vibes Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 I always enjoy hearing that peculiar placeholder 'jigga' (sp?) that the Chinese use so liberally. "zhege" would be the correct spelling. It means "this" or "this one." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Skid Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 But youse guys, you guys (as we said in Wisconsin), yuhz, yooce, alla yez, YOU-all, y'all, "you lot" (as Bev may say?) -- people may call it "wrong" or "quaint" but it actually fills a grammatical need that "standard" English somehow lost (while "transitioning" from old Norse/Saxon/French roots?) -- the need for the second person plural! Lots of other languages have it, but we don't! So every little region comes up with its way of making itself clear! Very interesting, maren! I never really thought about it much -- I never woulda thunk that "youse guys" is related to grammatical deficiencies of the language. Maybe one of youse guys can explain to me why people in Maine say "AYUH" -- that's always been a mystery to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 I've defenestrated people for saying red licorice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 "Transitioning"----(transition as a verb) is an example much like "impact" as a verb. You know what I mean; broadcasters, reporters, politicians, etc. all started using "impact" where 10 or 12 years earlier they would have used "affect." "The new bill will impact small businesses in blah, blah..." I know I should have gotten used to it by now, but it still bugs me sometimes. What's so wrong, I wonder, with using "affect"? Apart from the grammatical problem (which I fully realize becomes moot when enough people use it anyway) there's another consideration----using "impact" makes the process sound sudden and violent, even when it clearly isn't. "There was some concern about how it would impact soybean prices..." Sounds to me like those soybean prices are going to get smashed to smithereens. I fully realize that the language evolves and changes all the time, and it's going to keep on whether we like it or not, and mostly it's fascinating as well as inevitable, but some things will always set my teeth on edge. "Nu-cue-ler" is one such. Another is "Worsh-ington" DC. It's Washinton, god damn it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 Another is "Worsh-ington" DC. It's Washinton, god damn it!!! "Worse-ington" I could buy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son-of-a-Weizen Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 "zhege" would be the correct spelling. It means "this" or "this one." Thanks for that, Vibes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Fitzgerald Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 There was a review last Sunday in the NYT of a book that sounded interesting: === DOING OUR OWN THING The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care. By John McWhorter. 276 pp. New York: Gotham Books. $26 ''I HAVE something to say to the world,'' W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in a composition class at Harvard in 1890, ''and I have taken English 12 in order to say it well.'' The Berkeley linguist John McWhorter is right to flag this sentence as ''truly astounding'' to modern ears. Formal English of the sort taught in writing classes is no longer valued, he says in ''Doing Our Own Thing''; it is derided as boring and inauthentic. At some point in the 1960's, Americans lost faith in their written language, and settled for reproducing a less demanding (but more ''real'') oral variant on the page and in public. The result, McWhorter asserts, has been a steep and steady decline in the quality of political oratory, poetry, musical theater, preaching and -- ultimately -- thinking. entire review on NYT site (11/16/03 Book Review "Talk Is Cheap") === As an educator (music, officially, but also English and more if you ask my students), I do my damndest to instruct students on the proper use of language - the main problem is that they do not read enough quality literature. (The final two words in that last sentence are optional.) They are bombarded with poor writing and speaking. The *wrong* way is constantly reinforced - so much that the *right* way sounds "wrong." Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted November 23, 2003 Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 My personal favorite is "for all intensive purposes". A close second is "the point is mute". The one that drives me up the wall is "If you think that, you've got another thing coming!" Everyone knows that it's "If you thing that..." Oops; lets try that again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Wheel Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 (edited) The ironic thing is that as I understand it, linguists don't do much hand-wringing over the "improper" use of language. My girlfriend is a linguistics major and she's mentioned to me that certain forms that are considered technically "incorrect" by teachers are actually considered OK by linguists, because that's what's entered popular usage. Language inexorably evolves, and that's what linguists are really interested in--the ways in which it mutates over time. I suspect, but am by no means sure, that John McWhorter is in the minority. That said, I still get a kick out of listening to Strong Bad crack on people for their spelling and grammar. (when it's all over, click the beefy arm and then the CD for more songs.) Edited November 24, 2003 by Big Wheel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BERIGAN Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 (edited) Man, there sure are a lot of anal-retentive guys and gals on this board...ya'll should be more like me! (right Moose?) pronunciations that don't bother me a bit include Missioura, Illinoiz, Cincinnata, doing the Worsh(Which my Dad says no matter how many times I make fun of him) A friend of mine said to me once she just had her Cadillac converter replaced, I thought she was being funny, she wasn't. A catch phrase I am glad every traffic reporter(Iin the South East at least ) uses, is that they are working an accident. Edited November 24, 2003 by BERIGAN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 That reminds me, the one thing that absolutely drove me up the friggin' wall the whole time I lived in Georgia was hearing people talk about buying a "Cocola". I mean, what the hell? Cocacola was invented in Georgia, and they can't read the name on the bottle?? Stupid, ignorant backwoods jackoff....erk! My heart!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gigolo Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 Isn't there a difference between evolution & just change? 'My bad' if there isn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 Isn't there a difference between evolution & just change? 'My bad' if there isn't. There is a difference. "Evolution" is a process by which something is slowly and continiously refined and improved. The dictionary definition backs this up: "A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form." While evolution certainly implies change, the two words are not synonomous. Change is simply "to cause to be different" or "to give a completely different form or appearance to; transform." In other words, something can change without evolving, but nothing can evolve without changing. That said, it does bring in to question whether the english language is truly "evolving." It seems to me that english is becoming simplier, rather than increasingly complex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 But youse guys, you guys (as we said in Wisconsin), yuhz, yooce, alla yez, YOU-all, y'all, "you lot" (as Bev may say?) -- people may call it "wrong" or "quaint" but it actually fills a grammatical need that "standard" English somehow lost (while "transitioning" from old Norse/Saxon/French roots?) -- the need for the second person plural! Lots of other languages have it, but we don't! You actually have the plural form! It's the singular form you don't have, or at least don't use much anymore. 'Ye/you' always was the plural form, while 'thou/thee' was the singular form, which for some reason was abandoned. Perhaps it's time to revive it? What dost thou think about that idea? Or maybe that should be: What thinkst thou about that idea? As I understand it, the "thou" form in english was abandoned sometime between the 17th and 18th centuries. Shakespeare was still using it in his plays, but I think it was already gone by 1776 (except for the Quakers, some of whom still use it to this day, albiet incorrectly). I don't think it was dropped (as with the "u" in words like "colour" and "favour") as a part of Webster's attempt to create an American form of english. I'm pretty sure the English had stopped using it too, by that point. I know that "thee/thine/thou" was more than the singular form of the second person. It was a familiar form of address. It's how a master would address his servant, or a parent address a child. When speaking to someone you didn't know (or someone from a higher social station), you'd use "ye" and "you." Even though I'm from New York, I use "y'all" as an informal plural (as in "See y'all tomorrow" when I'm leaving work). I use it because I find the lack of discrete second person singular and plural forms jarring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibes Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 That said, it does bring in to question whether the english language is truly "evolving." It seems to me that english is becoming simplier, rather than increasingly complex. This is the case for all languages I've come across. Compare Latin to its descendants, and you'll find that they're all much simpler than the mother language. The same can also be said in other parts of the world, such as China. Mandarin is the youngest of the Chinese dialects, and (generally speaking) has the fewest tones and fewest distinct sounds out of all of them too. Is simplification a form of improvement? Possibly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 Simplification *could* be a form of improvement. In the case of language, however, it seems to me that the simplification of language is a symptom of the gradual "dumbing down" of culture. Think of it this way, the simpler a language becomes, the more likely a greater number of people are to understand what is spoken or written. That's a good thing. But the simpler a language becomes, the more difficult to becomes to express complex thought. In order to really express ideas, one has to have access to a broad vocabulary. The simpler language becomes, the harder this will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibes Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 I completely agree, and have found the "dumbing down" of English very frustrating at times. In high school and college, I would frequently have fellow students ask me what I was talking about because they couldn't understand a few slightly more complex words here and there. It's appalling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 " Another is "Worsh-ington" DC. It's Washinton, god damn it!!! Yes and its 'Gloster', not 'Gl-ow!-chester'; 'War-ick', not 'War-wick'; Lem-ster, not 'Leo-min-ster'; and 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch', not 'That place in North Wales with the long name on the railway station sign'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BERIGAN Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 That reminds me, the one thing that absolutely drove me up the friggin' wall the whole time I lived in Georgia was hearing people talk about buying a "Cocola". I mean, what the hell? Cocacola was invented in Georgia, and they can't read the name on the bottle?? Stupid, ignorant backwoods jackoff....erk! My heart!!! of course in Missioura, soda is sodee.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BERIGAN Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 " Another is "Worsh-ington" DC. It's Washinton, god damn it!!! Yes and its 'Gloster', not 'Gl-ow!-chester'; 'War-ick', not 'War-wick'; Lem-ster, not 'Leo-min-ster'; and 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch', not 'That place in North Wales with the long name on the railway station sign'. http://llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro...iogogogoch.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' Care to run a pronounciation guide past us, Bev? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Skid Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 of course in Missioura, soda is sodee.... Soda? Never heard of it. ...oh, you mean *pop*.... now I understand. Us Michigan folks get real strange looks when we order a "pop" when we're too far away from home... I usually just stick with the universally understandable beverage: beer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Lark Ascending Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch' Care to run a pronounciation guide past us, Bev? Well I'm not Welsh so I'm pretty clueless. However, this might help. From http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F49860?thread=216759 Just split it up into easy mouthfulls: Llan - fair - pwll - gwyn - gyll - go - gery - chwyrn - drobwll - llanty - silio - gogogoch. If a Welsh "ll" seems beyond you, substitute "thl", with the "th" bit very light. The "ch" is more or less roughly similar to a German or Scottish "ch". And a "w" is like "oo" in "foot". That gives us: thlan - fire - poothl - gwin - githl - go - gerry - chwirrn - droboothl - thlanty - silly-oh - gogogoch. For extra effect, mix a bit of "ch" in the end-of-syllable "ll"'s. Now this gives you a pronunciation which will probably make a Welshman wince (if he's being polite), but he'll know what (or where) you mean. And it sounds convincing to non-welshophones. I did say 'might'! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danasgoodstuff Posted November 24, 2003 Report Share Posted November 24, 2003 (edited) I think there's all the difference in the world between using nonstandard language creatively to express yourself, including your regional or otherwise marginalized self, and simply failling to know what you're actually saying (eg, the question is mute). Great literature can be written in regional dialect (I've got a copy of Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle at home and I swear some day I'll read it) but nothing worthwhile can be said or written without some minimal degree of self-awareness. I think some problems arise when people parrot a particularly ironical use of language with quite getting it... Edited November 24, 2003 by danasgoodstuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregK Posted November 25, 2003 Report Share Posted November 25, 2003 I am getting very tired of seeing the plural form of compact discs as "CD's"!!! What, does the CD own something??? Leave out the apostrophe!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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