Lee Valley optical center punch

There is a principle in linguistics, simply stated, that languages tend to
differentiate as they are isolated. Since the colonists were separated from
their English speaking cousins across the pond there tended to be a
differentiation in the pronunciation. This is seen in other languages as
well, re Old World Spanish, with the lisp, and New World Spanish without the
lisp)

Interestingly enough, there is a secondary principle which states that if a
language group is so isolated so that it is not touched by other linguistic
influences, the language can tend to become static. The deep dialect in
some areas of Tennessee, for example, is the closest surviving remmnant to
Elizabethan English. It is one of the few areas where words such as neer
(as in neer do well), nary, and poke (rather than a bag or a sack) are still
in common usage. This dialect has been preserved in the more isolated
regions where until fairly recently there was little or no outside the area
contact, and now it is generally used primarily by old timers. There are
several projects underway by several universities to record and save the
speech patterns for future study.

Glen


"Fly-by-Night CC" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>
> > Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>
> OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
> of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...
>
> At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
> Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.
> What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
> the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
> raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
> transition take place and over how long a period of time?
>
> Please, please, will someone answer my queries - the rattling is tooo
> damn loud and is driving me crazy! Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY!
>
> --
> Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
> Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
> <http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
> <http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:45:04 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> wrote:

>At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?

They didn't. Seventeenth century English travelled to New England and
stayed their, spelling, pronunciation and all. Then England changed.

From the '60s onwards, RP (received pronunciation) has gradually
disappeared from the UK. Brian Perkins and Alastair Cooke being the
last radio bastions of it - Brian Sewell is a caricature of it.
Regional accents have also toned down, with increased communications
between the regions. About the only widespread and locally distinctive
accents left in England are Geordie and Brummie - everything else is
diluted beyond recognition.

Now kids spend so much time watching cheap imported TV that they speak
a vile concoction of Sydney valley-girl that's unintelligible to
anyone over 30.

>Australia still has theirs,

Australia speaks a variant of Dickensian Convict, with that weird
rising inflection at the end of every sentence, you know ?


--
Klein bottle for rent. Apply within.

On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
wrote:

>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Amazon UK's #1 bestseller this Christmas was the book
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation "
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/codesmiths>

I don't think it's available from Amazon US

--
Klein bottle for rent. Apply within.

Luigi Zanasi writes:

>>
>>You know what does that? Reading on the net. You start to write like what
>>you're reading.
>
>Can't be. Robin didn't use an apostrophe -- as in "reply's". More
>likely too much testing of the beer glasses. :-)

Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Charlie Self

"Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal."
Alexander Hamilton

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/myhomepage/business.html

Norman D. Crow wrote:
>
> <snippage>
>
> Very cute with the *threw* Bob. Here's something else to throw some more mud
> in the mix, AND drive a spell checker crazy.
>
> Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cambrigde Uinervtisy, it deossn't mttaer in
> waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the
> frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
> The rset can be a total mses and you can sitil raed it wouthit a porbelm.
> Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
> the wrod as a wlohe.
>
> Thnaks.
>
> Nahmie


Very interesting! :-)

LegMan (remove 999 for eMail)

It's high school English content in Ontario. At least for now. Not that
I am any example.

John

Charlie Self wrote:

>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.
>
>

Evolution.

Which depends on the gene pool. Thus the influx of Scandinavians to the
upper Midwest US and prairie provinces caused pronunciation and rhythm
changes which matched their original tongue. One of the charming, (but
vanishing) manifestations among our Finn population is the lack of
prepositions, resulting in "we go Green Bay watch the Packers."

Areas of less immigration, such as the hollars of Appalachia, retain basic
characteristics, as noted. Although it was longer ago than I care to
recount, I can recall areas in the prairie provinces and in Alaska where I
was fortunate to be able to speak Ukrainian or Russian, even though the
population was second generation and beyond.

Increase the current in the pool, and you'll move toward "standard " speech,
which is a result of mass communication. It's great reading about the
French Academy trying to stamp out neologisms from all the Hollywood movies.

"The French don't care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it
correctly."

Then there are survival adaptations which favor special dialect or language.
Think of Quebec, or the locker-room of an NBA team.

"LRod" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> The problem with all of that is how did we get such regionalized
> accents in the States and how did so much of Canada get nearly the
> same accent as that of our upper midwest (MN, WI, MI)? And how is it
> that nearly all of Canada has roughly the same accent and we in the
> States have at least four very distinct ones? (New England, Southern,
> Upper Midwest, General American)
>
> And of course, North Carolina Southern is very different from Georgia
> Southern which is quite different from Coonass Louisiana Southern.
>
> Ah, what a subject!

Boer - ing answer.

Gonna get you in Dutch.

"Bay Area Dave" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I understand the confusion: I have a neighbor who I'd always assumed was
> German, due to his accent; turns out he is from South Africa!
>
> dave

A northern girl says "you can."

A southern girl says "you all can."

What's wrong with that?

"Silvan" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Fly-by-Night CC wrote:
>
> > Now those Southern belles... or the Scottish lasses...
>
> Just as long as they don't speak Hee Haw.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 13:46:20 -0500, Bob Haar <[email protected]>
wrote:

|On 2003/12/28 12:21 PM, "Jim Wilson" <[email protected]> wrote:
|
|> Bob Haar wrote...
|>> I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
|>> timing.
|>
|> Did you do that on purpose? (G)
|
|The hand injury - no; the use of "through" instead of "threw" - I tried to
|sneak that buy (:-)

Well if yew whir to ask mi four advise, I'd advice ewe knot too due it
again. One thyme is all write, butt any moor wood bee two many.

Like, you know what I mean, Dude?

"Glen" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<%[email protected]>...
> Interestingly enough, there is a secondary principle which states that if a
> language group is so isolated so that it is not touched by other linguistic
> influences, the language can tend to become static. The deep dialect in
> some areas of Tennessee, for example, is the closest surviving remmnant to
> Elizabethan English. It is one of the few areas where words such as neer
> (as in neer do well), nary, and poke (rather than a bag or a sack) are still
> in common usage. This dialect has been preserved in the more isolated
> regions where until fairly recently there was little or no outside the area
> contact, and now it is generally used primarily by old timers. There are
> several projects underway by several universities to record and save the
> speech patterns for future study.

If you ever get the opportunity you should listen to a recording of
Ray Hicks telling stories. Ray was one of the finest storytellers
ever, but it took a few minutes to get used to his North Carolina
Appalachian accent. At first you might think the accent is put on but
once you catch on to it you realize that he was just not affected by
any outside influences.

When I go back to Sunfish, Kentucky, where I was born, you can tell a
remarkable difference between the accents of people born before and
after World War II. (You remember WWII, don't you? It was in all the
papers.) People younger than about 55 sound more like Dan Rather and
less like Little Jimmy Dickens.

Dick Durbin

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:11:02 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> wrote:

>"A historical house." or "An historical house."

Bad example. Although the consonant in historical would suggest the
use of "a," there is a convention that a silent consonant, as "h"
frequently is, allows the preceding article to be modified by the
succeeding vowel. For example, it's very proper to say, "it's an
honor," while nobody would think of saying, "I'm in an house."

There is a lot of vagueness in that convention (particularly in cases
where the "h" isn't even silent), however, as you will see plenty of
examples of either "a" or "an" preceding an "h" word, and both of your
examples would be considered correct.

One of the funniest lines to me on a TV show was a M.A.S.H. episode in
which Charles, in his very proper brahmin accent referred to "an
harmonica."

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 13:46:20 -0500, Bob Haar wrote:

> On 2003/12/28 12:21 PM, "Jim Wilson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Bob Haar wrote...
>>> I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
>>> timing.
>>
>> Did you do that on purpose? (G)
>
> The hand injury - no; the use of "through" instead of "threw" - I tried to
> sneak that buy (:-)

What was the price?

-Doug

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:02:31 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:

>> If the preceding is true, it's probably more accurate to say that the
>> Brits *gained* an accent, rather than we lost one.
>
>Fascinating. Truly. I had no idea and assumed the Brittish "always"
>spoke with a Brittish accent.

The British have two teas, Owie. One in their bloomin' name, and
one in their bloody cup. Y'all 'member that, y'hear?



---
After they make styrofoam, what do they ship it in? --Steven Wright
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development

On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
brought forth from the murky depths:

>Luigi Zanasi writes:
>
>>>
>>>You know what does that? Reading on the net. You start to write like what
>>>you're reading.
>>
>>Can't be. Robin didn't use an apostrophe -- as in "reply's". More
>>likely too much testing of the beer glasses. :-)
>
>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Do you mean to say that they're actually teaching ANY English in
schools nowadays? It's not immediately obvious.

P.S: I'm going to stop replying to you until you fix your
damned sig tail. Crikey, man. Have you no shame? EDIT!


==========================================================
I drank WHAT? + http://www.diversify.com
--Socrates + Web Application Programming

On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
wrote:

>Luigi Zanasi writes:
>
>>>
>>>You know what does that? Reading on the net. You start to write like what
>>>you're reading.
>>
>>Can't be. Robin didn't use an apostrophe -- as in "reply's". More
>>likely too much testing of the beer glasses. :-)
>
>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.
>

I seriously doubt it. They don't teach the difference between nouns
and verbs either, apparently.

My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the
word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router"
is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and
describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.

Inattention to detail seems to be the order of the day, and greatly
detracts from our ability to communicate.

I understand the confusion: I have a neighbor who I'd always assumed was
German, due to his accent; turns out he is from South Africa!

dave

[email protected] wrote:

> Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
>
>
> Lot's of German and French folks in the mix for US and Canada.
> That probably has some effect.
>
>
>>Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.
>
>
> This reminds me of a trip I once took to Saudi Arabia.
> I was talking to some fellows in the hotel bar one
> evening and was having a hard time placing their accent.
> One minute it sound Australian, then it would seem more
> like British Isles English, but not quite either. I finally
> caught on that these guys were from South Africa. For an
> American I usually have a pretty good ear for regional
> accents, but that one threw me due mostly to lack of
> exposure I guess.
>
>
>>What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
>>the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
>>raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
>>transition take place and over how long a period of time?
>
>
> Remember that German was almost made the official language
> of the early US. I'm sure the large non-English populations
> had some effect.
>
> Bill ranck
> Blacksburg, Va.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 13:20:23 +0000, LRod <[email protected]> wrote:

>But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as
>their/there/they're.
>
>Add in opps for oops.
>
>OWW: Not to mention joiner for jointer and planner for planer.
>
>People who can't spell (or type) worth a damn like to argue it doesn't
>matter. As a professional communicator, I maintain that if one's ideas
>aren't clearly and accurately presented, one won't be taken seriously,
>irrespective of the efficacy of those ideas.

I read a story once about a reporter for (I think) the NY Times who
had written a story in which he confused the words "burro" and
"burrow." His editor sent him a note saying:

"A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. You are
expected to know the difference."

I don't think they make editors -- or reporters -- like they used to.


-- jc
Published e-mail address is strictly for spam collection.
If e-mailing me, please use jc631 at optonline dot net

On 2003/12/28 8:20 AM, "LRod" <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 02:53:44 -0500, LP <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Ahhh, my favorite subject.
>
>> My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the
>> word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router"
>> is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and
>> describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.
>
> Don't be disrespecting the homeys, bro. As a former government
> employee, verbification is one of the things that drives me nuts. It
> starts there and then makes it to the streets.
>
> But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as
> their/there/they're.
>
> Add in opps for oops.
>
> OWW: Not to mention joiner for jointer and planner for planer.
>
>> Inattention to detail seems to be the order of the day, and greatly
>> detracts from our ability to communicate.
>
> People who can't spell (or type) worth a damn like to argue it doesn't
> matter. As a professional communicator, I maintain that if one's ideas
> aren't clearly and accurately presented, one won't be taken seriously,
> irrespective of the efficacy of those ideas.


I would add to the list the people who don't recognize that 'sight', 'site'
and 'cite' are different words with quite different meanings.

I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
timing. Mainly, I hit keys out of order so that letters are transposed.
Because of this, I am seeing the results of stupid spell check software more
frequently. My wife, who teaches writing at college, laments the era of
spell checkers with the corresponding lazy proof reading. The excuse is too
often "The computer said it was OK so it has to be the right word." They
don't understand that the spell checker does not understand the semantics,
and can only look up correct spellings, not whether the word is used
appropriately.

On 2003/12/28 12:21 PM, "Jim Wilson" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Bob Haar wrote...
>> I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
>> timing.
>
> Did you do that on purpose? (G)

The hand injury - no; the use of "through" instead of "threw" - I tried to
sneak that buy (:-)

Silvan wrote:

> Fly-by-Night CC wrote:
>
>
>>Now those Southern belles... or the Scottish lasses...
>
>
> Just as long as they don't speak Hee Haw.
>


You don't like Hee Haws and a Crop across your ass to get it moving?



--
--

Mark

N.E. Ohio


Never argue with a fool, a bystander can't tell you apart. (S. Clemens,
A.K.A. Mark Twain)

When in doubt hit the throttle. It may not help but it sure ends the
suspense. (Gaz, r.moto)

On 28-Dec-2003, LRod <[email protected]> wrote:

> But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as
> their/there/they're.

For me, it's less/fewer. Not even the journalists and editors
bother to get it right anymore.

> People who can't spell (or type) worth a damn like to argue it doesn't
> matter.

I met one of those once - a university English Literature professor!
She submitted an article to our club's newsletter and, after reading
it, I advised the editor to send it back to her for a rewrite.
Imagine what the students are learning from her!

Mike

On 31-Dec-2003, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:

> The result is that speaking French with someone from Quebec today is
> more like speaking to a family member than to an Acadian/Cajun.

Does (did) your family speak with sibilant French like the modern
Quebecois? That is what most noticibly distinquishes the sound of
Quebec French from modern European French.

Example: Mardi Gras in Europe would be pronounced mardee grah
whereas in Quebec as mardzee grah.

Mike

Silvan wrote...
> (I hafta admit on it's vs. its, I sometimes write the wrong thing in spite
> of knowing better. You're vs. your too. I edit myself, and I certainly
> know the difference, but it's still easy to do. I let one through
> occasionally.)

Me, too. Just remember:

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.
If you don't it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't
our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News


Jim

Bob Haar wrote...
> I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
> timing.

Did you do that on purpose? (G)

Jim

Folks all through coastal Virginia and the Carolina's
still have a very distinct "brouge" that is very similar
to "old english". Sadly, most of them are all gone and the
children didn't pick up the same dialect.

The North Carolina outer banks folks still have more of
this "sound" than any other place.

Bob Schmall wrote:


> It has also been said that today's Southern accent is a lazy British accent.
> Has anyone heard this?
>
> Bob

Steve wrote:

> I would not argue with your sister on that one, maybe she likes to have OJ
> once a day, she is saying she likes to have hers(sp?) with breakfast. If she
> said "I like to have OJ with breakfast", that doesn't preclude her from
> having it with lunch too. Example conversation below:

OK, I'll use a better example:

"I always have a glass of my orange juice with breakfast"

This is closer to what she says... but I don't really record it all for
fear it will corrupt my own language skills :-)

<big snip>

> K-I won't forget next time, just make the check out to "Kevin Fleming",
> since you're my sister I'll give you a break, make it for $10,000 even.
>
> End of story. See how nice that works.

ROFL! Nice job.

Not really ... it is more a case of similar dialects. The French our family
speaks, especially the old folks in their 80's +, was closer to Québecois
than to Francais Acadien, but with much less English influence on
vocabluarly and syntax.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/29/03


"Michael Daly" wrote in message
> On 31-Dec-2003, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > The result is that speaking French with someone from Quebec today is
> > more like speaking to a family member than to an Acadian/Cajun.
>
> Does (did) your family speak with sibilant French like the modern
> Quebecois? That is what most noticibly distinquishes the sound of
> Quebec French from modern European French.
>
> Example: Mardi Gras in Europe would be pronounced mardee grah
> whereas in Quebec as mardzee grah.
>
> Mike

I saw were I did it mysef the other day. I no better, butt my typing fingers
just takeoff on there own sometime's.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/23/03

"Silvan" wrote in message

>
> You're vs. your too. I edit myself, and I certainly
> know the difference, but it's still easy to do. I let one through
> occasionally.)

On 30-Dec-2003, "George" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Increase the current in the pool, and you'll move toward "standard " speech,
> which is a result of mass communication.

I wonder about that. There was a radio series on CBC in Canada that was called
something like "Lost and found sound", where they examined the oldest recordings
available. I listened with interest to voice recordings from the late 1800s that
sounded remarkably modern. The "generic" accent that is all across Canada and
the US (the one that allows us Kanuckistanis to infiltrate US broadcasting
without notice*) was already present. Also, my grandparents and great-grandparents,
all of whom were born before mass communication, spoke with only slight regional
accents and were already close to the modern "generic" accent. I also found
that there was one recording of a British accent that was remarkably un-British
and very much like modern N.A. English.

This makes me think that the modern accent has its roots before radio could
distribute a common speech. Also, early Hollywood preferred an American "Posh"
accent that doesn't sound like the way we speak today - they weren't spreading
the common accent or speech. Remnants of this lasted in broadcasting into the
'50s.

I'd love to find a book or other source that examines in detail the spread
and development of the various English accents 'round the globe. Someone
once suggested Bryson, but his book doesn't cover that.

Sorry for the off-topic, but this is one topic that fascinates me!

Mike

* Only once in my many travels through the US did anyone suggest from my
accent that I wasn't American. This one time, a fellow said something
like "You have an interesting accent - you're not American are you? You
sound Canadian or something" This fellow was South African!

Our rather small family in South Louisiana is an example of both these
principles. The family derives from three well-to-do brothers who arrived in
New Orleans from Paris in the late 1700's. The French that their descendents
speak remains pretty much the same 18th century "court" French they brought
with them and not the prevalent Cajun French of the area, which the
Acadian's brought with them to South Louisiana from Nova Scotia, then
bastardized with Spanish and English into a patois that is unique to the
region. The result is that speaking French with someone from Quebec today is
more like speaking to a family member than to an Acadian/Cajun.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/29/03

"Glen" wrote in message
> There is a principle in linguistics, simply stated, that languages tend to
> differentiate as they are isolated. Since the colonists were separated
from
> their English speaking cousins across the pond there tended to be a
> differentiation in the pronunciation. This is seen in other languages as
> well, re Old World Spanish, with the lisp, and New World Spanish without
the
> lisp)
>
> Interestingly enough, there is a secondary principle which states that if
a
> language group is so isolated so that it is not touched by other
linguistic
> influences, the language can tend to become static. The deep dialect in
> some areas of Tennessee, for example, is the closest surviving remmnant to
> Elizabethan English. It is one of the few areas where words such as neer
> (as in neer do well), nary, and poke (rather than a bag or a sack) are
still
> in common usage. This dialect has been preserved in the more isolated
> regions where until fairly recently there was little or no outside the
area
> contact, and now it is generally used primarily by old timers. There are
> several projects underway by several universities to record and save the
> speech patterns for future study.

"Andy Dingley" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:11:02 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >Could their accent have originated from a
> >certain class of Brittish society that was more prone to being convicted
> >of illicit behavior?
>
> Quite possibly - there's a huge skew in the Australian transportees
> having come from urban SE England (which basically meant London).
> Similar crimes in Bristol often found you pressed onto a navy ship
> instead and the rural poor just didn't have the opportunities for the
> same urban skullduggeries.

"A lot of our fellows went over there, you know. It wasn't so long ago that
you could get free passage to Australia. All you had to do was steal a
chicken or look funny at another fella's wife, and you got a free trip."

Liam Clancy, introducing a song during a concert in Dublin.

Just to muddy the waters, David Hackett Fisher in "Albion's Seed" claimed to
have identified FOUR separate regions of the south to which four separate
regions of England transferred their customs. It's been a while and I no
longer have the book (at 903 pages it was too heavy to carry with me) but
IIRC he traced about 25 indicators (naming ways, speech patterns, house
styles, etc) which the English regions and American regions had in common.
For example, the people of the Applachian hill country derived many of their
customs from the Scottish Borderlands, and despite the dilution of the years
many have persisted. Fisher faced a good deal of criticism for the breadth
of his conclusions, but no one denied that there was some connection.

I've also learned that many of today's English pronounciations are derived
from Queen Elizabeth's speech impediment. For example Worcester is
pronounced "Wooster."

It has also been said that today's Southern accent is a lazy British accent.
Has anyone heard this?

Bob

Larry Jaques wrote:

> That's OK. If they can screw up their title, the rest is probably
> hosed, too. s/b either "Eats Shoots & Leaves" (as a koala might)
> or "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves".

In English probably. It's different in other languages, and the number of
other-language people speaking and using English every day has probably
blurred this line.

Come, tira y sale. (three verbs)

Alimentos, vástagos y hojas. (three nouns)


--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

Is that kinda like the new US policy - the forrests are full of
combustibles?

Renata

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 04:55:40 GMT, Larry Jaques
<novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:
>
>Nahmie, you should have hit him with the "Wood is endangered
>so we are doing our parts to conserve it. Talk about wood is
>reserved for weekend days, A.M. ONLY, please."
>
>"Thank you for your immediate compliance."
>
>
>-
>Yea, though I walk through the valley of Minwax, I shall stain no Cherry.
> http://diversify.com

smart, not dumb for email

MMM, smell the fresh content...

I was in conversation with my son. His retort when requested to
detoxify his playroom was as follows: "I am neglected,
underprivileged, and generally put-upon." He is five years of age.

I heartily anticipate adolescent speech.

Warmest regards,
Jenny

P.S. Many expressions of slang are nerve-racking. Please find
following an exemplary list:
1. Take me with./ I want to go with. With what? An elephant?
2. Farther/Further
3. Regardless of presidential position, an individual does not have
editing rights to the dictionary or its syl-LA-bles.
4. Contractions customarily end words. Jeet yet. Nuff said.

On Fri, 02 Jan 2004 01:28:15 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:02:31 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
>> <[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:
>>
>> >> If the preceding is true, it's probably more accurate to say that the
>> >> Brits *gained* an accent, rather than we lost one.
>> >
>> >Fascinating. Truly. I had no idea and assumed the Brittish "always"
>> >spoke with a Brittish accent.
>>
>> The British have two teas, Owie. One in their bloomin' name, and
>> one in their bloody cup. Y'all 'member that, y'hear?
>
>Yeah, I got itt. Won'tt happen again Mistter Jaques.

Y'mean _after_ you get your new keyboard?


>Whatt'd you go an' do - change yer "from" address again? How do you
>expectt me to keep you killfiled if'n you keep changin' itt?

Yeah, I had to turn off the last one after the spammers got it.


---
After they make styrofoam, what do they ship it in? --Steven Wright
http://diversify.com Comprehensive Website Development

"Bob Haar" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:BC1473F4.8772F%[email protected]...
> On 2003/12/28 8:20 AM, "LRod" <[email protected]> wrote:

<snippage>

> I used to be a reasonably good typist, but a hand injury through off my
> timing. Mainly, I hit keys out of order so that letters are transposed.
> Because of this, I am seeing the results of stupid spell check software
more
> frequently. My wife, who teaches writing at college, laments the era of
> spell checkers with the corresponding lazy proof reading. The excuse is
too
> often "The computer said it was OK so it has to be the right word." They
> don't understand that the spell checker does not understand the semantics,
> and can only look up correct spellings, not whether the word is used
> appropriately.

Very cute with the *threw* Bob. Here's something else to throw some more mud
in the mix, AND drive a spell checker crazy.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cambrigde Uinervtisy, it deossn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the
frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a total mses and you can sitil raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the wrod as a wlohe.

Thnaks.

Nahmie

In article <[email protected]>,
Wes Stewart <*n7ws*@arrl.net> wrote:
>Well if yew whir to ask mi four advise, I'd advice ewe knot too due it
>again. One thyme is all write, butt any moor wood bee two many.

Jest bee corset gut bye thee spill chick her doe's knot mien its spilt
wright.
--
--henry schaffer
hes _AT_ ncsu _DOT_ edu

Fly-by-Night CC <[email protected]> wrote:

> At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?

Lot's of German and French folks in the mix for US and Canada.
That probably has some effect.

> Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.

This reminds me of a trip I once took to Saudi Arabia.
I was talking to some fellows in the hotel bar one
evening and was having a hard time placing their accent.
One minute it sound Australian, then it would seem more
like British Isles English, but not quite either. I finally
caught on that these guys were from South Africa. For an
American I usually have a pretty good ear for regional
accents, but that one threw me due mostly to lack of
exposure I guess.

> What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
> the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
> raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
> transition take place and over how long a period of time?

Remember that German was almost made the official language
of the early US. I'm sure the large non-English populations
had some effect.

Bill ranck
Blacksburg, Va.

"Victor De Long" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Didn't this group used to be about woodworking?

Oh, shaddup!

"Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:38:32 -0500, "Norman D. Crow"
> <[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:
>
> >"Victor De Long" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> >news:[email protected]...
> >> Didn't this group used to be about woodworking?
> >
> >Oh, shaddup!
>
> Nahmie, you should have hit him with the "Wood is endangered
> so we are doing our parts to conserve it. Talk about wood is
> reserved for weekend days, A.M. ONLY, please."
>
> "Thank you for your immediate compliance."

ROFLMAO!

Sorry Lar, after all the pi**in' & moanin' started earlier about OT posting,
I wasn't feeling particularly humorous or charitable. Just thought the door
should be slammed shut *now*.

Nahmie

In article <[email protected]>,
Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:
>On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>wrote:
>>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.
>
>Amazon UK's #1 bestseller this Christmas was the book
>"Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
>The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation "
><http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/codesmiths>
>
>I don't think it's available from Amazon US

I don't see it listed on the Amazon US web site. However our Raleigh,
North Carolina newspaper had a recent article about this book.
--
--henry schaffer
hes _AT_ ncsu _DOT_ edu

In article <[email protected]>,
Silvan <[email protected]> wrote:
>Luigi Zanasi wrote:
> ...
>> I would suspect that vital was part of English before the great vowel
>> shift, while vitamin is a recent coinage. ...

Vitamin originated as "vitamine" from "vita" (life) and "amine"
because of a thought that this was the chemical makeup. It got changed
because the chemistry turned out to be a bit different - but the name
"vitamin" stuck. The origin was around 1912.

Oh well - this isn't any more OT than the rest of the thread!
--
--henry schaffer
hes _AT_ ncsu _DOT_ edu

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 16:14:02 +0000, Andy Dingley
<[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:

>On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>wrote:
>
>>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.
>
>Amazon UK's #1 bestseller this Christmas was the book
>"Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
>The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation "
><http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861976127/codesmiths>
>
>I don't think it's available from Amazon US

That's OK. If they can screw up their title, the rest is probably
hosed, too. s/b either "Eats Shoots & Leaves" (as a koala might)
or "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves".


-
Yea, though I walk through the valley of Minwax, I shall stain no Cherry.
http://diversify.com

The talk around here regarding "healthy forests initiatives" is "no
forests, no forest fires". Obvious. Pa-dum-dum.
mahalo,
jo4hn

Luigi Zanasi wrote:
>Which ones? The Southrons, who still don't pronounce their "r"s like
>the southern English? The New Englanders & Maritimers who apparently
>sound like they're from Lincolnshire? The Newfoundlanders who either
>sound Irish (in the Avalon peninsula) or like the West country.

I grew up on a priory run by English monks (no really, I
did) and one day it dawned on me that "they" talked like
"they" were from the south. "They" didn't think "they"
sounded at all like southern 'Muricans.

>Or the generalized accent found around the Great Lakes and in California?

Hey dere whadda ya mean dere eh?

UA100

Fly-by-Night CC wrote:

> OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
> of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...

Forgive me if someone already caught this. I've been offline for a bit. I
don't see anything in the posts I have.

I'm surprised everyone let you get away with that. You don't need an
apostrophe on that word. It's not a present participle with a missing G.
The "-in" on the end of it has nothing to do with a verb form.

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]

Noggin \Nog"gin\, n. [Ir. noigin, or Gael. noigean. Cf. 1st
Nog.]

[snip]

3. The head (of a person). [slang]

> At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?

Like everyone already said, we didn't. We more or less still have it.

If you listen to the BBC as much as I do, you'll appreciate how reasonable
it seems to believe this too. It just seems to me like they've gone out of
their way to speak in a stilted, affectatious manner. Probably something
similar to the Spanish lithp on C/Z.

"Vital" and "vitamin" come from the same root, the Latin /vita/. (WEEtah or
VEEtah, depending on your preferred butchery of Latin.) It makes sense to
me that whatever vowel shifts made to those two words would be the same.
In the US, we say "VIE-tal" and "VIE-ta-min." The Latin long I "EE" has
changed to the the English long I "eye," and it's the same in both, as
expected. So why, then, do the Brits say "VIE-tal" and "VIT-a-min?" Why
the short I in "vitamin?"

I only play a linguist on TV, and I can't begin to get into the guts of this
kind of thing. I'm just saying my instinct tells me the explanation that
our dialect is more similar to Elizabethan English than the dialect spoken
in the UK today just feels right.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

Okay, I've got the KING BIG DADDY of 'em all:

Irregardless. Ne?

The you're/your is also a big one for me. As is they're/their/there.

However, as a young person, I have gone through the like, you know,
language phase, okay? I just taught myself not to talk that way
anymore. I did that the same way I taught myself to use the f-word at
least 3 times every sentence in the Marine Corps. I also taught
myself to stop doing that.

Do y'all (that's a _word_, I don't care what y'all say) think it has a
lot to do with present company? Do kids (or can they) speak one way
in the chic lingo of the day, and speak to rational humans in English?

-Phil Crow

LP <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
> wrote:
>
> My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the
> word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router"
> is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and
> describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.
>

The closer proximity of the 'r' key to the 'e' key on a standard
keyboard often leads me to mistype an 'r' after an 'e' even though
I know better. As in 'planer' instead of 'plane'. Oftent the result
is a real word so it does not stand out when proofreading or spell
checking.

--

FF

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:38:32 -0500, "Norman D. Crow"
<[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:

>"Victor De Long" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> Didn't this group used to be about woodworking?
>
>Oh, shaddup!

Nahmie, you should have hit him with the "Wood is endangered
so we are doing our parts to conserve it. Talk about wood is
reserved for weekend days, A.M. ONLY, please."

"Thank you for your immediate compliance."


-
Yea, though I walk through the valley of Minwax, I shall stain no Cherry.
http://diversify.com

Fly-by-Night CC wrote:

> Now those Southern belles... or the Scottish lasses...

Just as long as they don't speak Hee Haw.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

George wrote:

> vanishing) manifestations among our Finn population is the lack of
> prepositions, resulting in "we go Green Bay watch the Packers."

Probably because their language is one of the most highly inflected still
spoken today. It makes Latin look like a cakewalk by comparison, I hear.

> which is a result of mass communication. It's great reading about the

Another thing to think about. Until around the turn of the previous
century, it had never been possible to record or human speech before, nor
to transmit it over long distances.

Mass communication, even just print media, had a *big* role in changing the
way languages developed. That's why a huge chunks of territory in the New
World all speak one of the same four basic languages (English, Castillian
Spanish, Portuguese, French), while nearly every little country in the Old
World speaks a completely different language. We came over with printing
presses.

The language pattern here before was similar to the way it was back across
the pond. Every little regional group spoke a distinct language, with
broader relationships uniting some of them into families, much as German
and Dutch are vaguely related. That's the way people did things before
they figured out how to write, and how to distribute the written word
efficiently.

>> States have at least four very distinct ones? (New England, Southern,
>> Upper Midwest, General American)

and how did I grow up in the South speaking General American? Another
mystery. Nobody ever guesses where I'm from, because I sound like I could
be from anywhere.

>> And of course, North Carolina Southern is very different from Georgia
>> Southern which is quite different from Coonass Louisiana Southern.

Very much so. I was surprised how little resemblance Georgian bears to
Foghorn Leghorn. That rooster must have come from the Upstate of South
Carolina.

Anyone ever notice how the basic dialect spoken by black people in all
corners of the US sounds almost exactly like rural speech in the Sandhills
of NC? That one really surprised me.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

"Kevin P. Fleming" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:y8EHb.31759$gN.7508@fed1read05...
>
----------------8<---------------------------
> This has unfortunately spread into common usage as well; my sister (over
> 30 years old) frequently says things like:
>
> "I like to have my orange juice with breakfast"
> "I'm going to Starbucks to get my drink"
>
> Well, like, you know, DUH, of course it's YOUR orange juice, it came out
> of YOUR refrigerator :-)
>

I would not argue with your sister on that one, maybe she likes to have OJ
once a day, she is saying she likes to have hers(sp?) with breakfast. If she
said "I like to have OJ with breakfast", that doesn't preclude her from
having it with lunch too. Example conversation below:

Kevin = K Kevins(sp? I think there's supposed to be an apostrophe?) Sister =
S

K--Good morning sis', I just stopped by to install these fabulous mahogany
floor to ceiling bookcases for your new library. I'm sorry it's so early,
but I wanted to get an early start because there are seven of them and I'll
have to make a couple of trips, and then try to get the rolling ladder on
this afternoon. (now wiping slobber/drool off keyboard) I brought some
breakfast burritos for us.

S--Morning Kev', I can't wait to fill up the new cases. What, no OJ?

K--Sorry, I forgot, I don't drink it at breakfast, I have MINE (not
shouting, just emphasizing) in the afternoon, in the warm, dappled (sp?)
sunlight under the big tree in the backyard, tossing a ball or stick for
Buster The Beast at Tenagra-good boy. (Sorry, that's me)

S-"I like to have my OJ with breakfast."

K-I won't forget next time, just make the check out to "Kevin Fleming",
since you're my sister I'll give you a break, make it for $10,000 even.

End of story. See how nice that works.

Steve

The English speaking countries I've lived in, besides the US, are New
Zealand, Australia and England (was married to a Staines, Mddx, girl for
some years) so my ear for English accents was sharpened, or so I thought.
Had the husband of a new acquaintance over for a holiday gathering last week
and would have sworn he was from Scotland at first listen ... turned out he
was from SA ... fooled the hell outta me!

My oldest daughter now lives in Yorkshire, but has a decidedly upper class
accent from her mother, although her fiancé has a broad Yorkshire accent
that sounds like he stepped out of a James Herriot book ... I had to be his
translator to others when they visited this past year ... he understood
everyone perfectly.

I was the best man and, as it turned out, absolutely necessary translator
for a wedding party which was comprised of a bunch of coonasses from New
Roads, Louisiana, and the brides family of Boston Jews ... talk about a
hoot! This was a culture clash of truly epic proportions.

I always though the Irish Channel area of New Orleans would lead you to
believe you were in the Bronx. And I love the accents of the women from the
Northwest USA ... used to hear them often in the days when MSFT did a lot of
their own support.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/29/03


<[email protected]> wrote in message

> This reminds me of a trip I once took to Saudi Arabia.
> I was talking to some fellows in the hotel bar one
> evening and was having a hard time placing their accent.
> One minute it sound Australian, then it would seem more
> like British Isles English, but not quite either. I finally
> caught on that these guys were from South Africa. For an
> American I usually have a pretty good ear for regional
> accents, but that one threw me due mostly to lack of
> exposure I guess.

Worse yet is the nurse in the hospital who says, "It's time for our shot
now." Our shot?

Glen

"Kevin P. Fleming" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:y8EHb.31759$gN.7508@fed1read05...
> LRod wrote:
>
> > But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as
> > their/there/they're.
>
> And here's another one (seen mostly on TV DIY shows lately): use of the
> word "my" in place of "the"...
>
> "I'm going to use my table saw now to cut this..."
> "I'll add my turkey now to the pot..."
> "I'll go over to my oven now and check the temperature..."
>
> In the first place, in exactly ZERO of these occurrences are the objects
> in question actually owned by the speaker, so the use of "my" is
> actually incorrect. In spite of that, did we really think they were
> going to add "someone else's" turkey to the pot? Or they were going to
> use "someone else's" table saw?
>
> This has unfortunately spread into common usage as well; my sister (over
> 30 years old) frequently says things like:
>
> "I like to have my orange juice with breakfast"
> "I'm going to Starbucks to get my drink"
>
> Well, like, you know, DUH, of course it's YOUR orange juice, it came out
> of YOUR refrigerator :-)
>

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:45:04 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> scribbled:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>
>> Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>
>OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
>of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...
>
>At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
Which ones? The Southrons, who still don't pronounce their "r"s like
the southern English? The New Englanders & Maritimers who apparently
sound like they're from Lincolnshire? The Newfoundlanders who either
sound Irish (in the Avalon peninsula) or like the West country. Or the
generalized accent found around the Great Lakes and in California?

And the Brits used to have a gazillion accents that depended not only
on geography but also on social class. So which Brit accent?

>Australia still has theirs,
Although they all sound the same to us, the Strines will jump on you
for that one. IIRC, the typical "Strine" accent comes from London
Cockney.

>some folks in India still have theirs.
But most have a distinctive Indian accent.

>What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
>the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent?

Apparently, the northern North American accents stems from where most
of the original immigrants came from, apparently Lincolnshire for New
England, a mix of all kinds of influences for the mid-Atlantic states
which spread to the US Midwest (and Quebec and Ontario through the
Loyalists).

>Did the New World-born and
>raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
>transition take place and over how long a period of time?
>
>Please, please, will someone answer my queries - the rattling is tooo
>damn loud and is driving me crazy! Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY!

Languages evolve, and English evolved differently in Britain than in
North America. We keep some 17th century archaisms (e.g. "gotten"
instead of "got"), the Brits kept others.

Luigi
Replace "no" with "yk" for real email address

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 07:17:05 -0500, "George"
<[email protected]> wrote:


>Although it was longer ago than I care to recount, I can recall areas in the
>prairie provinces and in Alaska where I was fortunate to be able to speak
>Ukrainian or Russian, even though the population was second generation
>and beyond.

Ukie boy, eh? My wife is full blooded Ukrainian and which is her
native language, although she speaks English utterly unaccented (well,
except for the Canadian, eh) and fully fluently. She's from the
Niagara Peninsula, which has its own enclave of Ukrainians in addition
to the ones out west.

>Then there are survival adaptations which favor special dialect or language.
>Think of Quebec, or the locker-room of an NBA team.

Heh, heh.

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Didn't this group used to be about woodworking?



"Fred the Red Shirt" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> LP <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
> > wrote:
> >
> > My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the
> > word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router"
> > is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and
> > describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.
> >
>
> The closer proximity of the 'r' key to the 'e' key on a standard
> keyboard often leads me to mistype an 'r' after an 'e' even though
> I know better. As in 'planer' instead of 'plane'. Oftent the result
> is a real word so it does not stand out when proofreading or spell
> checking.
>
> --
>
> FF

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 22:45:04 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:
>
>> Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>
>OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
>of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...
>
>At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
>Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.
>What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
>the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
>raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
>transition take place and over how long a period of time?
>
>Please, please, will someone answer my queries - the rattling is tooo
>damn loud and is driving me crazy! Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY!

A couple of points:

I recall reading somewhere that the change actually occurred in
Britain around the 18th Century. There was supposedly a fashion
adopted of stylized speech, which became permanent and the genesis of
today's Brit accent, all of which, of course happened subsequent to
the major migration to "the colonies." Consequently, the accent heard
in New England is allegedly closer to the British way of speaking that
existed in the 17th Century than is heard there now.

Oz was settled in the late 18th Century and therefore took with them
the later version of the British accent.

If the preceding is true, it's probably more accurate to say that the
Brits *gained* an accent, rather than we lost one.

I also seem to remember that the accents found deep in the Appalachins
are supposedly very similar to the Scots/Irish English (which
presumably was unaffected by the "fashion change") due to the
proponderence of Scots/Irish that settled the area.

The problem with all of that is how did we get such regionalized
accents in the States and how did so much of Canada get nearly the
same accent as that of our upper midwest (MN, WI, MI)? And how is it
that nearly all of Canada has roughly the same accent and we in the
States have at least four very distinct ones? (New England, Southern,
Upper Midwest, General American)

And of course, North Carolina Southern is very different from Georgia
Southern which is quite different from Coonass Louisiana Southern.

Ah, what a subject!

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

In article <[email protected]>,
Silvan <[email protected]> wrote:

> Forgive me if someone already caught this. I've been offline for a bit. I
> don't see anything in the posts I have.
>
> I'm surprised everyone let you get away with that. You don't need an
> apostrophe on that word. It's not a present participle with a missing G.
> The "-in" on the end of it has nothing to do with a verb form.

LOL - really, I am. Told you this one thought was rattling around in a
bunch of emptiness.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
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In article <[email protected]>,
Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:02:31 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC
> <[email protected]> brought forth from the murky depths:
>
> >> If the preceding is true, it's probably more accurate to say that the
> >> Brits *gained* an accent, rather than we lost one.
> >
> >Fascinating. Truly. I had no idea and assumed the Brittish "always"
> >spoke with a Brittish accent.
>
> The British have two teas, Owie. One in their bloomin' name, and
> one in their bloody cup. Y'all 'member that, y'hear?

Yeah, I got itt. Won'tt happen again Mistter Jaques.

Whatt'd you go an' do - change yer "from" address again? How do you
expectt me to keep you killfiled if'n you keep changin' itt?

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:

> Remember that German was almost made the official language
> of the early US.

No, I didn't remember that. Vedddddy intarrrrestink.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
LRod <[email protected]> wrote:

> I recall reading somewhere that the change actually occurred in
> Britain around the 18th Century. There was supposedly a fashion
> adopted of stylized speech, which became permanent and the genesis of
> today's Brit accent, all of which, of course happened subsequent to
> the major migration to "the colonies." Consequently, the accent heard
> in New England is allegedly closer to the British way of speaking that
> existed in the 17th Century than is heard there now.
>
> Oz was settled in the late 18th Century and therefore took with them
> the later version of the British accent.
>
> If the preceding is true, it's probably more accurate to say that the
> Brits *gained* an accent, rather than we lost one.

Fascinating. Truly. I had no idea and assumed the Brittish "always"
spoke with a Brittish accent.

> I also seem to remember that the accents found deep in the Appalachins
> are supposedly very similar to the Scots/Irish English (which
> presumably was unaffected by the "fashion change") due to the
> proponderence of Scots/Irish that settled the area.
>
> The problem with all of that is how did we get such regionalized
> accents in the States and how did so much of Canada get nearly the
> same accent as that of our upper midwest (MN, WI, MI)? And how is it
> that nearly all of Canada has roughly the same accent and we in the
> States have at least four very distinct ones? (New England, Southern,
> Upper Midwest, General American)
>
> And of course, North Carolina Southern is very different from Georgia
> Southern which is quite different from Coonass Louisiana Southern.

Yes, when I moved to northern Virginia at about 5 years old, from
California, I developed a deeply "Southern" accent, moreso than states
deeper south. I then moved to south central Pennsylvania for my Jr. High
years onward and lost much of the drawl. I tried my hand with "you'uns"
from the Penns folks, but to this day will still use "y'all" as I think
the expression just fits conversation so much better.

> Ah, what a subject!

Truly.

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:

> And I love the accents of the women from the
> Northwest USA ... used to hear them often in the days when MSFT did a lot of
> their own support.

Gee, I live up and out here and I can't think of what you might find
attractive. Akshully I can't really hear an accent at all - and I've
only lived here 8 years, come up from Arizona.

Now those Southern belles... or the Scottish lasses...

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Charlie Self) wrote:

> Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,

OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...

At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.
What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
transition take place and over how long a period of time?

Please, please, will someone answer my queries - the rattling is tooo
damn loud and is driving me crazy! Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY!

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

In article <[email protected]>,
Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote:

> They didn't. Seventeenth century English travelled to New England and
> stayed their, spelling, pronunciation and all. Then England changed.

Wow. I had nary a clue. ;) I always figured it was the Colonists who
changed, either through assimilation of people speaking differing
languages or just out of spite.

> From the '60s onwards, RP (received pronunciation) has gradually
> disappeared from the UK. Brian Perkins and Alastair Cooke being the
> last radio bastions of it - Brian Sewell is a caricature of it.
> Regional accents have also toned down, with increased communications
> between the regions. About the only widespread and locally distinctive
> accents left in England are Geordie and Brummie - everything else is
> diluted beyond recognition.
>
> Now kids spend so much time watching cheap imported TV that they speak
> a vile concoction of Sydney valley-girl that's unintelligible to
> anyone over 30.

TV (and, I'm seeing much more, print) grammar and vocabulary is
HORRIBLE! Is it just me or have people started to misuse when to use "a"
and "an"? "A earthquake." or "An earthquake." "A historical house." or
"An historical house." (Maybe it's just the result of relying on
spellcheckers instead of observant journalists and editors.)

> >Australia still has theirs,
>
> Australia speaks a variant of Dickensian Convict, with that weird
> rising inflection at the end of every sentence, you know ?

He,he,he. A serious question, can you pick out any Brittish accent
embeded in the Aussie accent? Could their accent have originated from a
certain class of Brittish society that was more prone to being convicted
of illicit behavior?

--
Owen Lowe and his Fly-by-Night Copper Company
Offering a shim for the Porter-Cable 557 type 2 fence design.
<http://www.flybynightcoppercompany.com>
<http://www.easystreet.com/~onlnlowe/index.html>

"Bob Schmall" wrote in message

> I've also learned that many of today's English pronounciations are derived
> from Queen Elizabeth's speech impediment. For example Worcester is
> pronounced "Wooster."

Cholmondeley ... aka "chumbly". But then there's Refugio, Texas ... which
locals pronounce "refurrio", so the English aren't the only ones.

It has also been said that today's Southern accent is a lazy British
accent.
> Has anyone heard this?

Maybe not so farfetched as it sounds. SWMBO has a cousin from rural Ark who
prounounces "tea" as "tay".

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 1/02/04

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 02:31:56 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> scribbled:

> At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
>
>Like everyone already said, we didn't. We more or less still have it.
>
>If you listen to the BBC as much as I do, you'll appreciate how reasonable
>it seems to believe this too. It just seems to me like they've gone out of
>their way to speak in a stilted, affectatious manner. Probably something
>similar to the Spanish lithp on C/Z.

The Castilian lithp is for real. Most people in Spain, whether they
are native Castilian speakers or not pronounce it that way. It's not
an affectation. I know, I was married to a Spanish woman (Catalan
actually) and knew many Spaniards in Montreal and have been to Spain a
couple of times. That's how I learned the language. I have the lithp
and an Italian accent (in Spanish), which definitely improves the
language. Anyway, Spanish, like French, is just mispronounced Italian
with bad grammar.

>"Vital" and "vitamin" come from the same root, the Latin /vita/. (WEEtah or
>VEEtah, depending on your preferred butchery of Latin.) It makes sense to
>me that whatever vowel shifts made to those two words would be the same.
>In the US, we say "VIE-tal" and "VIE-ta-min." The Latin long I "EE" has
>changed to the the English long I "eye," and it's the same in both, as
>expected. So why, then, do the Brits say "VIE-tal" and "VIT-a-min?" Why
>the short I in "vitamin?"

I would suspect that vital was part of English before the great vowel
shift, while vitamin is a recent coinage. I think the English
generally tend to respect the original pronunciation [why does it drop
the "o"?] in foreign words, witness "tomahto" vs "tomayto".

>I only play a linguist on TV, and I can't begin to get into the guts of this
>kind of thing. I'm just saying my instinct tells me the explanation that
>our dialect is more similar to Elizabethan English than the dialect spoken
>in the UK today just feels right.

There is a great book on English, titled something like "The Story of
English". It is based on a BBC series. I have been looking for it all
day, but I can't find it. I couldn't find it on the web either. My
friend Doug probably still has it. (OBWW - Doug is a journeyman
cabinetmaker, Yukon Interprovincial Journeyman Cabinetmaker
Certificate #001) It answers most of the questions that have been
posed on this thread.

Luigi
Replace "no" with "yk" for real email address

I asked an English major shortly prior to his graduation to describe
WHERE to put the apostrophe and he started by saying "Some writers
prefer" and that's when I cut him off! Glad to read that it isn't
merely Engineers that are picky. This was in US Dept of Navy facility
(after reading Sylvans' post).

On 28 Dec 2003 06:58:17 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
wrote:

>>Can't be. Robin didn't use an apostrophe -- as in "reply's". More
>>likely too much testing of the beer glasses. :-)
>
>Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
>bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Silvan wrote:

> I used to work in a copy center too, and I had to type peoples term paper's.
> (Note, for those who are getting ready to hit the reply button with a
> smartass gotcha comment, I said "peoples term paper's" on purpose. It's
> called irony people.)

As Dave Barry wrote in a column a couple of years back, in common usage
an apostrophe is now a warning that "an S is coming". I have actually
seen them in the _middle_ of words where there is just no possible way a
rational person could think they belonged there. It's very sad.

What makes me even more sad is seeing signs, posters and advertisements
with these gross grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors. In nearly
every case, these items were reviewed by at least one person other than
the writer, if not many more than one. If I owned a sign shop, I would
refuse to make signs for people with these obvious errors; my policy
would be that I'd fix them for free (if possible), and if they don't
like it they can go elsewhere!

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 02:53:44 -0500, LP <[email protected]> wrote:


Ahhh, my favorite subject.

>My personal pet peeve in this area is the inappropriate use of the
>word "router", as in "I'm going to router a groove in it." "Router"
>is a noun and describes the tool, while "rout" is the verb and
>describes the action performed with the (noun) tool.

Don't be disrespecting the homeys, bro. As a former government
employee, verbification is one of the things that drives me nuts. It
starts there and then makes it to the streets.

But among my top annoyances is the misuse of your/you're, as well as
their/there/they're.

Add in opps for oops.

OWW: Not to mention joiner for jointer and planner for planer.

>Inattention to detail seems to be the order of the day, and greatly
>detracts from our ability to communicate.

People who can't spell (or type) worth a damn like to argue it doesn't
matter. As a professional communicator, I maintain that if one's ideas
aren't clearly and accurately presented, one won't be taken seriously,
irrespective of the efficacy of those ideas.

Thank you.


LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 21:01:36 GMT, "Michael Daly"
<[email protected]> wrote:


>I'd love to find a book or other source that examines in detail the spread
>and development of the various English accents 'round the globe. Someone
>once suggested Bryson, but his book doesn't cover that.

I don't know if he has one on this subject, but Steven Pinker is a
brilliant linguist (Harvard, I believe) whose stuff is worth reading.
I caught him on Book Notes on C-SPAN one time talking about irregular
verbs and was mesmerized.

LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Charlie Self wrote:

> Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,
> bothers to teach the difference between plurals and possessives any more.

Yes. I'll never forget the day one of my English profs felt the need to
lecture us on "its" vs. "it's." I just couldn't believe a university
English class could *need* such a lecture. That was all part of my rude
awakening about the state of education in America.

I used to work in a copy center too, and I had to type peoples term paper's.
(Note, for those who are getting ready to hit the reply button with a
smartass gotcha comment, I said "peoples term paper's" on purpose. It's
called irony people.)

No damn wonder no one has paid any heed to my college degree. It's about
the same as my grandfather's high school diploma.

(I hafta admit on it's vs. its, I sometimes write the wrong thing in spite
of knowing better. You're vs. your too. I edit myself, and I certainly
know the difference, but it's still easy to do. I let one through
occasionally.)

On this topic though, I still can't decide how to properly handle things
like "He got straight A's" or similar. Gut says apostrophe for
pluralization is *always* wrong, but "He got straight As" just doesn't work
either. Best avoided as much as possible.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/