Words in the wrong context

[SteveDallas]

I grew up around fairly heavy southern US/Appalachian accents. I lost most of mine, partly through (I think) several years of speech therapy when I was little. I then lived in bigger (but still Southern) cities for six years, followed by Philadelphia for 18.

The guy I'm tutoring through the literacy council has a very thick South Philly accent.

At certain times, hilarity ensues from the combinations of accents.

[Word in a book: Past]
Him: Pass'
Me: It's Past.
Him: Oh, Pass'
Me: PasT
Him: Pass'.

etc.

[Shawnee123]

Heard from a co-worker from a manufacturing job a long time ago:

He (the technical writer) is goin' to change the floormat of our work procedures again. He's already done it twicet.

I thought of another one, and I am guilty of it but I'm also very aware and hear it in commercials, on TV shows...sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised to hear it correctly on things I might otherwise expect poor grammar, and chagrined to hear it incorrectly on productions I feel should know better:

Using that instead of who. For example "Those girls that ate the nachos are now very sick." To me, it should be "those girls WHO ate..."

I'm not even sure it's grammatically incorrect, but it drives me crazy.

[Juniper]

I think a good hefty percentage of Americans have some kind of accent that creeps in when they aren't paying attention. I do. I have KY/Appalachian roots, and I catch myself saying the darndest things. Like "winduh" instead of "window." Or "fill" instead of "feel."

Of course, the city of Louisville is properly pronounced "Louvul." I live near Centerville, so natch, I call it "Centervul." Yes, people give me strange looks.

One thing my hubby teases me about is calling the TV remote a "flipper." He said he'd never heard anybody else in the whole wide world say that, and I'm sure that's true. But it still makes perfect sense to me, as in, "flip" the channels, as you would have done on an old-fashioned TV with a dial. I think I got the term from my grandma.

Everyone knows that a "flipper" is really a spatula.

[Razzmatazz13]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

At what point does it end. If I can convince everyone that "slapbuttosky" is another word for "spaghetti" will that be OK?

It's an ever-evolving language , to be sure. I'm a language purist without the knowledge a language purist should have. In other words, I know just enough to be dangerous.

One of my favorite books when I was younger was Frindle. You ought to read it sometime, even though it's a kids book.

I also have a big pet peeve with "I could care less" and I lecture my boyfriend for phrases like this all the time.

[Shawnee123]

My family calls it the clicker, even though it doesn't click. I just call it the 'remote.'

In Ohio there is a town called Lancaster. However, as many of my co-students in college who hailed from there told me "It's not Lancaster, it's Lancaster." The second one is pronounced "lank-ster." They get really testy if you pronounce it incorrectly.

[HungLikeJesus]

What do you mean 'The remote'? There are several remotes - one for the surround system, one for the DVD player, one for the projector, one for the lights, one for the little girl who lives in the lane, etc.

[Sundae]

One of my annoying traits is picking up on other people's mis-pronounciations (genuine or unintentional) and using them for my own amusement. When I'm in a relationship or a close friendship it's not so bad - they become part of the verbal shorthand. I know I've passed on a couple to other people that way.

But when I'm by myself they are the archetypal private joke - even I find it wearing. I often repeat things under my breath, or just think them if I'm having a conversation.

For example thinking Ly-ces-ter to myself when talking about Leicester. Or Pickaly-Dickaly when talking about Piccadilly Circus, or the Piccadilly Line. Both of those come from a documentary about the staff at Islington station that I watched when I was still at school - one of the guards used to pretend to be helpful to tourists but really screw them over. I suppose he was a "character" but for Dad it confirmed his view of North Londoners. Miserable sod, he said.

My newest one is calling one of our bitters Bom-BAR-dee-ay. After a customer asked for it that way. Prior to that I'd been walking round with the poem Timothy Winters in my head "Old man Winters likes his beer/ And his missus ran off with a bombadier/ Grandma sits in the grate with a gin/ and Timothy's dosed with an aspirin."

Sloppy language bothers me though. I probably do say, "Try and..." although it would come out as trine - as in, "I'm not sure, I'll trine find out for you." I'm pretty sure I wouldn't write it though. At least not in a formal letter. It's like should have sounding like should of - I'd never write should of but I could be accused of saying it. We run our words together here you see.

I don't use the word got in conversation though. I say have. Also try my best never to confuse can and may. And get me and I correct.

I'm a good girl I am.

[Aliantha]

should of instead of should have is often the abreviation, should've. So maybe you're not so bad after all Sundae.

[classicman]

How about the absence of "to be".. For instance -
The car needs to be washed.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Try to ____ is a single-verb construction. Try and _____ is two separate verbs, two separate actions, and quite a possible logical construction. True mastery of your native tongue is knowing which of the two you are using and to what end.

True mastery may also be shown in mastering archaic present tense -- in case thou dost not protest too much, or something.

A pet peeve I've taken to scratching behind the ears of is the use of subject forms of the pronoun when the objective is called for: the object of the verb or the preposition is not "I," blast it, it is "me." Sleeping through elementary-school grammar isn't how to do well in life. Would you say (a particular offender) "between . . . I?" "To . . . I?" No, you wouldn't. And you aren't supposed to, no matter who's in company with you in the predicate clause.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Nothing wrong with dialect forms. 'Standard' English is just the dialect which won out as the 'correct' version, refined through latinate grammar.

Latinate vocabulary, yes; latinate grammar no, despite the dominies' try at making us never end sentences a preposition with, up with which we don't now put. Because structurally, you can't do that in Latin. But English isn't Latin. It even has more letters -- K, U, W, a frenchy J, and a Z. Between the Angles and the Saxons speaking distinct tongues, but still with eighty to ninety percent commonality, Old English had all its noun declensions knocked off in the collisions -- grammar teachers being thin on the ground in the Dark Ages. It already had few verb forms to keep track of, so I suppose (without certainty) that our trains of auxiliary verbs to arrive at the meaning we intend for the verb in the sentence were already being joined up.

We did keep declining pronouns, though, at least into subjective and objective cases -- though usually we just call them forms. We share this not only with the Germanic group, but indeed all of Europe. (What do the Basques do to personal pronouns? And who besides a Basque can tell? )

Juniper: except the ones that are spatulate seal parts.

[SteveDallas]

Once when I was in high school, the French class two of my compadres were taking introduced the subjunctive. They got into an argument over whether or not there's a subjunctive in English.[/geeks]

[DanaC]

Latinate vocabulary, yes; latinate grammar no, despite the dominies' try at making us never end sentences a preposition with, up with which we don't now put.

Oh I realise that Latinate grammar is not successfully applied to English, but the fact remains much of what is considered 'correct' grammar is an attempt to crowbar the language into an alien grammatical framework. This didn't happen during the Dark Ages, it happened later during a resurgence in popularity for Latin studies. This applies most particularly to written English.

In England, Standard English is effectively the bastard son of the dominant Old English dialect and incoming Norman French. It is the dialect of the wealthiest and most fertile areas of Britain. Other dialects, many so varied as to be sister languages, rather than mere variations, didn't hold the same currency and when language became more formalised, were relegated to incorrect forms.

Sleeping through elementary-school grammar isn't how to do well in life.

No, UG, it isn't the way to do well in language classes. I have known successful people whose command of grammar would make you wince. I have likewise known people whose understanding of grammar bordered on the obsessive and for whom life was somehow very difficult.

An understanding of grammar is a good skill to have. The English language is so vast and complex that to be absolute in that understanding would require years of careful study. Not everybody chooses to know how the engine of their car works. As long as it carries them where they need to go and there are people willing to train as mechanics, why should they?

If you can make yourself understood, then you are achieving what you set out to achieve when you use the tool of language.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

Once when I was in high school, the French class two of my compadres was taking introduced the subjunctive. They got into an argument over whether or not there's a subjunctive in English.[/geeks]

I wish I were knowledgable about the subjunctive mood.

[HungLikeJesus]

And on a somewhat related note:
Who came up with the spelling of choose, chose, lose, loose?

Choose rhymes with lose (at least in American English). Chose rhymes with hose. Loose rhymes with caboose. No wonder people have trouble learning English.