Cato's Grammar Grumble

Started by Cato, February 08, 2009, 05:00:18 PM

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Cato

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 12:15:01 PM
In proper (southern) english the accent is always on the first syllable

"Proper southern English" is an impossibility, beyond oxymoronic!   :o 

The southern accent likes to emphasize the first syllable so that the rest of the word can be slurred into incomprehensibility!   :D
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

bwv 1080

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 12:29:59 PM


The southern accent likes to emphasize the first syllable so that the rest of the word can be slurred into incomprehensibility!   :D

That's why we talk slower

But Southern accents is much preferable to Midwest or Northeastern accents which are grating and hard to bear


sul G

Isn't 'proper' southern English what they speak in the south of England, though? To be strictly accurate.

Cato

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 12:37:38 PM
That's why we talk slower

But Southern accents is much preferable to Midwest or Northeastern accents which are grating and hard to bear



Oh they is, is they?   :o

Check your History book, Reb!  Who won the Civil War anyway?    ;D

As to Southern England, I have never been there: is it not called Wales?   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

DavidRoss

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 12:37:38 PM
That's why we talk slower

But Southern accents is much preferable to Midwest or Northeastern accents which are grating and hard to bear
Shouldn't that be "Southern accents is better'n...?"

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 02:40:29 PM
Oh they is, is they?   :o
Yes, Cato--that grating nasality you complained about earlier is Midwestern--just ask MNDave about it.  ;)
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Cato

Quote from: DavidRoss on April 23, 2009, 03:01:37 PM
Shouldn't that be "Southern accents is better'n...?"
Yes, Cato--that grating nasality you complained about earlier is Midwestern--just ask MNDave about it.  ;)

I'll dew that, yew betcha!   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

bwv 1080

First, Southern English came from Southern England

QuoteSouthern dialects substantially originated from immigrants from the British Isles who moved to the South in the 17th and 18th centuries. The South was predominantly settled by immigrants from the West Country[citation needed] in the southwest of England, the dialects of which have similarities to the Southern US dialects. Settlement also included large numbers of Protestants from Ulster, Ireland, and from Scotland. During the migration south and west, the settlers encountered the French immigrants of New France (from which Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and western Tennessee originated), and the French accent itself fused into the British and Irish accents. The modern Southern dialects were born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English

Second, y'all can take the Yankee test here:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html

I passed:

Quote85% Dixie.  Do you still use Confederate money?

Cato

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 05:20:07 PM
First, Southern English came from Southern England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English

Second, y'all can take the Yankee test here:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html

I passed:


We expected nothing less!   :D
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Florestan

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 11:51:50 AM
Although The Dunno Elegies could be a satirical epitaph for our post-literate era!   0:)

The Dunno Illegies, rather.  :)
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Ten thumbs

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 12:15:01 PM
In proper (southern) english the accent is always on the first syllable

Wherever these people come from they clearly do not understand what doubled consonants are for.
A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little—but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time:
A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.

Cato

Quote from: Ten thumbs on April 25, 2009, 01:30:04 PM
Wherever these people come from they clearly do not understand what doubled consonants are for.

Or even single ones!  When I taught for a short while in Atlanta, Georgia, the students informed me they were learning "La' in" in my classroom, as if they were the limiest of limeys!   :o

So far this infection has not spread to my Ohio students!   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

Quote from: Ten thumbs on April 25, 2009, 01:30:04 PM
Wherever these people come from they clearly do not understand what doubled consonants are for.

Bananna!  8)

Cato

My computer shows an ad at the bottom of the page from Google about "learning other accents."

Interesting - and slightly scary - the way Google "knows" what this topic is about!   :o
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Lethevich

Something I have noticed regularly occuring in news interviews:

Saying "as I said" when you in fact have not said the thing previously. It appears to be used by flustered people to try to gain the "upper hand".
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Cato

Quote from: Lethe on April 27, 2009, 09:34:10 AM
Something I have noticed regularly occuring in news interviews:

Saying "as I said" when you in fact have not said the thing previously. It appears to be used by flustered people to try to gain the "upper hand".

You are quite right!  The other similar thing that frosts my windshield is the tired phrase "the fact that" when e.g. the duplicitous taxitician speaking is asserting an opinion based more on fantasy than fact.

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

TTT

Cato must be engaged in the ever-renewed struggle against brain-mush grammar.

bwv 1080

QuoteSouthern American English (SAE) is the most widely recognized regional dialect of American English, but as most of its speakers know, widespread recognition is a mixed blessing. SAE is also the regional dialect that is most negatively evaluated. ...
its users can anticipate at least polite (and often not so polite) condescension to their speech by non-Southerners. In spite of its low status outside of the South and of standardizing forces such as interregional migration and universal education that threaten many minority languages and dialects, SAE continues to persist.

Some Features of Southern American English


...

"I'm fixin to eat breakfast" means that I intend to eat breakfast in the next little while
Some of the grammatical differences between SAE and other varieties are well known. For example, most Americans immediately recognize you-all and yall as distinctively Southern second person pronouns, and many would know that fixin to, as in "I'm fixin to eat breakfast," is Southern as well. The latter represents a modification of the English auxiliary system that enables Southerners to encode an aspectual distinction grammatically that must be encoded lexically elsewhere: "I'm fixin to eat breakfast" means that I intend to eat breakfast in the next little while.
Other grammatical features are less widely known but are no less important. SAE also modifies the English auxiliary system by allowing for the use of more than one modal in a verb phrase. For instance, for most Southerners "I might could leave work early today" is a grammatically acceptable sentence. It translates roughly as "I might be able to leave work early," but might could conveys a greater sense of tentativeness than might be able does. The use of multiple modals provides Southerners with a politeness strategy not available in other regional dialects. Although no generally agreed upon list of acceptable multiple modals exists, the first modal in the sequence must be might or may, while the second is usually could, can, would, will,should, or oughta. In addition, SAE allows at least one triple modal option (might shouldoughta) and permits useta to precede a modal as well (e.g., "I useta could do that").

All three of these grammatical features remain robust in SAE, and migrants to the South from other parts of the country often appropriate both yall and fixin to. Multiple modals, on the other hand, are typically used only by native Southerners. Most of the phonological features of SAE are also typically used only by natives.

...


The linguistic impact that the new arrivals from outside the South will have is not yet clear, but some trends are already becoming apparent. In Texas and Oklahoma and in many metropolitan areas around the South, some national linguistic trends such as the merger of the vowels in caught and cot (both sound like the latter) are emerging, and in several of the larger metropolitan areas (e.g., Dallas-Fort Worth and Memphis) some traditional Southern vowel features such as the distinctive pronunciation of the vowel in words like way are beginning to wane. Even as these developments take hold in metropolitan areas, however, traditional grammatical features such as yall and fixin to are spreading to non-Southerners migrating to the region. While the long-term linguistic consequences of the new developments are impossible to predict, it is apparent that SAE is continuing to evolve -- just as it has over the last century and a half. The extent to which the results of that evolution yield something that is recognizably "Southern" remains to be seen

http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/southern/sounds/

The Six

Ever notice how nobody says "there are" anymore?

There's two pieces of pie left...
There's four things I have to do....

etc.

DavidRoss

Nobody?  I beg to differ. (Besides, there are never two pieces of pie left!)

How about "there're?"
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

karlhenning

Quote from: DavidRoss on May 01, 2009, 09:28:03 AM
How about "there're?"

And two different schools of enunciation.  There are those who preserve a flutter of a vestigial vowel, so that the result is a little suggestive of Don's avatar.

And there are those who practically drop the vowel in the verb, and as a result the r in there is a little elongated, à la finnois.