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Well, welcome to NC, regardless . . . most people are not gonna bother to "correct" you on anything here. . . so I expect that was a one-time deal.
Well, thank you! I LOVE NC. I really do. See my past posts. I am originally from Germany, but I have lived and travelled in The States for decades.
This is the only state I have ever been corrected on my speech. NUMEROUS times. This is also the only state where people like to say they are "polite" over and over again
Regardless, I have met life long friends here in a very short time. I love so much about NC...but there is a strong feel of Dixie that is sometimes negative (and also sometimes positive).
Strangest state I have ever lived in. And that is not always a bad thing either
Totally agree and I am European and work in a high school and sometime pronounce words the british way and the students then have to comment. Sorry to say but I find a lot of Americans rude in correcting foreigners ,when they themsleves can not even speak another language fluently,nor speak their own correctly.Thank you
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,684,299 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by kickerfrau
Totally agree and I am European and work in a high school and sometime pronounce words the british way and the students then have to comment. Sorry to say but I find a lot of Americans rude in correcting foreigners ,when they themsleves can not even speak another language fluently,nor speak their own correctly.Thank you
I had a very interesting conversation one evening in the Eifel about this very topic with a local & a British couple. The German was self-conscious about his pronunciation of some English words & the British couple were frequently confounded by his pronunciations. They (all 3) asked me why I had no trouble understanding him. It's experience. One of my grandfathers & his entire family happened to have been immigrants, from the Eifel, so I grew up hearing very thick accents. Some of my friends had at least one immigrant grandparent, so I grew up with exposure to multiple types of thick accents. I also lived in an area with many immigrants.
The British couple said that they had never had very much exposure to accented English until they got to Germany & were frequently not capable of understanding what was being said.
Americans who laugh at people who speak English with a foreign accent do it out of ignorance & are lacking manners, but it is not isolated to people in this country. This thread would have been different had the OP stated that English was not his first language. Being rude back to someone is still rude.
Just an FYI, while I had forgotten a lot of my French, I was fully capable of functional conversation in Luxembourg & Belgium prior to assertaining if the person spoke English. I was also complimented in both countries on my lack of accent, because I was taught continental French.
Oh, & speaking of accents, I'm quite well aware that there are various accents in Germany. Since you use British English, that tells me that you are not from the Eifel. I'm well aware that the Eifel is the exception to the rule in teaching American English. Oh, and I've been told time & again that they are quite proud that most other Germans have trouble understanding them when they speak High German, or as several of them called it "fake German" & most other Germans don't have a clue what they're saying when they speak Dialekt..
Isn't this, more or less, a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Totally agree and I am European and work in a high school and sometime pronounce words the british way and the students then have to comment. Sorry to say but I find a lot of Americans rude in correcting foreigners ,when they themsleves can not even speak another language fluently,nor speak their own correctly.Thank you
I worked on a project with a guy from Scotland in Ottawa, Canada. Between his thick accent, our southern twang and some of the Canadians that use a hybrid dialect of Euro/American/French...it was a mess. Quite frankly, I've met and worked with many Euros but I found his Scottish accent thick and extremely run-on, at times sounded like a foreign language not English. Some of the Canadians found his accent very difficult to understand.
Don't you think Americans teaching in Europe receive similar treatment from students?...especially since everyone over there knows how to speak "correct" english.
To OP: I'm from downeast NC and Kure Beach is pronounced Cur-ry or Curr-ee Beach, not Cure Beach. A friend of mind from Michigan would say Char (as in charcoal) Char-lot instead of Charlotte. Don't even get me started on Shallotte, pronounced (Sha-loat or rhymes with boat).
Last edited by Big Aristotle; 09-05-2011 at 04:39 AM..
Well, thank you! I LOVE NC. I really do. See my past posts. I am originally from Germany, but I have lived and travelled in The States for decades.
This is the only state I have ever been corrected on my speech. NUMEROUS times. This is also the only state where people like to say they are "polite" over and over again
Regardless, I have met life long friends here in a very short time. I love so much about NC...but there is a strong feel of Dixie that is sometimes negative (and also sometimes positive).
Strangest state I have ever lived in. And that is not always a bad thing either
LOL. Well, now, this explains a lot. I wish I had read your other posts, Paper! No one is more precise w/ language than a German . . . Despite my lineage being German/Swiss (and hubby's is German) it is the one language I can't seem to master! My Dad speaks passable German; my sister is fluent and minored in German. But I struggle . . .
Several posters here are aware of my story about pronunciation while in Germany. Without getting too specific . . . my surname has an E in it. Evidently, the way we Americans pronounce my last name sounds like U to Germans. My hubby and I were checking w/ a tourist help desk while in Heidelberg - to locate a gasthaus for our group. When I gave the lady my name, she asked how I spelled it . . .I told her . . . and she got quite aggravated (much to my utter horror!) and gave me a lecture on pronouncing my surname correctly. It was no short speech, either! I did understand why she pointed it out, as had she written it as it sounded to her, it would not have matched my credit card. But DANG! Was I taken back.
Even the highbrow Parisians manage to grin and be good-humored about it when I murder French . . . but no such pass in Germany.
If I had realized you were German, I would have totally understood your being shocked when "corrected" - when you pronounced VILLE exactly as it is written.
Many areas of the Piedmont and parts of western NC were settled by Germans, the Scots and Irish (and to a lesser degree - English - they were more concentrated in the coastal plans). That Scot/Irish influence is why you hear the shortening of VILLE to "vul" or "v'l" - and you will hear the influence w/ other words, as well. One of my friends has Irish roots and visits in Ireland regularly. She has a very distinct "mountain" accent. She was surprised when she first walked into a rural Irish pub and started talking to locals - who were fascinated w/ her speech and told her she was the first American they could really "understand." HEE HEE HEE. Heck, there are some words she pronounces that only Southerners would "get" . . .even other Americans have trouble w/ her accent!
The South is an interesting mix of several centuries of quirkiness with customs, speech and ideology. Just be aware that you may encounter all sorts of strange anomalies w/ any of those subjects!
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,814 posts, read 34,684,299 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by anifani821
LOL. Well, now, this explains a lot. I wish I had read your other posts, Paper! No one is more precise w/ language than a German . . . Despite my lineage being German/Swiss (and hubby's is German) it is the one language I can't seem to master! My Dad speaks passable German; my sister is fluent and minored in German. But I struggle . . .
Several posters here are aware of my story about pronunciation while in Germany. Without getting too specific . . . my surname has an E in it. Evidently, the way we Americans pronounce my last name sounds like U to Germans. My hubby and I were checking w/ a tourist help desk while in Heidelberg - to locate a gasthaus for our group. When I gave the lady my name, she asked how I spelled it . . .I told her . . . and she got quite aggravated (much to my utter horror!) and gave me a lecture on pronouncing my surname correctly. It was no short speech, either! I did understand why she pointed it out, as had she written it as it sounded to her, it would not have matched my credit card. But DANG! Was I taken back.
Even the highbrow Parisians manage to grin and be good-humored about it when I murder French . . . but no such pass in Germany.
If I had realized you were German, I would have totally understood your being shocked when "corrected" - when you pronounced VILLE exactly as it is written.
Many areas of the Piedmont and parts of western NC were settled by Germans, the Scots and Irish (and to a lesser degree - English - they were more concentrated in the coastal plans). That Scot/Irish influence is why you hear the shortening of VILLE to "vul" or "v'l" - and you will hear the influence w/ other words, as well. One of my friends has Irish roots and visits in Ireland regularly. She has a very distinct "mountain" accent. She was surprised when she first walked into a rural Irish pub and started talking to locals - who were fascinated w/ her speech and told her she was the first American they could really "understand." HEE HEE HEE. Heck, there are some words she pronounces that only Southerners would "get" . . .even other Americans have trouble w/ her accent!
The South is an interesting mix of several centuries of quirkiness with customs, speech and ideology. Just be aware that you may encounter all sorts of strange anomalies w/ any of those subjects!
+5
LOL, Ani, my grandfather & his family halfway Americanized the pronunciation of our last name. EVERYWHERE I went with my father, in the Eifel, the Germans quickly determined what the name was & they would pronounce it correctly. My father would then correct their pronunciation & spell it in English. I kept telling him that their pronunciation was the correct one & he was spelling in English, which confounded the older people. I said the alphabet in English, French, & German, repeatedly. I might as well have been talking to a wall.
As to the slurring of ville & ton etc., I agree totally, & it also follows the old settlement routes & areas. For instance, in NC, the Quakers are consistantly referred to as English, but the majority came from SE PA, South Jersey, & the lower counties of PA, which became Delaware. In that area, early Quaker immigrants are referred to as having been, primarily Irish Quakers. I found one of my colonial Quaker families in some online meeting house records in Ulster Province. They were lowland Scots & the immigrant did come from Ireland (Ulster Province, where the Scots/Irish immigrated from). Many surnames which are in that meeting house are spread from Philadelphia & South Jersey to the Piedmont of NC in colonial records. Those names trailed down in the colonies, through the Shenandoah Valley, to the Piedmont. Then, of course, many from all of the aforementioned areas moved on to the Midwest, starting circa 1800, from the South first.
There's a a set of Lancasters in NC that pronounce it "linkin-stir"
Quote:
Originally Posted by southbound_295
I worked in Owings Mills for several years (which is actually pronounced as written).
So many places have "native" pronunciations that it's silly to get bent about someone mispronoucing the name, but if you start to hear it day in & day out, as others have said, it could wear thin. No one in this thread has said that the native was not rude, but, in a case like that, saying Oh, OK will go a long way to diffusing the situation. I live in an area that is probably 60% native & 40% transplant. More than likely, in 3 or 4 years, that will reverse itself.
It's like Lancaster. In PA & SC it's pronounced Lank a stir. In California it's Lan caster. In a case like that, saying the wrong one could create confusion. Saying ville for v'l (which is what I think was being said) isn't going to cause confusion or make the world end. The native could have easily ignored it. To wise off at the woman fixes nothing. However, to take pot-shots at North Carolinians as was done in this thread just shows a bad attitude, in my opinion.
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I kept telling him that their pronunciation was the correct one & he was spelling in English, which confounded the older people. I said the alphabet in English, French, & German, repeatedly. I might as well have been talking to a wall. 
).
