coronation Street, where people bored each other in Salford accents. Soporific: my mother was famed for watching it in her sleep.

Nowadays, all the soaps consist of people shouting at each other in Sloven, with a cliffhanger crisis to end every episode (and an explosion to tell you it's a Friday). It's got to the point where viewers resort to watching Friends Classic to get a bit of peace and quiet, so be of good cheer: we may yet see hear "innit" as verbal punctuation being displaced by "G'day".

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Helen
Date: 02 Sep 26 - 12:54 PM

Or maybe "Onya!" (short form of "Good on you, mate!").

I never watched the soaps, except for a short stint of watching Eastenders until I became bored. When I was a poor student and after I had moved out of home I used to catch the train up to see my Mum sometimes in the afternoons. She would have the US show Days of Our Lives on the TV but she would be just doing housework or sitting in the next room, not actually sitting down and watching it. What really struck me was that, even if I only visited her every few weeks the show was still stuck on the same loop as my last visit. It was one step forwards and a few steps back and the loops of past events kept on getting played over and over again.

My friends and I used to call it Days of Our Dreary Bloody Lives.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: meself
Date: 02 Sep 26 - 03:07 PM

Once when I was teaching Inuit kids in the Arctic, I overheard one teenaged girl mock another by saying that Coronation Street was her favourite TV show. (CBC was one of the two TV stations they got, and Coronation Street was on daily, IIRC.)

Thought some of the Coronation Street -haters would like that ... !

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Helen
Date: 02 Sep 26 - 06:07 PM

And further to my decision to stop "wrangling" livestock - sorry, I mean teenagers:

One-third of school time lost to student misbehaviour, report finds
One-third of lesson time is being lost as student misbehaviour reaches "crisis" levels in rowdy Australian classrooms, according to a new survey of hundreds of teachers across the country.

"Blaise Joseph, a former teacher and education director at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), which ran the survey, said teachers reported, on average, losing 9 minutes out of 30 minutes of teaching time to student impropriety.

"'The term 'crisis' should not be used lightly,' he said.

"'But losing almost one-third of teaching time to student misbehaviour is of sufficient scale and urgency to warrant that description.'"

...

"He said this behaviour over time was 'exhausting' for educators and had a significant impact on their wellbeing.

"'One in 10 teachers said it had a significant negative effect on their health and wellbeing in the past week,' he said.

"Female teachers were more likely to report losing teaching time to student misbehaviour and twice as likely to report this having a significant impact on their health and wellbeing.

"'There is lots of anecdotal evidence in recent years that female teachers are especially bearing the brunt of some misogynistic conduct from students,' Mr Joseph said."

...

"The proportion of teachers intending to leave the profession who cited student behaviour as a reason rose from 25 per cent in 2020 to 47 per cent in 2024.

"A Senate inquiry into disruption in classrooms in 2024 also found classroom disruption was a significant and worsening problem, damaging learning time and the teaching workforce."

...

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 02:06 AM

According to Green's Dictionary of Slang, the term "ladybird" was historically used in 19th- and early 20th-century American and Australian slang to mean a kept mistress or prostitute
ladybird in east anglia is a Bushy Barnaby

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 02:32 PM

Language changes that I've adopted have been the use of the soft pronunciation of "schedule" which means that I'm pronouncing it in the English way. I also use some well known internet abbreviations such as "TTFN".

One thing I haven't done and probably will never use is the introduction of the glottal stop into consonental use, such as the 'ing' of gerunds but it shows up all the time in the American world now. It's something I used to associate with Cockney accent, but now I've heard it on the public airwaves.

The purely American use of this is with the increasingly Hawaiian pronunciation of the name: Hawai'i.

I've also heard Americans using the phrase "no worries" which is new to me. I heard it commonly from the people of Down Under, but now I hear it all the time with an American accent.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Helen
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 05:32 PM

This isn't an American speech quirk but an English one.

English comedian Chris Ramsey and also the excellent TV documentary presenter Stacey Dooley have a specific way of pronouncing words like "cities" or "geneticists" where the "t" sound between two vowel sounds is not pronounced. Instead it is a soundless stop which I thought was the glottal stop - could be wrong about that.

"Cities" is pronounced "ci-ies" i.e. "ci-[stop]-ies" and "geneticists" is pronounced "gen-e-i-cists" i.e. "gen-e-[stop]-i-cists", with the accent/emphasis in the word on the vowel sound just before the "t".

That pronunciation always surprises me because I don't think I have ever heard an Aussie use that pronunciation or even an English person over here. It seems to be specific to a place in northern or north-eastern England - maybe, but I am not sure.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 06:26 PM

It’s all over England, Helen, but it seems to have got worse since ‘East Enders’ started on BBC TV. I’d also describe it as a glottal-stop.

When I was young, in the East Midlands of England, glottal stops as you describe were very rarely heard.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: meself
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 06:34 PM

I've noticed something similar in mainstream American speech, as I hear it from various media - not exactly a glottal stop, but almost, such that "important" becomes "impor()an()", and "didn't", "di()n't" (or, "ditt()n'").

Also, a slurring of 's' sounds; "especially" becomes "eshpecially"; "esteem" "eshteem", etc. I notice this more in female speakers. Sometimes it seems like a bit of an affectation, but I don't know.

I'm not criticizing, just observing.

Subject: RE: BS: American speech
From: Helen
Date: 04 Sep 26 - 07:49 PM

Maybe, meself, we females are just pisshed. LOL