What don't you like about Pittsburgh? (employers, cities, accent)

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by supersoulty

Not in the least bit presumptuous, I see.

BTW... obviously I meant "pretentious" not "presumptuous". It appears my Englisk is not up to standard.

[IAmAngieBowie]

I can avoid the accent if I so wish, though. It is a marker of class and education level. If I stick with educated people, I only hear it on the bus. Other accents are just as vile: Jersey accents, Brooklyn accents, Baltimore accents.

I guess I just don't wish to keep company with uneducated people, although the overly educated are also pains-in-the-ass. Focultian essay recitals really spoil a good stiff Scotch.

[supersoulty]

"Educated" people are also speaking with an accent. At one time, the standard, in any language, was just another dialect that so happened to be chosen. There is nothing that makes it "better". And in fact, as recently as 100 years ago, the educated classes said things that we would just find odd and sometimes incorrect today. For instance:

"A house is building on Federal Street."

"So you are come at last."

"It would be odd. Would not it?"

It was recommended the "cement" be pronounced "sea-ment" in educated company.

You weren't "shot", you were "shoten".

I could do this all day. And in fact, those people harshly criticized the way that the under-classes spoke, but guess who carried the day? So, what you speak was "vile and vulgar" not even 100 years ago. Do you see the irony here?

[IAmAngieBowie]

It's no surprise that morons breed and create trends at a faster rate than average. America embraces the lowest common denominator. Look no further than the White House.

You think hicksville speech is charming and revolutionary. I don't - I don't care if it rules the day from a linguistics standpoint. Televangelists have also ruled the day in a nation of morons, and so have Hummers. Look where we are now.

So, we'll just have to agree to disagree. You can hire the guy who says "'Dem cloze need wooshed," and I'll hold out for people who speak with correct grammar, academic drivel manufacturers excepted.

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by IAmAngieBowie

It's no surprise that morons breed and create trends at a faster rate than average. America embraces the lowest common denominator. Look no further than the White House.

You think hicksville speech is charming and revolutionary. I don't - I don't care if it rules the day from a linguistics standpoint. Televangelists have also ruled the day in a nation of morons, and so have Hummers. Look where we are now.

So, we'll just have to agree to disagree. You can hire the guy who says "'Dem cloze need wooshed," and I'll hold out for people who speak with correct grammar, academic drivel manufacturers excepted.

If you will forgive me, you assume its degradation and its not. Language change has always occurred throughout all of history. Are you going to stand by the position that French is bad Latin? Believe it or not, people did once think that, and we have records to prove it.

First off, using your standard, the most proper English would be The Queen's English, which I doubt you live up to in your own speech. If you think dialects are bad here in the U.S., then I would invite you to go to Britain. Northern Britain features dialects that would give someone like you a headache, and yet they don't really look down on these people, because English was always spoken differently there, and somehow they manage to have a unified language.

You can fight it all you want, and you can look down on "the lowest common denominator", but the fact is that in a couple generations, people will barely remember the way you speak now, and the distinction between "who" and "whom" will be lost, just as people no longer distinguish between "here", "hither" and "hence", or "aye" and "yes", or "nay" and "no". Maybe something will rise up to take its place, just like how people now say "ya'll" or "yinz" to make up for the rather recent lack, in English, of a second person plural... "you" used to be plural, "thou" was singular.

English is rather remarkable in terms of the things it doesn't have, that almost everyother Indo-European language has. Mainly because so many people learned it incompletely. And yet, today, plenty of people speak it just fine, but people like you claim that the language is going to ****, because not everyone speaks exactly the same way you do.

Can you understand them? Then why look down on them?

[supersoulty]

P.S. If you are in any way interested as to how "you" plural prevailed over "thou" singular, no one knows for sure, but my theory is that it has to do with the "lost" English letter "thorn" Thorn (letter) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Thorn used to represent the "th" sound in English. It used to be that if you did see a "th" together like that, it was actually pronounced "ta-ha". When the printing press was invented, the letter Thorn was stylized into a form that looked alot like a "y"... thus, "you" and "thou" looked the same to the average person, who was only partially literate. There is a reflex of this today in places with names like "Ye Olde Tavern"... to a person 300 years ago, that would have made no sense... as "Ye" was yet another word for "you" plural, in the subjective case. But, because of mistakes over the letter "Thorn" which most people today have never even heard of, people think that "The" was once "Ye".

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by supersoulty

If you will forgive me, you assume its degradation and its not. Language change has always occurred throughout all of history. Are you going to stand by the position that French is bad Latin? Believe it or not, people did once think that, and we have records to prove it.

First off, using your standard, the most proper English would be The Queen's English, which I doubt you live up to in your own speech. If you think dialects are bad here in the U.S., then I would invite you to go to Britain. Northern Britain features dialects that would give someone like you a headache, and yet they don't really look down on these people, because English was always spoken differently there, and somehow they manage to have a unified language.

Well, people in Britain do look down upon those with certain accents. That is the whole premise of "My Fair Lady". In real life, we had some British neighbors who talked of "posh" accents, apparently suggesting that some are not (posh).

The Pittsburgh accent, dialect, whatever you want to call it, has been discussed many times on this board. I still contend that speaking with proper grammar and enunciation is important. OTOH, I have no problem with a few colloquialisms. I don't like "youns", and the sloppy way of speaking that is supposed to characterize the Pgh accent, e.g. "GineIgle" for Giant Eagle, etc.

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Well, people in Britain do look down upon those with certain accents. That is the whole premise of "My Fair Lady". In real life, we had some British neighbors who talked of "posh" accents, apparently suggesting that some are not (posh).

The Pittsburgh accent, dialect, whatever you want to call it, has been discussed many times on this board. I still contend that speaking with proper grammar and enunciation is important. OTOH, I have no problem with a few colloquialisms. I don't like "youns", and the sloppy way of speaking that is supposed to characterize the Pgh accent, e.g. "GineIgle" for Giant Eagle, etc.

True, but even as you hinted, over there its largely a class thing. There isn't quite the same tendency to see the speech of people, in say, Liverpool, as sloppy, or low brow... at least not quite the same as there is to categorize "Pittsburghese" or Southern Accents as such.

The fact is, unless you were raised upper-class and had little exposure to the way normal people spoke, you are probably "diglossic"... or you speak one way when you are relaxed, and another when you are in "high company" or trying to impress. Almost everyone is. So that Pittsburgher who is speaking the local dialect, probably wouldn't speak that way if the queen came over for dinner. They know its "ee-gle" (even THAT pronunciation is a product of language change), but when they are talking to their 7 year old son, they are gonna say "iggle" because that's the informal.

[supersoulty]

And, in fact, even the people who speak the language "properly" are changing the way they speak all the time:

Northern cities vowel shift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In case you do have anymore interest in this topic.

Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea | PBS

[Copanut]

Frankly, Pittsburghese disgusts me. Thank God my mother never let me say "youns" or "yinz" or I seen, or He don't.

It's not a colloquialism, it's just being either dumb or lazy or both.

Ya jagoff.