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English vs English


deanb
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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah having the day off is a definite change. (It'd mean jack this year though as Sunday is normally a day off). We have at most a two minute silence (both on the 11th and on the Sunday, which as noted is the same day this year around). You guys have anything similar to the poppy, or do you have the poppies too?

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I'm sure some of those are Scottish, e.g. bairn and aye. Others are definitely used elsewhere in the country (e.g. I'd bet more people would associate gaffer for boss with the East End rather than Yorkshire) but I suppose that doesn't mean they didn't originate in Yorkshire though I'd argue if they haven't remained peculiar to Yorkshire it's no longer Yorkshire dialect as using it doesn't mark someone out as being from Yorkshire.

 

Some are just dumb like 'ead for head. Surely that is just accent not dialect?

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FWIW, my take is... Friends and I have used "aye," though it's unusual, it's not at all hard to understand. Most people would probably understand "best y' do." Said like that, people here might assume it was carried in from Newfoundland. I've heard "faffing" once or twice in my life, but wouldn't count on someone getting it. Flagging is definitely mainstream - I've read it even in American news, but referring more to campaigns or stocks rather than people. Flummoxed should work with anyone with an above average vocabulary. I used to hear "friggin'" on playgrounds as a kid - it's not really taboo here, but it's a bit impolite.

 

Gaffer means boss? To me, a gaffer is the guy on a TV or movie set who coordinates the wiring and electrical setup. Some say that someone "takes no guff" from someone else, but it's more a saying unto itself. Dunno who could define "guff" on its own. Surely "lass" can't be a regional thing to that extent? (But, it would sound foreign here even though anyone would understand it.) I could swear "manky" was part of some clique's slang like 15-20 years ago...

 

We use "pop" here. There are actually maps of the US based on which areas say "pop" and which say "soda." There's quite the split it seems... I bet parts of Canada also use "soda..." Pudgy is an adjective that anyone would know. Reeks is also universal. Vexed is more like annoyed here, and maybe slightly advanced vocab. Yonder would work, but has a very literary feel.

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@TFG: Not necessarily. I've always understood accent to be more how the word is said than what is said.

 

@Fuchikoma: As far as I'm aware the film gaffer comes from the boss gaffer. The gaffer being the boss of the lighting/technical dept, best boy n all that being under him. I'd take a stab at "yonder" sounding literary due to maybe reading it in books written by English authors?

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Yonder would work, but has a very literary feel.

 

That's funny, because to me "yonder" is a quintessentially hick thing to say, the opposite of literary or educated.

 

*Edit* - And in my experience "friggin" is a playground version of "fucking". It's only a little worse than gosh/darn/heck, and comparable to "freaking".

Edited by TheMightyEthan
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@Dean: Most likely. It's not that unusual for more British English or antiquated words to fall into that category.

 

@Ethan: Good point - I think it all depends on how one uses it.

And also, that's exactly how friggin' was used in my experience. I don't really hear it anymore as an adult.

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Accent means how words are pronounced. That is all.

 

Dialect means a variety of a language which may have different grammar, accent, lexicon. More like a sub-language of a language.

 

So you can have an Irish, or Northern, or whatever, 'accent', and that's just how you pronounce stuff. But if you're thinking or analysing the Irish/ Northern 'dialect' you look at a lot more than just the accent. How they use words or morphemes (that is, suffixes/ prefixes etc.) differently, different phraseology,different syntactic constructs etc. For example, most varieties of English have about 3-5 uses of the article 'the'- the Irish English variety/ dialext has seventeen. That's a dialectical difference. And they still pronounce the 'the' weird.

 

I didn't know about the 'bap' thing until very recently. Not used in Scotland. Really confusing, this woman was all like 'I'm gonna be all up in there, showing off me baps' and I was all like, 'on a night out? and you're a baker?!'

Edited by kenshi_ryden
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@TFG: Not necessarily. I've always understood accent to be more how the word is said than what is said.

 

I know, and 'ead if just the yorkshire pronunciation of head, it's not a different word nor a different meaning so it is just the local accent nothing to do with yorkshire dialect.

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http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/press-releases/uk-word-of-the-year-2012/

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/press-releases/us-word-of-the-year-2012/

 

So over here our "word of the year" is Omnishambles. Over in America it's GIF (Which is kinda cheating cos that's three words). Also it's now apparently a verb "to gif, gifed, gifing". I think whoever came up with it as a verb misread when someone told them they were gifted. I've a feeling Tumblr is to blame.

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The word isn't "GIF", which you're right is an acronym, it's "gif" which is not (though obviously it comes from the acronym). I think that's an important distinction.

 

It's still a stupid word though. And I have never, ever heard anyone use it as a verb.

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