rigorousintuition.ca

Where I grew up (Southeastern Pennsylvania), we didn't vacuum as a verb, we "ran the sweeper".

After seven years, my gal (from South Jersey) still looks at me like I asked her if I could borrow one of her kidneys every time I say it.

Eastern Penn is its own world, linguistically.

pert neer

fair to midlin

I spent some time in England, and the propah term would be hoover. They use that like we use kleenex instead of tissue. There were so many bizarre differences and I was fascinated with them. A few of my favorites:

Aluminium instead of aluminum. Pronounced al-you-MIN-ee-um.

Pavement is the sidewalk, if I remember correctly.

Lorry. Now that's a great one -- it's a truck, like a semi or a tractor trailer, although I think it can be a smaller one too.

Public school and private school mean the opposite of what they mean here. I'll never understand that one.

Zed is how you pronounce the letter Z.

In electricity, it's an earth, not a ground. Pronounced uth.

Speaking of which: They don't pronounce the letter R at the end of a syllable, but they'll add it when it's not even there. Car is pronounced cah. But Tampa is pronounced Tampar. America gets the extra r too.

At least the Irish get the R's right!

And there are the various regional accents, some of my favorite being the Scots, who for the wee life of me, I'll never understand.

Oh, it gets fun....

Now, I'm in North Carolina and yes, there's plenty here to talk about.... but, it'll have to wait for another day.

Where I grew up (southeastern Pennsylvania) if you were going to sweep up, of course you'd (well, my Mom really) run the sweeper. And, although it was a Hoover, It would have been "dead common" to call it that.

When I was in southern Wisconsin for early high school, they called the drinking fountain the "bubbler".

Then in Missouri there was this whole thing about "pop" and "soda" and "soda pop" depending on where you lived in the state.

Just thought of another one. I moved around a lot, as my dad was in the Army. So I was always having to adapt to this kind of shit.

When I moved to Oklahoma, I ended up being the yearbook photographer. One time, the advisor sent me to the county fair, to get photos of kids from our high school with animals there.

I was sent there with one of the editors, a girl who I didn't care for too much.

Anyway, the advisor told me to get some photos of "some of the goat ropers". I assumed there were guys who bred and raised goats, who also roped them. Either that or there was some kind of rodeo event where they roped goats.

We were shooting this super nice guy with his goats, and I asked if he did any goat roping because I was supposed to get some photos of some goat-roping. He just kind of looked at me and didn't answer, and the girl with me just about died. Turns out "goat ropers" is a derogatory term for country people there. I had no idea.

In the South I've noticed people say "I feel like, that ___" which sounds weird to me.

I would either say (for example) "I feel like it's hard to find a job" or "I feel that it's hard to find a job" but they would use both, and say "I feel like, that it's hard to find a job".

In Pittsburgh, where I learned English,
We turn the spicket on and off instead of the faucet,
We "read up" a living room (pronounced "red") to tidy it
and we use neat contractions like I'm'll and y'ins. As in I'm'll teach y'ins a lesson.

My folks* came from Philadelphia, North Carolina and Maryland, depending upon which side, and before that the Carribean and before that, North and West Africa.

When I lived in Hawaii as a child it was forbidden to speak pidgin in my household, but that didn't stop us from using it in school. Pidgin, you need a book to explain. No lie, brah.

Which brings me back to my obsession this Friday Night: There's a blues song about Choom Gangs and roof hits that hasn't been written yet, and I intend to fix that.
-----
*who raised me and taught me language

A dingos got my baby.

Here in the Pacific NW, we call a half-case of beer a 'half rack'...Many folks I have met who grew up elsewhere find this highly amusing...they just call it a '12-pack' or a 'half case'. I think that we need to come up with something to call those 18 packs...'Eighteeners'?

My father used to call the couch (sofa?) a 'daveno', which is short for 'davenport'...he grew up here, but I've never heard anyone else use that term.

Edit--aha!

From Wikipedia:

Davenport is the name a series of sofas made by the now-defunct Massachusetts furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport Company. Due to the popularity of the furniture at the time, the name "Davenport" has become a genericized trademark. It is often used as a synonym for "sofa", especially in the Midwestern United States and in northern New York state. Specifically, it is used in the Adirondack Region and the Tug Hill Plateau, especially amongst those born there before World War II. The so-called Davenports of the northern New York region are often locally made sofa versions of the locally manufactured convertible Adirondack chair.

Among the younger generations, the word has come to mean a more formal sofa. In the Tug Hill and Adirondack regions in New York, a Davenport may refer especially to a couch which, like a modern futon lounge, converts on pivoting hinges from a sofa to a bed.

In other areas of North America, the word Davenport is used for a futon style sofa with storage under the seat area.

A similar word, Daveno, also refers to a sofa or couch. The term was more widely used in the 50s and 60s, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

So my dad wasn't a complete weirdo after all!

I noticed on another thread that Smiley use the term "no worries".

"No worries" was referred to as "the national motto" of Australia in 1978, and in their 2006 work, Diving the World, Beth and Shaun Tierney call "no worries, mate" the national motto of the country. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Annette Kobak calls the expression a "ritual incantation" which has "particular charm". The phrase "no waris" in the Papua New Guinea language Tok Pisin is derived from the Australian English term.

...

According to The Sunday Mail a 2004 newspaper report notes that "no worries" has begun to be used in American English. Writing in a 2004 article for The Advertiser, Samela Harris comments: "The Americans have no idea of the etymology of 'no worries'. So, while they may cheerily adopt our 'no worries' mantra, 'no worries' will never catch on as an attitude."

I hope it does, to an extent cos its a great way to let aggro go.

Anyway like all language the term "no worries" has evolved over the years.

No fucken worries led to the spoonerism no wucken furries which was far too long and complicated so it was shortened to

No wukkas.