Let's Be Culture Shocked--Differences in Dialects, Culture, & History

Quentin Nokov · May 10, 2017

This is a spin-off of the Accents in Dialog thread going on. I'm American, from WNY, and in our corner we have our own regional slang / pronunciations. Because we're close to the border, we're influenced by Canada but we also have a large Irish community. Many Irish came here to work on the Erie Canal and when the canal was finished they settled in Buffalo and other surrounding cities.

Around here, I often here people saying the phrase 'touched in the head' as 'titched in the head'. She's titched! I looked it up once and apparently the titched pronunciation tends to lend itself to the Irish community. Another thing I hear is instead of 'would you guys like sponge candy?' You becomes Yous (plural) 'Would yous guys like sponge candy?' Wikipedia Yous. Again it seems to fall back on an Ulster dialect. Wikipedia Irish English Dialect

We have a slight Canadian accent according to people from Ohio and Indiana. We're very nasally. Also a Korean my brother worked with said that when we pronounce a short a, it often has a ya sound to it.

For example: cat sounds like kyat; can like kyan or man like myan! Especially if 'man' is being used as an interjection. Awe, myan! The 'ya' sound is also shortened. I can't always hear the ya sound, but others have said it's definitely there.

Instead of soda, we say pop or soda-pop, but usually just pop. We are responsible for Buffalo Wings. Sponge Candy is awesome, try it. In WNY I'd say about 85% of the population gets their coffee at Tim Hortons. America may run on Dunkins, but Western New York doesn't. Also we have way too many pizzerias. Beef on Weck is very popular at reunions, graduation parties, and other celebrations like 4th of July.

Buffalo is known as the City of Good Neighbors. We're rich in history and blizzards, and blizzards that make history. Appleton was renamed Appleton because at one point in time it exported the most apples in the entire country. (Or so I was told) I was also told that it was under Tsar Nicholas, Russians came to WNY to learn the art of apple-growing and took that knowledge back to their homeland. The Love Canal happened in our corner of the USA. We have a very large Catholic community.

The people have a very laid back demeanor. We're very generous and welcoming. We're somewhat notorious for rubbernecking.

Buffalo Memes because they're funny.

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So is there anything specific to your region that makes you stand out? Is there anything unique to your pronunciation that differs from other states / countries? What's the overwhelming personality of your region? Are there any funny memes about your country / state / city? What food or candy is popular or distinct to your location? And if someone was to write about your country, state, or city what would you want to see in their novel? What mistakes in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, or character behavior do a lot of people make when writing about your place of dwelling?

Let's be culture shocked!

amergina · May 10, 2017

Pittsburgh has it's own dialect, n'at. If yinz are nebby, there's some info about it here:

http://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/index.html

I do employ bits of it in my books set in Pittsburgh, though one prominent feature of the dialect, I can't because it looks like a grammatical error. I mean, it is a grammatical error to everyone else, so it's not good to use it in a book.

It's the dropping of the "to be". So something like:

"Where do you want to be dropped off?"

becomes:

"Where do you want dropped off?"

Anyone from Pittsburgh wouldn't be thrown by either sentences, because they'd read the same. In fact, they probably wouldn't even notice the difference. Anyone not from Pittsburgh would trip over the second one hard. So, that's one bit that doesn't make it into the books.

But I named a coffee shop in my books Grounds N'at, and my Pittsburgh-born characters do refer to jerks and assholes as jagoffs.

neandermagnon · May 10, 2017

Quentin Nokov said:
Another thing I hear is instead of 'would you guys like sponge candy?' You becomes Yous (plural) 'Would yous guys like sponge candy?' Wikipedia Yous. Again it seems to fall back on an Ulster dialect. Wikipedia Irish English Dialect

I associate "yous" as a plural "you" with Scouse - but then Liverpool's not far from Northern Ireland* so maybe it got into Scouse from Northern Ireland.

*or at least Liverpool's docklands would've regularly had ships going between it and NI, because they're separated by the Irish Sea

jjdebenedictis · May 10, 2017

amergina said:
"Where do you want dropped off?"

Anyone from Pittsburgh wouldn't be thrown by either sentences, because they'd read the same. In fact, they probably wouldn't even notice the difference. Anyone not from Pittsburgh would trip over the second one hard. So, that's one bit that doesn't make it into the books.

Actually, no one would trip over the second one where I'm from either (western Canada). It would be seen as casual English, but not exactly wrong.

Quentin Nokov said:
We have a slight Canadian accent according to people from Ohio and Indiana. We're very nasally. Also a Korean my brother worked with said that when we pronounce a short a, it often has a ya sound to it.

For example: cat sounds like kyat; can like kyan or man like myan! Especially if 'man' is being used as an interjection. Awe, myan! The 'ya' sound is also shortened. I can't always hear the ya sound, but others have said it's definitely there.

I found this article on Atlas Obscura about the Canadian accent incredibly interesting, because it helped me understand things about my own accent I couldn't put into words before, namely: No, we don't say "aboot".

Anglophone Canadians have a nasally "eeehh" vowel sound that no one else in North America (who speaks English) uses. That's why we sound so weird. An American pronounces "about" as "ah-bah-ooh-t" while a Canadian pronounces it as "ah-beh-ooh-t".

I don't think we really say kyan or kyat either. I think it's just more evidence of the "Canadian raising" that's mentioned in the article. We "raise" our vowel sounds into something a bit closer to that weird "eeehh" sound (for example, I pronounce the word "code" almost as "cood").

Because Americans literally never use that vowel sound themselves, they struggle to articulate what the difference in our accents is. They know we sound odd, but they can't isolate that one weird noise we're making because their mouths never have to make it.

Maze Runner · May 10, 2017

amergina said:
Pittsburgh has it's own dialect, n'at. If yinz are nebby, there's some info about it here:

http://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/index.html

I grew up in Sliberty, but when I left I was livin' up on Mahnt Wooshington. I had a great view of dahntahn. I could look at it for ahrs.

Now I live in LA? And I notice that a lot of statements end in question marks?

Harlequin · May 10, 2017

The UK is great for dialectal variation.

Roxxsmom · May 10, 2017

I grew up in southern CA, then moved to Northern CA. I've spent most of my adult life out west, but I spent a couple of years in Northern NY (which is different in many ways from western NY or "upstate" NY). I don't remember anything really distinctive about the dialect there, though some of the pronunciations in the OP were present in locals. There was a pretty strong Irish Catholic presence there too.

I always thought of the California way of speaking as pretty bland and generic, as most of the folks on television and in movies also spoke that way. But my time on writing sites has taught me that many of the ways people say things out here are on writer's site hate lists. Not so much as per accent, but in terms of usage of words or sentence structure (and darn, there's a particular example, but I can't think of it at the moment).

West coast English is rhotic (pronounces all "rs"), but we do tend to pronounce some ts as "ds," or to have a bit of an alveolar tap or glottal stop. "Butter" and "kitten" are pronounced "budder" and "ki' en," respectively. We pronounce the words "cot" and "caught" the same as well. "Apricot" with a short "a" sound (ap) is more common than "apricot" with a long a (ape), though some do say it the second way. In the town where I grew up, people would sneer if you didn't pronounce the accented "e" at the end of "Porsche," but that was a rich kid affectation.

Evidently, there's a Northern California vowel shift taking place, though I can't say I've noticed it.

Most out here pronounce the "a" in apricot as a short a, not a long one (as in ape). I always thought that was a regional thing, but I guess there's some debate over the correct pronunciation. Merriam Webster says it's the way we pronounce it out here, but the Cambridge Dictionary says it's supposed to be "ape-ricot" in both UK and US English. There seems to be considerable disagreement on the web.

I am curious about where the line gets drawn for correct but varied regional pronunciations and usage and for usage and pronunciation that is always incorrect (as per those helpful lists of words that are commonly pronounced wrong by "uneducated" people).

neandermagnon · May 10, 2017

Harlequin said:
The UK is great for dialectal variation.

innit

AW Admin · May 10, 2017

Where do you want [to be] dropped off ?

and the odd constructions in some dialects with "need" are related linguistically, and tend to both occur if either occurs.

The floor needs [to be] swept.

Both are older usages, and used to be much more common. I can't remember now which pre-Modern U.S. dialects they're associated with, but it's a known pattern.

Roxxsmom · May 10, 2017

AW Admin said:
Where do you want [to be] dropped off ?

and the odd constructions in some dialects with "need" are related linguistically, and tend to both occur if either occurs.

The floor needs [to be] swept.

Both are older usages, and used to be much more common. I can't remember now which pre-Modern U.S. dialects they're associated with, but it's a known pattern.

This reminds me of a thread a long while back about whether it was a correct regional variation to say, "The floor wants/needs swept" in Western PA (I think that's where the person was from). If I remember correctly, someone in the thread said this usage came from Scottish, but I don't know if that's correct.

Harlequin · May 10, 2017

It's said in the UK still for sure

Silva · May 10, 2017

I used to drop the "to be" (the floor needs swept) and never thought anything of it until the most extreme grammar nazi I've ever met took it upon themselves to inform me that such usage was "incorrect" and continued to harass me about it until I changed my usage just to avoid their constant "reminders." :rant:

I'm from the PNW and learned it from my mom, whose family has been in Oregon ever since it was possible to be in Oregon.

AW Admin · May 10, 2017

Silva said:
I used to drop the "to be" (the floor needs swept) and never thought anything of it until the most extreme grammar nazi I've ever met took it upon themselves to inform me that such usage was "incorrect" and continued to harass me about it until I changed my usage just to avoid their constant "reminders." I'm from the PNW and learned it from my mom, whose family has been in Oregon ever since it was possible to be in Oregon.

It's derived directly from Old English, and has been used continuously. It't not formal English, but it's not grammatically wrong, either.

Dysnomia · May 10, 2017

Sian can be a pretty name.

But in Singapore, it's an expression for saying "I'm sick of life" or "bored of this shit". Some examples of how "sian" is used:

Life so sian sia

Sian eh, got to do this shit

("Sia" is also another expression. But more of a way to end sentences or clauses like "eh" than to mean something)

The name and the expression are pronounced a little differently, though. I believe the name's more like see-ann? And the expression's more of a one-word syllable with a downward hard intonation.

Personally, I'm getting more used to Sian as a name now, but when I first saw it my eyes went O_O, hehe.

Silva · May 10, 2017

AW Admin said:
It's derived directly from Old English, and has been used continuously. It't not formal English, but it's not grammatically wrong, either.

Cool. Cool cool cool.

*goes to find Most Extreme Grammar Nazi with middle fingers prepared*

Maze Runner · May 10, 2017

Pittsburghese

gum band = rubber band
hoagie = submarine or hero sandwich (same in Philly)
jumbo = bologna
Kennywood's open = your zipper or fly is open
redd up (pronounced rid up) = clean up

got these on wiki - had to refresh my memory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Pennsylvania_English

Also, is "chipped ham" a familiar phrase to anyone outside of Western PA?

lianna williamson · May 10, 2017

I've lived in New England all my life.

All New England:
using "wicked" as an adverb.

Coastal Massachusetts:
"tonic" means soda/pop.

Western Massachusetts:
liquor stores referred to as "packies"
sentences begin with "f***in'" and end in "hey". "F***in' goin' to Eric's party, hey?"

New Hampshire/Vermont border:
"Ayuh" used as an affirmative, as in Maine
"Hard sayin' not knowin'" = rural New England philosophical response to any essentially unanswerable question

Quentin Nokov · May 10, 2017

amergina said:
Pittsburgh has it's own dialect, n'at. If yinz are nebby, there's some info about it here:

What's n'at and nebby D= Lol.

amergina said:
http://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/index.html

Awesome link, thank you!

amergina said:
I do employ bits of it in my books set in Pittsburgh, though one prominent feature of the dialect, I can't because it looks like a grammatical error. I mean, it is a grammatical error to everyone else, so it's not good to use it in a book.

It's the dropping of the "to be". So something like:

"Where do you want to be dropped off?"

becomes:

"Where do you want dropped off?"

Anyone from Pittsburgh wouldn't be thrown by either sentences, because they'd read the same. In fact, they probably wouldn't even notice the difference. Anyone not from Pittsburgh would trip over the second one hard. So, that's one bit that doesn't make it into the books.

I've never seen the dropping of 'to be', so it was a bit odd for me at first, but then when I started experimenting out loud with sentences; I could see myself doing that if I was constantly exposed to it.

amergina said:
But I named a coffee shop in my books Grounds N'at, and my Pittsburgh-born characters do refer to jerks and assholes as jagoffs.

A jagoff? Is that a combination of words or its own? I like it!

neandermagnon said:
I associate "yous" as a plural "you" with Scouse - but then Liverpool's not far from Northern Ireland* so maybe it got into Scouse from Northern Ireland.

*or at least Liverpool's docklands would've regularly had ships going between it and NI, because they're separated by the Irish Sea

According to the 1st Wikipedia article I linked, Youse is actually found in quite a few places, including Scouse.

Usage notes

Yous(e) as a plural is found mainly in (Northern) England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, northern Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario in Canada and parts of the northeastern United States (especially areas like Boston where there was historically Irish immigration) and in Mexican-American communities in the southwest. It also occurs in Scouse.

Yous(e) as a singular is found in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and scattered throughout working class Italian-American communities in the Rust Belt.

jjdebenedictis said:
I found this article on Atlas Obscura about the Canadian accent incredibly interesting, because it helped me understand things about my own accent I couldn't put into words before, namely: No, we don't say "aboot". Anglophone Canadians have a nasally "eeehh" vowel sound that no one else in North America (who speaks English) uses. That's why we sound so weird. An American pronounces "about" as "ah-bah-ooh-t" while a Canadian pronounces it as "ah-beh-ooh-t".

Ah-beh-oo-t! That seems hard to say for some reason. I saved the article to my computer, though, it is really interesting.

jjdebenedictis said:
I don't think we really say kyan or kyat either. I think it's just more evidence of the "Canadian raising" that's mentioned in the article. We "raise" our vowel sounds into something a bit closer to that weird "eeehh" sound (for example, I pronounce the word "code" almost as "cood").

Because Americans literally never use that vowel sound themselves, they struggle to articulate what the difference in our accents is. They know we sound odd, but they can't isolate that one weird noise we're making because their mouths never have to make it.

I wasn't sure if the kyat pronunciation was Canadian or just the way people in NY say it. And yes, I can't quit articulate some of the Canadian sounds. We pick up a lot of Canadian stations. PBS is Buffalo/Toronto so I've been cultured enough to watch Red Green. The Canadian accent is definitely different; I think my sister is envious of your accent. She gets all happy with herself when someone asks if she's Canadian or if they tell her she sounded Canadian. Lol.

Maze Runner said:
I grew up in Sliberty, but when I left I was livin' up on Mahnt Wooshington. I had a great view of dahntahn. I could look at it for ahrs.

Now I live in LA? And I notice that a lot of statements end in question marks?

LOL! I can sometimes say hour as ahrs. One of my Dad's bosses was somewhere from West Virgina and would ask for his employees to worsh the windows. My Dad said, that was fine; he could worsh the windows and varcuum the floor, too. And now, all because he was picking on his boss, I find myself saying varcuum a lot!

Roxxsmom said:
West coast English is rhotic (pronounces all "rs"), but we do tend to pronounce some ts as "ds," or to have a bit of an alveolar tap or glottal stop. "Butter" and "kitten" are pronounced "budder" and "ki' en," respectively. We pronounce the words "cot" and "caught" the same as well. "Apricot" with a short "a" sound (ap) is more common than "apricot" with a long a (ape), though some do say it the second way. In the town where I grew up, people would sneer if you didn't pronounce the accented "e" at the end of "Porsche," but that was a rich kid affectation.

Yup, butter is budder here with more of a 'd' sound and winter is more like win'er, slurred so as to lose the 't' sound.

Roxxsmom said:
Evidently, there's a Northern California vowel shift taking place, though I can't say I've noticed it.

Most out here pronounce the "a" in apricot as a short a, not a long one (as in ape). I always thought that was a regional thing, but I guess there's some debate over the correct pronunciation. Merriam Webster says it's the way we pronounce it out here, but the Cambridge Dictionary says it's supposed to be "ape-ricot" in both UK and US English. There seems to be considerable disagreement on the web.

I am curious about where the line gets drawn for correct but varied regional pronunciations and usage and for usage and pronunciation that is always incorrect (as per those helpful lists of words that are commonly pronounced wrong by "uneducated" people).

I say apricot with a short a. I don't think I've heard anyone say it like ape-ricot.

Quentin Nokov · May 10, 2017

THIS SITE is super informative about American English dialects. I stumbled across it a couple months ago, thought I'd share it. It's incredibly well researched.

ETA: And just a fun tid-bit about culture; my cousin is doing missionary work out in Ulan Ude, Siberia Russia. She was back in the States on home service, and she and her sister went to Wal-Mart. Ahead of them was a lady holding the door open for my cousin. My cousin kept moving at a slowish pace and then remembered, "Oh! That's right, we do that here!" and then hurried up to the door so as to not keep the lady waiting. In Russia, at least where she is, the people don't hold doors open for each other (especially for strangers).

Albedo · May 10, 2017

There are funny little localisms for medical conditions in a lot of places I've worked. One place in regional NSW, everyone who felt nauseous said they were 'squamish'. No, not squeamish, but like the town in British Columbia.

Albedo · May 10, 2017

I mean, it's possible they were all descendants of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh nation, but I doubt that's what they meant.

Tazlima · May 10, 2017

lianna williamson said:
Coastal Massachusetts:
"tonic" means soda/pop.

Here in New Orleans they call that a "cold drink," with the emphasis on "cold." It's hard to describe in print, but the inflection isn't quite the same as if someone were simply offering you a drink that is cold. Rather, it's said with the same inflection you might use to say "pork rind," or "tom cat."

neandermagnon · May 11, 2017

One expression that I find interesting... "and then ..... turned round and said" (or turned around and said). I didn't even notice this expression at all until Judge Rinder (British answer to Judge Judy, except he also does ballroom dancing* :greenie

- posh accented barrister with sharp, witty sense of humour does small claims court on TV) made a joke about it, i.e. about how many people in his court are turning around, after the people in the court kept using that expression.

*not in the same TV programme though

I associate it with SE England and think it's probably cockney in origin and has got into other accents from there. It definitely sounds working class and I've never heard anyone posh say it. It's not a literal turning around, but a metaphorical one. The expression's used when someone disagrees with you or says something that somehow thwarts what you're trying to do. For example:

See them custard creams, they're well dodgy. Says best before June 2018 but they're all soggy so I went to Asda, right, and I said to the lady, what you doin' sellin' me dodgy custard creams? And then she turned round and said they're not even from Asda. They're Tesco ones. An' I said I don't even bloody shop in Tesco's so how can they be from Tesco's? So there's me, bloody stuck with a pack of soggy custard creams. And then the man in Tesco's turned round and said I can't have a refund without a bleeding receipt.

WriterDude · May 12, 2017

I'm from Yorkshire, Barnsley born and Barnsley, strong in t'arm, thick in t'head. As the saying goes.

We also say 'touched in t'head', but I've Irish heritage so it may have come from there. Pop too. Pop, coloured fizzy sugary water delivered in reusable glass bottles, on a big red truck, by the reet honrable William Hague's dad, I shit you not.

When it comes to regional variants, the different words for Snickets and ginnels used about the country never ceases to amaze. Long narrow passageways, with a firm boundary, a fence, wall or high hedge, connecting two separate streets.

Sunflowerrei · May 12, 2017

Well, let's see. I'm from New York City, where we tend to pepper our sentences with glorious curse words. Also, we mumble. I think we're supposed to sound nasally and/or guttural. Any word ending in "-ing" is very likely to end in "-in'," but if you grew up speaking Yiddish, German, or Polish, you might come down hard on the "g" in an "-ing" word.

Truth is, we're very diverse, so our accents are a jumble. I cringe at the exaggerated New York accents on TV and in films, though. I also hear them on local news and pray that I don't sound like that. If anything, New York grammar is pretty wonky. I find myself transposing parts of sentences and having weird syntax.

Particularly New York City-ish words:
stoop--from Dutch. Basically, the front steps to your apartment building.
Metrocard--our transit pass.
"The city"--Manhattan
"Man'att'n"--The way we say "Manhattan." We don't say the "h" and the "t"s don't really get said either.
bodega--from Spanish, but for us, bodega is the corner deli. Any corner deli.

Let's Be Culture Shocked--Differences in Dialects, Culture, & History

King of the Kitties

Pittsburgh Strong

Nolite timere, consilium callidum habeo!

is watching you via her avatar

Eat books, not brains!

Beastly Fido

Nolite timere, consilium callidum habeo!

Beastly Fido

Eat books, not brains!

saucy

Drowning in the depthless sea

saucy

King of the Kitties

King of the Kitties

Alex

Alex

Nolite timere, consilium callidum habeo!

Writer?