tornadoes?

Joy wrote:

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in Adelaide
that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly the same as
my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

We got it from the British! (They do it, too.) The interesting thing is
that early in the 20th century in Boston, dropping r's was considered
to sound upper class, but after WWII, it reversed and the dropped r's
began to be regarded as sounding working class. I don't know the
history, so I can't tell you why. When I was growing up, I wouldn't
exactly say I considered it to sound working class, since plenty of
middle class people drop r's in New England. But it didn't have any cache,
that's for sure. That particular way Bostonians do it really grates on
me. Not something I miss!

Joyce

--
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he
grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.

Jack Campin wrote:

I once heard a well-known
Scottish folk singer trying to do Eric Bogle's song "The Band Played
Waltzing Matilda", which has an Australian narrator. She couldn't do
an Australian accent so she substituted something like a Southern
American accent with a hint of southwest Scotland. It was atrocious.

Just be grateful that you've never had to listen to me try to do a folk
song in Scottish dialect. Considering my Scottish forebears and how
strong the Scots influence is in New England language generally, you'd
think there might have been a vestige of Scots pronunciation available
to me -- but sadly, no.
--

Wayne M.

wrote:

That particular way Bostonians do it really grates on
me.

I agree. We drop 'r's much more agreeably down here in Maine. And when
we drop them, we're very careful not to break them because we need them
on the ends of words like 'saw' and 'idea'.
--

Wayne M.

Joy wrote:
wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

I'll be interested in the response from Brits or Aussies too, because my
reaction is the same as yours. Some Canadian accents also seem to me to
have a distinctive British flavor.
To me, Canadian accents sound very much like American (excluding Quebec,
of course) - well, except for that "ote and abote" thing.

Joyce

When my family and I traveled a bit into British Columbia many years ago, I
heard accents that sounded English, Scottish and Irish. However, we have a
Canadian in my Toastmasters club, and the only way you can tell he's
Canadian is that "ote and abote" thing.

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in Adelaide
that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly the same as
my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

Joy


I grew up hearing grandparents speak "broken English" so accents don't
bother me. Locally,. we have a lot of Latin America workers. The thing
I have noticed about the English is they usually don't pronounce "r" or
"h". I had a French SIL wbho always said "ee" instead of "he". My
paternal grandfather always said "double V" instead of
W". My kitty says "meow" instead of "hello" LOL. MLB

On 4/18/2011 9:40 AM, Wayne Mitchell wrote:
wrote:

At least, UK they speak something like what we do, but more
regal.

Much as I love to listen to some of the British dialects, I can't think
which of them could be described as "regal." Maybe "The Queen's
English," insofar as it exists anymore, could be so called as a matter
of definition. I would call Billy Connolly's Irish-Glaswegian dialect
heavenly, rather than regal. And the largely unintelligible dialects I
encounter when listening to football broadcasters and analysts I would
characterize as quite the opposite of heavenly -- and certainly not
regal. :-)

By the way, is there a single-word name that the British use to
characterize that particular Glaswegian dialect of Connolly's --
something cognate to "Cockney" or "Geordie"? How about the Lancastrian
dialect with it's intriguing vestigial "the" -- does it have a name? I'd
like to find a map of the UK showing the common-named dialects, as
opposed to showing just the regional names such as "West Country" or
"East Midlands."

Ok, guilty confession time. I am in lurve with the accents in the music
of Celtic Thunder and Celtic Women. Especially George, the oldest
singer who is from Scotland. The way he says "yew" for you thrills me.
OK, sort of a music crush, I want to mother the lot of them.

Pam S

wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in
Adelaide
that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly the same
as
my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

We got it from the British! (They do it, too.) The interesting thing is
that early in the 20th century in Boston, dropping r's was considered
to sound upper class, but after WWII, it reversed and the dropped r's
began to be regarded as sounding working class. I don't know the
history, so I can't tell you why. When I was growing up, I wouldn't
exactly say I considered it to sound working class, since plenty of
middle class people drop r's in New England. But it didn't have any cache,
that's for sure. That particular way Bostonians do it really grates on
me. Not something I miss!

Joyce

--
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he
grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.

Dropped r's don't bother me nearly as much as the added ones. My minister
is from the Boston area. When she says "idear", for instance, it really
bugs me. I think that's partly because I don't understand adding
nonexistent letters, while I can sort of understand dropping them. I
sometimes drop a g in a word like nothing, for instance, but why on earth
would anyone add a letter where it doesn't exist? ;-)

Aussies, please don't take offense, because I know at least some of you do
that.

Joy

On 4/18/2011 12:12 PM, Judith Latham wrote:
In ,
Wayne wrote:
wrote:

At least, UK they speak something like what we do, but more
regal.

Much as I love to listen to some of the British dialects, I can't think
which of them could be described as "regal." Maybe "The Queen's
English," insofar as it exists anymore, could be so called as a matter
of definition. I would call Billy Connolly's Irish-Glaswegian dialect
heavenly, rather than regal. And the largely unintelligible dialects I
encounter when listening to football broadcasters and analysts I would
characterize as quite the opposite of heavenly -- and certainly not
regal. :-)

By the way, is there a single-word name that the British use to
characterize that particular Glaswegian dialect of Connolly's --
something cognate to "Cockney" or "Geordie"? How about the Lancastrian
dialect with it's intriguing vestigial "the" -- does it have a name? I'd
like to find a map of the UK showing the common-named dialects, as
opposed to showing just the regional names such as "West Country" or
"East Midlands."


I live in an area of England called "The Black Country" this in in the
west Midlands. It is near Birmingham but does not include Birmingham. If
you Google the Town of Dudley, West Mids. you will be in the right area
although in includes the towns of Tipton, Oldbury, West Bromwich, Cradley,
Cradley Heath, Lye, Stourbridge, Brierley Hill Old Hill, Netherton among a
few others. Now, the difficulty with the dialects here is that it's
different if you only travel a couple of miles within the Black Country.
Each town has it's own dialect. when I married I moved from near Olbury to
Lye about 7 miles and I had difficulty understanding the locals. Although
there are so many dialects here, I don't think someone from outside the
area would notice, they would just find us all difficult to understand.
However, people here are upset if anyone says they have a Birmingham
(Brummy) accent as that is very different and much harder than any Black
Country one.

I hope I haven't bored you too much and made you wish you hadn't asked.

Judith

PS. No my accent is not regal.


Awesome. I'd love to hear the members of this group talk. I know we
all sound odd to each other. Yowie has a field day with my
Warshintonian/Southern accent.

Pam S

"MLB" wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:
wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

I'll be interested in the response from Brits or Aussies too, because
my
reaction is the same as yours. Some Canadian accents also seem to me
to
have a distinctive British flavor.
To me, Canadian accents sound very much like American (excluding Quebec,
of course) - well, except for that "ote and abote" thing.

Joyce

When my family and I traveled a bit into British Columbia many years ago,
I heard accents that sounded English, Scottish and Irish. However, we
have a Canadian in my Toastmasters club, and the only way you can tell
he's Canadian is that "ote and abote" thing.

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in
Adelaide that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly
the same as my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

Joy


I grew up hearing grandparents speak "broken English" so accents don't
bother me. Locally,. we have a lot of Latin America workers. The thing I
have noticed about the English is they usually don't pronounce "r" or "h".
I had a French SIL wbho always said "ee" instead of "he". My paternal
grandfather always said "double V" instead of
W". My kitty says "meow" instead of "hello" LOL. MLB

LOL! When I was younger, I was very good at understanding people with
accents. In college I had a number of friends from Arab countries, so
naturally, they had Arab accents. Some of them had learned their English in
England, so to me, they had double accents. I got to the point where I had
no trouble understanding them. Now, however, my hearing is deteriorating.
I can normally understand just fine in a one-on-one conversation unless the
person has an accent, and then I have a problem. Talking on the phone to
someone with an accent can be a major problem.

Joy

On 4/19/2011 2:53 PM, Joy wrote:
wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

Incidentally, the last time I was in Australia, I told my friend in
Adelaide
that she had a Boston accent. She said "pahk the cah" exactly the same
as
my minister, who is from Boston, does. ;-)

We got it from the British! (They do it, too.) The interesting thing is
that early in the 20th century in Boston, dropping r's was considered
to sound upper class, but after WWII, it reversed and the dropped r's
began to be regarded as sounding working class. I don't know the
history, so I can't tell you why. When I was growing up, I wouldn't
exactly say I considered it to sound working class, since plenty of
middle class people drop r's in New England. But it didn't have any cache,
that's for sure. That particular way Bostonians do it really grates on
me. Not something I miss!

Joyce

--
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he
grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.

Dropped r's don't bother me nearly as much as the added ones. My minister
is from the Boston area. When she says "idear", for instance, it really
bugs me. I think that's partly because I don't understand adding
nonexistent letters, while I can sort of understand dropping them. I
sometimes drop a g in a word like nothing, for instance, but why on earth
would anyone add a letter where it doesn't exist? ;-)


Everyone needs a hobby.

;-D Pam S

Jack Campin wrote:

I do. I also can't always tell Australian from British, depending on
the British accent - some sound a lot closer to Australian than others.
And then you have South African, which really throws me off.

I can't always tell South African accents from Dutch ones.

I've known several white SOuth Africans, and their accent always sounded
sort of British to me, not at all Dutch or Germanic. It sounded like they
were native English speakers.

Here's a question I've been wanting to ask lately - which do you
(Yowie) think sounds closer to the way you speak, British (any accent)
or American (any accent)? Ditto to any Brit who wants to answer - do
you think Australian accents sound more similar than American, or
vice versa?

As I've lived in Australia and New Zealand I'm not typical, but to me
they sound just as different from Scots or English as American does,
and I'd never mix up US and Australian accents.

I didn't expect that anyone from England would mix those two up (it would
be interesting to find out that some do, though), I was just curious whether
either of them sounded more similar to British English (BrE), and if so,
which.

As for Scots - to me, a Scottish accent sounds very different from British,
Australian, New Zealand and South African (which, while they don't all sound
exactly the same, I still have trouble distinguishing them. Some are more
obviously one or the other, but sometimes it's not clear to me). I'd never
confuse a Scottish accent with any of those, though. On the other hand, and
you'll probably laugh at me for this, I do have trouble discerning Scots
from Irish accents. I guess I need to hear more of each.

Not all UK natives see it the same way. I once heard a well-known
Scottish folk singer trying to do Eric Bogle's song "The Band Played
Waltzing Matilda", which has an Australian narrator. She couldn't do
an Australian accent so she substituted something like a Southern
American accent with a hint of southwest Scotland. It was atrocious.

I can imagine! I don't see why it's necessary for singers to create the
illusion that they are the narrator. It's nice when you can, but many
singers are effective when it's completely obvious they're singing from
someone else's point of view. Like the John Prine song that starts off
with, "I am an old woman..."

I love that Eric Bogle song, btw. In fact, I remember a conversation on
this newsgroup several years ago, when there was a thread about what I
*thought* was that song. I got all excited and posted the lyrics, which
was followed by dead silence. I felt like I'd farted loudly in a board
meeting. Turned out they were talking about the original Waltzing Matilda,
but jeez. It was an honest mistake.

Joyce

--
It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same.
-- Unknown