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English major in college, and HS English teacher most of my career, I find languages fascinating, too -- not even just my native tongue, but most all languages.
Aside from the our variance in pronunciation, I find vocabulary most interesting, too. Like you've pointed out, sometimes those differences come from the generation or two ahead of us. What I refer to, generally, as the faucet outdoors (to which I hook-up the hose for watering) my grandparents referred to as the spigot, a faucet being the water source in, say, the kitchen or bath.
My sisters and I, as children, enjoyed visiting with a great aunt in Northern FLA, who often surprised, or baffled, us with some fun things. We ran the rake across the yard for her, and I don't know who was more surprised -- Mom Belle, because we had done the chore for her, or us girls, when she thanked us profusely for sweeping the yard. What we referred to as the rake was for her a yard broom, a rake was what one used in the vegetable garden.
One morning, I must've stood at her icebox for what seemed to me like five minutes, looking in vain for what I would recognize as bacon. She used the same word, bacon, but what hers looked like was completely different from ours, store-bought (for some, that's store-boughten). I've since heard people call what she had for bacon as fatback?
These very differences make for a lot of fun with the language, methinks.
It's a passion of mine, too!! Also an English teacher (professor) for most of my adult life. I concur with the "spigot" BTW I love regionalisms and variations in language and embrace them. There are a few grammar pet peeves I have, but I try not to correct anyone other than my kids. It's really important to always keep in mind that language is a living, changing thing, and what folks said 75 years ago is vastly different than today and from 75 years prior to that and so on. Many people say "At" at the end of a sentence even though it's entirely unnecessary (where are you at? is the same meaning as "where are you?") because it has become acceptable to end sentences with a preposition, and "at" is a preposition. It annoys the heck out of me, true, but mostly b/c it's unnecessary. Finding out someone's origin can be "from where are you?" or "where are you from?" but NEVER "where are you?" That's a totally different question!!
Don't even get me started.
Question: anyone ever heard the expression "feeling punk" for being under the weather? Or "feeling puny?" That's one my grandfather used a lot and I always loved it.
Neat stories, RD and annesg! I have heard an older person, he was a retired doc, I think he was in his 80's(?) say he was feeling puny. Of course he was the same person who told me "Old age ain't for cissies!" I think Mae West coined it.
Anyone know where the term "fixin" came from? I haven't figured that one out yet. I do love to hear the old NC accent...it warms my heart I think it's very melodic.
My wife used that "puny" saying to mean sick just the other day. I thought she was high on something, but I looked it up and it did show up as one of the alternative meanings in the dictionary. And she's only in her early 30s (she's from Oklahoma/Kansas/Colorado). On the other hand, it drives her crazy when I use the term "couple" to mean "few" (which was common where I grew up in Tidewater VA).
I will just add that there are pockets all along the coast in NC, VA, and MD, in isolated areas, that still speak with very antiquated accents/terminology. The two that were always highlighted when I lived up in VA were Tangier Island and Smith Island (both of which are out in the middle of Chesapeake Bay). I also recall hearing (somewhere) that the best place to still hear this accent in NC is in the Atlantic/Oriental area out east of Morehead City (it's isolated enough that the accent is still pretty common there).
To feel 'puny' is to be a bit under the weather, or to be in the early stages of something worse, like perhaps the flu. You may feel puny today, and no worse by this evening, and actually better by morning.
'Punk' is a new one to me, meaning to not feel well. When I lived in Wilmington, I kept seeing a most handsome, and sharp-dressed Black man in the downtown area, and wondered what his 'story' might be -- he had to be a salesman, I thought, in one of the upper-crust men's stores downtown. After describing him to a T, the school's secretary, who was also Black, laughed and said, "OMG. He's a 'punk'!" Punk has entirely different meanings for me, and I am thinking, thug? Thugs don't dress like that, pay that much attention to the details of what they are wearing. Not thugs I've ever seen.
We both had a chuckle when she explained to me what it did mean, in her culture and lingo. Nowhere near being a thug.
Young people like my college-aged daughter use 'punk' and 'punk'd' to mean something entirely different, and I'm not sure I could explain all of the variations and connotations. It can be used both negatively and positively. At least it's easier for her to explain meaning(s) to me than what it was when she was three, and I was trying to figure-out 'conna.' Oh, it was so frustrating for us all -- she used it in so many applications, and the day I handed her a glass of juice, and she cried out, "Conna, want conna," and pointed to the fridge; trying hard to keep my composure, I fling the door to the refrigerator wide open, and ask, "Conna? Show me some 'conna!' " It meant another kind of and once I had solved that, it sure made for easier communications!
Fixin' and fixin to. These are used to mean getting ready, getting ready to, or possibly planning. "I'm fixin' to go to the store. You need anything?" or "I'm fixin' to buy myself a new *whatever.*" Or, "You fixin' to leave? Gimme a hug."
Oh, and I thought anybody with good sense knows a couple could easily mean two, or a few more than two, as in several but NOT a whole bunch, as in "I need just a couple o' nails to finish this job. Hand me a couple, will ya?"
. . . a few grammar pet peeves I have, but I try not to correct anyone other than my kids.
My entire teaching career, I surmised I had to be a bit different from my colleagues in my approach(es) to teaching English. Supporting your idea, too, that language is a living, changing entity, I used to tell my students that if they paid careful attention to their own use of the language, they'd find they were apt to use it differently in different situations, and that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the use of slang -- right down to improper use of the language, BUT. . . They needed to know proper use in speaking and writing, have a command of the English, and be able to differentiate when it might be acceptable to, say, end a sentence with a preposition versus using, as I called it, their best grammar. I'd laugh, and add, "Make your grammar rock," making a pun from the clever little ditties that used to appear on TV. Schoolhouse Rock, I think the series was called.
I made the analogy that using English was akin to dressing for different occasions -- play clothes for being out in the yard, v. stylin' with your friends, to putting on something just a bit nicer for a party, or going to church, and then, ultimately, donning formal wear for the prom. I also told them that probably 99% of the time, it might not matter at all, but it would be that 1% that would matter to *whomever* and might mean the difference in a whole lot of things -- a relationship, a job, being invited to join a group. . .
What tickles me most is when people get wind of my being a retired HS English teacher, and then think I am critiquing their use of English. NOPE. Never do. Not when we are speaking, or in writing. You'll note I easily lapse into slang, and unacceptable use of English, myself. It is what makes the language alive!
(And in the background, I am hearing Dr. Frankenstein yelling to the heavens, "It's alive! It's alive!," as he throws his hands up, rejoicing that the 'monster' has awakened in the hilarious film, Young Frankenstein.)
Question: anyone ever heard the expression "feeling punk" for being under the weather?
That word resides deep within my vocabulary memory bank, but I don't know whom I heard it from. But sometimes, trying to describe how I feel... "I'm just feeling....kinda punk" is just the description. Kind of "under the weather without a specific 'ailment'".
Love the discussion; my first BA was in Linguistics and as a Southerner who grew up around transplants from everywhere, I've always been attuned to dialectal differences in American English. Coincidentally, I just picked up a book at the library called Do You Speak American? that mentions many commonly- and less-commonly-known speech phenomena. It also has a more detailed dialect map of the Us than I've seen before, with such subcategories as "Western Pennsylvania" (I presume "Pittsburghese" dominates).
Quote:
[RaleighLass] Honestly, being Brit, I don't see any trace of a London ( posh or cockney) accent in the language of the folks I've heard from coastal VA and the Outer Banks, Harkers Island area.
You're a few centuries too late for the "London" to which they refer Yes, the Outer Banks dialect has long laid claim to being the closest surviving accent to "Elizabethan English" (That's Bessie the Red, not Liz 2 ), though "closest surviving" need not really be "close", since 400 years changes anything. I recommend a book Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks for a good description of the language and people being referred to.
Quote:
We ran the rake across the yard for her, and I don't know who was more surprised -- Mom Belle, because we had done the chore for her, or us girls, when she thanked us profusely for sweeping the yard. What we referred to as the rake was for her a yard broom, a rake was what one used in the vegetable garden.
Never heard that one; cool! My grandmother always referred to "washing your teeth", not "brushing". And she was not so old as to predate toothbrushes
Back to "axe", I remember this coming up in a Linguistics class in college. Substituting one sound for another is very common in certain dialects and is exactly how language changes through time (Latin k sound became sh (spelled "CH") in French in many, many words, for example: "camera"->"chambre"; "canis"->"chien"; etc.)--the field of Historical Linguistics (language evolution) was my specialty and so, so fascinating. And dialectal differences are modern-day evidence of just such process going on, though with a literate population, words and usage change much less quickly than they did a few centuries ago when little was written down. Anyway, as I recall, inverting the order of a voiceless plosive consonant (P, K) + S is a process that happens frequently especially with children. "Pusketti" for "spaghetti" is another one you often hear from kids. It is easier to pronounce KS than SK (or PS for SP) in certain linguistic situations; somehow "axe" survives into adulthood and was passed down into its own dialects.
Sitting here, thinking I need to go wash my teeth now that I've had lunch, but I wanted to tell you this thread makes for fun reading, Guys, whether it's two years old or not. Like a fine wine and good cheese, it's a bit better with age, n'est-ce-pas?
Many like to comment upon us Southerners' accents, but I like listening for the subtleties in vocabularies from across the US, or different pronunciations. I have a good Brit friend who is a former colleague, and I love how she will pronounce many things very differently -- garage comes to mind. She says it with the first syllable sounding much like I might pronounce garish. When friends of hers made it across the pond and stayed at my house, I enjoyed how things were either 'ghastly' or 'lovely.'
I could chat with ya'll all day over the fun differences in our language(s) but I'm fixin' to have company for the weekend, and I really need to go warsh ma teef, and then clean up the bathroom, I reckon.
Found it somewhat amusing that the title of this thread refers to the Queen's English, when I always heard it was the King's English we Americans 'murdered.'
Found it somewhat amusing that the title of this thread refers to the Queen's English, when I always heard it was the King's English we Americans 'murdered.'
I titled it "Queen's English" because the little (less than 20 page book/ pamphlet) that it came from had that in the title. This little book was published in the 80s and I believe it was published by NCDOT. I packed it away when we moved here in 07 and I have no idea where it is now.
All of the sayings and spellings on that first post came straight from that little book. It was one of those funny little things my mom sent when I moved away so I wouldn't forget how to speak like a North Carolinian.
But I'm glad so many people had a good time with these little sayings.
Last edited by PDXmom; 07-17-2010 at 05:49 PM..
Reason: added one last thought
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I love regionalisms and variations in language and embrace them. There are a few grammar pet peeves I have, but I try not to correct anyone other than my kids. It's really important to always keep in mind that language is a living, changing thing, and what folks said 75 years ago is vastly different than today and from 75 years prior to that and so on. Many people say "At" at the end of a sentence even though it's entirely unnecessary (where are you at? is the same meaning as "where are you?") because it has become acceptable to end sentences with a preposition, and "at" is a preposition. It annoys the heck out of me, true, but mostly b/c it's unnecessary. Finding out someone's origin can be "from where are you?" or "where are you from?" but NEVER "where are you?" That's a totally different question!!
I think it's very melodic.
Just tell me to 'shut up.' Puh-lease.
Yes, the Outer Banks dialect has long laid claim to being the closest surviving accent to "Elizabethan English" (That's Bessie the Red, not Liz 2 
