It's official----I'm a Language Nazi

[lorax]

How does my being tall and blonde and looking like a Southern Ecuadorean (incidentally, of Scots extraction) relate back to the Nazis?!?!?!? Nobody here has ever offered to kill me because I'm not short and dark....

[gumbo2176]

Nah, not lost, just lurking to see how others feel about one of my pet peeves.

MG, you hit the nail on the head when it comes to my attention span during such conversations. I can't tell you how many times I've said to my stepson to simply slow down, collect your thoughts, then state them clearly without all the "like and you knows" sprinkled in. He can do it when he really tries, but you can actually see the effort in his demeanor. If he gets excited about something, all bets are off.

I also tried to make him think of this from a potential employers point of view. I guess it's a good thing I'm not a Personnel Manager and interviewing some of today's youth. I think my age is showing here.

As for now, his job consists of sitting behind a keyboard and doing whatever it takes to build websites and fix ones that are not to the customers liking. There is a certain amount of direct communication with the customers, but a lot of that is handled by sales people and the owners, then gets filtered down to him.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Oops! Sorry Lorax, I didn't mean to offend anyone.

I'm a Language Nazi, and the Nazi breading of caucasian, blue eyed, blondes. Sorry it came across wrong. Poor taste.

Eric

[lorax]

Why did you assume I have blue eyes?

[DoubleDogFarm]

I don't believe I called anyone blue eyed. I was saying the Nazis were raising caucasian, blue eyed, blondes.

I'm 3/4 Norwegian, and eveyone assume, I'm blue eyed. Grey or gray.

I'm gowing back to gardening. This Hoo Ha and Foo is just that.

Eric

[Troppofoodgardener]

Not being from the US, Canada or any part of the Americas, I can say that I find the Canuck way of saying "doncha know"... HILARIOUS!!!
It makes me like... totally laugh!

New Zealanders also have something very similar with the Canadian way of saying "eh" at the end of their sentences. I'm sure we Aussies have some quirky ways of speaking, accents not included!

[lorax]

What's always gotten me about Aussies is the use of little idiomatic phrases. I went to school with a Roo who constantly said things like "no worries" where a Canuck would say "doncha know" - and we found each other hilarious for probably the same reason.

[cynthia_h]

I don't know whether it's a San Francisco Bay Area speech habit, but "no worries" is rapidly displacing "no problem" in the local lexicon. More Strine, no doubt.

As for "like," "you know," and their ilk, I've been known to treat them as actual content. This startles the speaker to no end. In fact, many seem not to be aware of these phrases in their own speech until said phrases are responded to.

Example (this one is made up, but is taken from life):

Speaker: "You, uh, you know, about, like..."

Me: Yes! (note: it's important that this be said in an enthusiastic, participatory tone of voice.)

Speaker: [?] "I mean, like, you know..."

Me: I do; quite a bit. (note: again enthusiastic. Match, if possible, the mood of the speaker so that you are participating with and not against him/her.)

Speaker: [?] What?

And there we have the beginning of an actual discussion about ... language. Imagine that!

This has happened to me two or three times at the large dog park near here, my best source of interaction with people not previously known to me. No doubt I sound strange to them when we start, but by the "What?" point of the interchange, they're definitely paying attention to what they are saying, since *I* clearly am.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[Troppofoodgardener]

I don't know whether it's a San Francisco Bay Area speech habit, but "no worries" is rapidly displacing "no problem" in the local lexicon. More Strine, no doubt.

I like that! Had no idea the impact we Aussies had on the San Fran Bay Area.

Now if only we can get everyone to call each other "mate"...

[gumbo2176]

MG, as I've mentioned before, I belong to a motorcycle group and it is a worldwide organization with membership upwards of 33k+. I've had folks from Canada "Eh", Australia and New Zealand "Good on ya mate", and Mexico City stay at my house at varying times.

The guy from Canada truly didn't realize he was saying "Eh" so much, but when my stepdaughter (age 12 back then) asked him what that meant because he was saying it so much, he looked dumbfounded.

We all have our colloquialisms and that is part of what makes our geographic language unique. New Orleans has so many it boggles the mind of many out of towners.

[csvd87]

When we go off island, we call it going to America.

Eric, we of Vancouver Island refer to it as "Going to the Main Land" or "Going to the Big City" as we typically go to Vancouver.

I found myself always saying I was Canadian, or from Canada when I was traveling Europe. They do seem to treat you nicer once they know you are not from the USA. Although some of them can't distinguish accents at all, one guy from Italy thought my sister and I were Australian. I will admit I had a tough time picking out English from Australian at first, but figured it out rather quick as the Australian accent (mostly Melbourne and Brisbane area) was, well, for lack of a better phrase, more "down under". Then we met two girls from Sidney, who were some of the worst, snottiest people we met on our trip, but had more of an English accent, but that might have been because they had their chins so high in the air when they spoke. I'm not saying the English are snotty, just that these two girls had snotty accents.

Well that's all I have to say.

Have a good day eh!

Curtis


One more thing, most of us do not say "aboot"... that's the Newfie accent

[applestar]

csvd87, I'm assuming you had your tongue firmly planted in your cheek as you wrote the above post as it seems to me that some of what was said could be inferred as insulting, depending on the reader's mood and point of view.

Either that or *I*m having that kind of a skewed perception morning....

[csvd87]

First off, excuse my grammar, I'm responding on my cell phone, my crappy cell phone. None of which I said was meant to be insulting. If it was, or you feel that it is, I apologize. I'm only speaking from experiences and shouldn't generalize regions or people. Once again I'm sorry, it was early. Later I may get into why these two girls were terrible, but for now I will just zip my lip.

[Troppofoodgardener]

He was from Australia and we understood every word he said.

HaHaHHHAAAA!!

Yes.. we Aussies don't so much speak English, than a varied form of "Strine"!! (bad mashing of the word "Australian") Feel free to wave our flag too, although I'm sure the next visitors from Downunder would probably feel a bit confused when met with your Central Texan accents!

As for csvd87's comment on those Sydney girls... There are snotty people everywhere. Australia is no exception, even though the general perception of us (I think) is the laidback "she'll be right, mate" type B personality. No offence taken anyway!