Whatevs

[Bazzer]

Well the word "like" seems to have lost its OED meaning for quite a number of people, judging from the way it litters some people's sentences.

 

[cyberknight]

What used to get me was kids in gangs who spoke like they'd been raised in the Bronx.

and dont get me started on the whole trousers around your knee caps , do they want to be a penguin with a chilly ............

 

[Drago]

Or the other way round...

I was once watching a TV programme with my elderly mother (who was born and raised in the Scottish Highlands). There was an Asian family chattering away. Ma turned to me and said "Och, I can't understand a word that they are saying!" I pointed out that they didn't really have strong Asian accents. She laughed and said "Nooooh, it's the Glaswegian accent - I can never understand what people from Glasgow are saying!"

I spent my formative years in the Northern Isles, and can switch between a fairly neutral English accent and an Islands one at whim, usually when I want to annoy someone (usually when a scotsman looks down his nose at me because he thinks I'm English). Nevertheless, I struggle to understand my mate Keith who is from the Gorbals. Even so, he tells me that when he goes home some folk won't speak to him because he sounds too English!

 

[roadrash]

I posted in the other thread about things you hate, mentioning I hate the fact that many people seem to say fing and baff instead of thing and bath......now what do I see......the O.E.D now includes the word...... SUMFIN, it wont be allowed when I become king I tell you.

 

[Bazzer]

I spent my formative years in the Northern Isles, and can switch between a fairly neutral English accent and an Islands one at whim, usually when I want to annoy someone (usually when a scotsman looks down his nose at me because he thinks I'm English). Nevertheless, I struggle to understand my mate Keith who is from the Gorbals. Even so, he tells me that when he goes home some folk won't speak to him because he sounds too English!

I work with a girl from Northern Ireland, who has been over here for years, yet when she gets wound up, she becomes very difficult to understand. Yet she says to her family she sounds English.

 

[ColinJ]

I work with a girl from Northern Ireland, who has been over here for years, yet when she gets wound up, she becomes very difficult to understand. Yet she says to her family she sounds English.

I have lived up in Yorkshire/Lancashire for 35 years. People up here can't really tell that I come from Coventry, but they do know that I am not a local. These days, I think that my Coventry family and friends sound like Brummies, and some of them think they can detect a hint of Yorkshire in my speech.

I just read this interesting article on the Guardian website on the subject of how languages evolve.

 

[Drago]

Mrs D is a Coventry lass, but being a private school girl speaks a fairly neutral English tone. However, some of the terminology she trots out is weird.

"Do you fancy a batch for lunch?"

"No, just one roll would be fine, couldn't manage the whole lot"

 

[ColinJ]

Mrs D is a Coventry lass, but being a private school girl speaks a fairly neutral English tone. However, some of the terminology she trots out is weird.

"Do you fancy a batch for lunch?"

"No, just one roll would be fine, couldn't manage the whole lot"

My sister was visiting me oop north. She went in a local chip shop and asked if she could have a chip batch. The shop owner looked at her gone out, pointed at the fryer and said "What - ALL of them?"

They sell 'barms' and 'oven bottoms' up here!

 

[raleighnut]

My sister was visiting me oop north. She went in a local chip shop and asked if she could have a chip batch. The shop owner looked at her gone out, pointed at the fryer and said "What - ALL of them?"

They sell 'barms' and 'oven bottoms' up here!

They're all just funny names for a Cob.

 

[Beebo]

Well the word "like" seems to have lost its OED meaning for quite a number of people, judging from the way it litters some people's sentences.

Like, innit, y’know, right, yeah, so.
they are all just filler words, used to pad a sentence with no actual meaning. But they have a use.
They’re the same as Umm or err, and enable the speaker to think whilst talking.
these filler words change over time and geography. I bet we all had similar words.
I went through a stage where I used “actually” in almost ever sentence when I was younger.

 

[slowmotion]

In may not always be intentional. There is a teenage white girl who gets the same bus as me and who has a slight Asian accent. All her friends seem to be Asian. I don't think it will be long before the Birmingham accent is influenced by Asian and West Indian accents.

I've got friends who have spent a few months in Australia and have returned with a distinct Aussie intonation. They weren't trying to be fake Australians, they just absorbed the way of speaking by immersion.

 

[raleighnut]

Like, innit, y’know, right, yeah, so.
they are all just filler words, used to pad a sentence with no actual meaning. But they have a use.
They’re the same as Umm or err, and enable the speaker to think whilst talking.
these filler words change over time and geography. I bet we all had similar words.
I went through a stage where I used “actually” in almost ever sentence when I was younger.

Ditto 'f*ck, aural/oral punctuation.

 

[theclaud]

Jafaican is particularly irritating. White English people, usually teens and 20 somethings, trying to speak Jamaican patois is pathetic. When its done by older people its excruciatingly embarrassing.
Anyone remember Tim Westwood.

Unfortunately

Westwood is a legend. He was platforming hip hop at a time when its practitioners and fans were almost universally demonised in the mainstream. And the way he talks may be at odds with his roots but it's consistent with the social/cultural environment in which he's spent most of his life. It isn't really 'fake Jamaican' - it's close to what sociolinguists call 'MLE' - a group of dialects which are a product of a diverse urban environment with a lot of black cultural influences. Which is, of course, what conservative middle England hates about it and why the Daily Mail foams about 'Jafaican' 'infiltrating' the English language and 'wiping out' 'indigenous' dialects.

 

[swee'pea99]

I have lived up in Yorkshire/Lancashire for 35 years. People up here can't really tell that I come from Coventry, but they do know that I am not a local. These days, I think that my Coventry family and friends sound like Brummies, and some of them think they can detect a hint of Yorkshire in my speech.

I just read this interesting article on the Guardian website on the subject of how languages evolve.

I enjoyed that. One of the examples brought to mind a friend's visit to a Japanese bank for a briefing. Many of the people he spoke to stressed the importance of 'chimmock'. No great expert in banking terminology, he simply kept writing chimmock, planning to check it out when he got back to the office. It was quite late in the day before he realised they were talking about teamwork.

 

[Smudge]

Westwood is a legend. He was platforming hip hop at a time when its practitioners and fans were almost universally demonised in the mainstream. And the way he talks may be at odds with his roots but it's consistent with the social/cultural environment in which he's spent most of his life. It isn't really 'fake Jamaican' - it's close to what sociolinguists call 'MLE' - a group of dialects which are a product of a diverse urban environment with a lot of black cultural influences. Which is, of course, what conservative middle England hates about it and why the Daily Mail foams about 'Jafaican' 'infiltrating' the English language and 'wiping out' 'indigenous' dialects.

Rubbish, he didn't talk like that naturally. He purposely talks like that because he thinks it sounds cool and wants to appeal to his fan base.
Just like he tried to make out he was 16 years younger than he really was.