In light of recent discussions on such expressions as "The lawn needs mowed," I'd like to direct y'all's attention to the following site:
http://www.slanguage.com/index2.htmlIt features cities/regions which are home* to many of our participants [refusing-to-use-that-French-sounding-ALYEUR-thingie e] and I was wondering, as one who studied southeastern US dialectology a million years ago in college, what y'all think of the way your local lingo is described/transliterated?
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*sadly, none in Zild, but they're asking for contributions!
so far, no Minneapolis... uff da!
Quite a few flaws as well as the usual stereotypes that are very specifically "south side only" pronunciations:
"Air = pronunciation of the letter after Q." (I don't get this one at all)
"DA- "anything"" - I heard this in Boston more than the north side of Chi-Town.
"Slingin' Sammy" - Never! It's "Slammin Sammy"
I've never heard Claude and Maude pronounced with the "O" sound in GOT - anywhere!
Never the YIKE - it's called the "IKE"
Paulina St is Pull-eye-na
Cheek-ah-ga, sassages, bab, da Hocks, how air ya - None of these are accurate or even a slight stretch. (Are you with me BeingCJ?)
Ditka is pronounced DIKA (I'm suprised they missed that one)
Chicagoland is only used by advertizers and the suburban people when asked "where do you live" and they know nobody knows where's Elmwood Park.
"Stereotypes are made for a reason" I say often to get a response from people, but in this case "I got nothin'".
"I've never heard Claude and Maude pronounced with the "O" sound in GOT - anywhere"
In New England I never heard it any other way. I know that in Latin Claudius was pronounced the same as Clodius.
And meant lame.
And my dictionary give the same "o" sound for "god" as for "Claude"
"Air = pronunciation of the letter after Q." (I don't get this one at all)
[singing quitly to himself] ABCDEFG . . .
If it is talkin'bout the letter "R" (thanks JazzO), I have never heard that, so I still "don't get it" or "I got nothin" (used interchangeably here on the north side) or for you out-of-towners "It means nothing to me" or "A comment at this point is belabouring the obvious"(a kind of "Why are we still talking about this?") -or- "you have so much more experience, therefore I have nothing worthwhile to say"(said completely facetiously)!
Take your pick!
Boston:
I pahk my cah by the Haavahd Apahtmens.
NH & Maine :
Eyuh (ay-yuh) different meanings depending on intonation and circumstance.
wow
Boston:
I pahk my cah by the Haavahd Apahtmens.In Zild, that would be:
I pahk my cah by the Haavid Apahtments.
Chicago was a wonderful place for GI's on weekends in WWII. I didn't learn much about regional speech differences on my weekends there. But, to be mischievous, I read a book a few years ago in which a serious scholar said the name was derived from an Indian word meaning "place of skunks".
For the very young GI stood for "Government Issue" as though we were just pieces of goods.
Boston:
I pahk my cah by the Haavahd Apahtmens.
In Zild, that would be:
I pahk my cah by the Haavid Apahtments
Close enough for gum'mint work!
wow
Dear Max: By God, I think you've got it. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!Great! The "rain as diphthong" YART!
The slanguage entries for Detroit didn't note any special pronunciations. The slang terms listed all seem to be legit, although they misspelled "yooper."
Funny, I never even thought about people outside the area not knowing what the "Big Three" were when it pertains to automobile manufacturing in the US. My favorite: Windsor ballet.
Dear Sparteye:
"My favorite: Windsor ballet"
Explication please?
"Windsor ballet" refers to the strip clubs located in Windsor, the Canadian city across the river from Detroit. The Windsor ballet gets a lot of Detroiter business.
Support the arts. Or something...
talkin'bout the letter "R"
Yeah, as an old chuhcaaguhwun I say it's ARR as are are, or and our. They're all pronounced the same. The white stuff that comes out of cows is melk. They didn't mention that one.
I did like that alternating image up in the upper right hand corner that said da BULLS (with a picture of a bear) and da BEARS (with a picture of a bull).
I think 708ers for suburbanites is a little out of date. The number of area codes (whence 708er) has grown quite a bit lately and 708 doesn't begin to describe the suburbs.
Other than that I really couldn't say much about common usage these days; it's been too long since I've spent more than just a couple of days there. I'd go with musick on the Chicagoland comment. Folks from Chicago per se didn't much consider the suburbs as Chicago, at least when I lived there. One time at camp I had shown up at the dining hall for serving duty and was asked where I was from. I interpreted it as asking which dorm I was representing and replied, "Cube 4." They were expecting something like Downers Grove or Hinsdale where I was assuming everybody was from Chicago.
"place of skunks"
Or, as I learned it "skunk cabbage".
However you pronounce it the Chicago folks make *great* pizza.
wow
wow offers examples:
Boston: I pahk my cah by the Haavahd Apahtmens.
NH & Maine : Eyuh (ay-yuh) different meanings depending on intonation and circumstance. Right, but the question is, what do you think of the examples offered in the link?
Dear AnnaStrophic: I enjoyed the link, but I got more chuckles than clues to differences in regional speech. After years of conscious effort to pronounce "r" I do pretty well, but when I tried to learn some Irish Gaelic, I could not manage to reproduce the really trilled or rolled whatever the word was for it "r". Man spricht wie der Schnabel gewachsen ist, and sometimes it can be very difficult to change. I remember in the Philippines a doctor who worked in the same lab with me telling me how hard it was for him to say "ship." He simply could not do it even after a lot of inexpert coaching, it still sounded like "sheep". But even though I make a conscious effort to pronounce "r" people ask me if I am from Boston after just a few words, but most of them cannot say what it is that they notice. I have no talent whatsoever for identifying regional accents.
Dear Sparteye: Just to tease you, what was your capacity in those "strip clubs" in Windsor? Patron or entertainer?
I confess to deliberately misunderstanding.
Faldage self-references
chuhcaaguhwun I wonder if that has been tempered by upstate New Yorkish? Or reinforced?
Checagou was a spelling I remember from an exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society, a small museum of history, natural and otherwise, of Chicago on the edge of Lincoln Park just off of North Ave.
Dear Faldage: Is it only in New England that Chicago is pronounced "Shicago"?
No Vermont slang page, but I checked out the Boston slang (having grown up there). The actual slang terms (Spa, Packy, The T) were right on, but the pronunciations were a bit exaggerated -- more like the Boston accent you hear in movies than what you really hear day to day. Foddy Doll Us ($40.00) is perfect, however.
Bill asks, "Is it only in New England that Chicago is pronounced 'Shicago'?"
It's not pronounced "Tshicago" anywhere, other than, perhaps, in some Hispanic communities, as far as I know, if that's what you're asking.
Dear Faldage, I wanted to know if the "Ch" is like chicken, or like French Charles.
Charles and chicken are pronounced the same here... (belabouring the obvious emoticon
)
...however, shi-cah-go, as Frank Sinatra sings, is the way 'round my hood! (the one I'm in when I'm on the 'net)
But there was an old song my pappy used to like to sing:
Chickie in the car, that car won't go. Chick car* go.
With the Chick pronounced like Chicken.
*No, I have never heard it pronounced with an R by a native.
Now that I think about it too long, I can't swear that I haven't heard Tschicago. Or Tsch'caw go with precious little vowel sound between the Tsch and the c.
Where Tsch represents the initial consonant cluster in Chicken.
Baltimore speech as noted in Slanguage
A good bit right on, but the following not correct:
It's not "bulled egg", it's more like "bowled"
I have never heard the following: "avalanche" thru "AssX", "looney yum fool" thru "dug", "elfin", "balled ham" (as noted above that would be "bowled ham", "share".
"Hollandtown" (Highlandtown) is actually pronounced "Hollintown", just as Highland Avenue is "Hollin" Avenue. This makes for a lot of difficulties between cab drivers and tourists who want to see H.L. Mencken's house on Hollins Street (which is a totally different street on the opposite side of the city.)
"Droodle" is correct for Druid Hill (Park or Avenue), but not "pork" for "park".
Then there are lots of omissions, among my favorites:
"The payment is front of the house is made of seement."
"The far men rode the far engine to the far house."
and a favorite of housewives, "I'm so tarred from arnen' the laundry all day."