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#93177 01/24/03 09:00 AM
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I’ve noticed recently that people here are saying ‘I am bored of that’ rather than ‘bored with’ or ‘bored by’, possibly there is some confusion with 'tired of'. Presumably this is another example of the growth of what we call Estuary English. I’m wondering if this particular usage has appeared outside the UK as yet? In fact, is Estuary English spreading abroad at all or remaining just a home grown phenomenon?


#93178 01/24/03 10:26 AM
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#93179 01/24/03 12:01 PM
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Estuary English is a combination of Cockney, London (not the same as cockney)mixed with a bit of Aussie from the soaps and some Americanisms. It is a genuine and growing phenomenon and I call it that because its growth has been phenomenal. Its growth centre was probably southern Essex, on the north side of the Thames estuary, and jokes about Essex girls have been around for some time now. If you Google Essex girls I’m sure you’ll find some; they tend to be in the same vein as jokes about blondes. There are a number of websites that talk about Estuary English, but here’s one to start you off. Try it, its interesting.

http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/chimp/101/phonetics/estuary.htm

Prominent speakers of Estuary English include footballers, their wives and those low-level media personality lads and laddettes who are well known for being well known and whom we love to see flashing their bits and pieces in the tabloids. These exhibitionists of both sexes have become role models, mainly because they make so much money with so little apparent effort. That’s fine as far as the exhibitionism and the money goes, but gives a problem in the area of communication skills.



#93180 01/24/03 01:44 PM
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Wow, this is fascinating, dxb!   Er, don't estuaries contain effluent, or used to? (I was wondering if that had something to do with the appellation!) I saw one thing that would definitely set my teeth on edge: the change of /st/ and /str/ to the sound of /ʃ/ in she. SSHtation? SSHudder!
The disagreements sound like the everlasting ones between the old-fogey-sticklers and the young up-and-comers who say so-what-if-it-ain't-like-it's-always-been-we-like-it-this-way.
I thought it was particularly interesting that some young people like it because it "blurs social lines".


#93181 01/24/03 10:01 PM
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Cross threading to the innate superiority of Macs: On my Windows machine at work I saw that symbol that Jackie put in there as some silly swirly line; on this superior Mac I see it as it should be, a simple square.


#93182 01/25/03 02:31 AM
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Fascinating article. I've noticed a fair amount of this while listening to certain UK music. Damon Albarn of Blur, a product of the UK public school system, has been lambasted in the UK press for his purposeful down-speaking (did I just coin a word?). There's currently a little Mancunian hipster named Mike Skinner whose debut album is chock full of "Mockney" pronunciation. Seems as if the trend has gone way beyond the Thames basin. Another interesting trend is the borrowing of Scots slang by hip Londoners after the rise in popularity of Irvine Welsh's novels.

Not much different from suburban wannabees from Iowa using urban street slang, innit? or should I say a'ight?


#93183 01/25/03 03:57 AM
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In the article, that square was an elongated S. I tried the [pre] thing--it didn't work, as you saw.


#93184 01/25/03 12:02 PM
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for the sake of making this even more boring, are we talking about ~(tilde) , in place of the ? which I see?



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#93185 01/25/03 01:19 PM
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She had the IPA symbol for the sh sound. The square was the Mac's miserable attempt at displaying it. I saw it properly on my PC at work. I copied and pasted into a .txt file and did a hex dump of the file. It showed up as a three byte Unicode something or other. Anyone interested I'll look it up when I get back to work. It was 00 83 20 or something like that.

My "superior Mac" comment was irony


#93186 01/25/03 01:38 PM
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My "superior Mac" comment was irony


oh, I got that... as much as it hurt


OS 10.2.3 showed me a ?



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