fox | british dialect notes

i'm way more willing to adjust my vocabulary than my pronunciation. this is not a huge surprise, but there it is. i'll say hiya instead of hi, for example, especially to a person behind a counter at a sandwich shop (or similar person in service capacity). i'm doing very well remembering to say i've got instead of i have. and so forth. if the local dialect has a word i don't have at all, fine (see lorry, arguably trousers, certainly bap -- a round bun to put sandwiches on); but even if the local dialect word is a word that means something else in my own dialect, i'm perfectly happy to make the switch (the perennial jam/jelly confusion; also lemonade, salad, even paper in the academic sense -- here, a "paper" is an exam, and what i know as a paper is an essay). but i can't get to where i feel normal changing the way i pronounce things -- it's as much a matter of not wanting people to think i'm mocking them (also called taking the piss, an expression it's very difficult for me to use convincingly) or trying to fit in where i don't as it is of being stubborn and clinging to my own accent; i know i can get it back. still, the only time i say tomato with a low back "a" ah is when i've just said tomato with a mid front "a" ay and i'm about to suggest calling the whole thing off.

[eta: ooh, i remember another good one: scheme. british english uses "scheme" the way we'd use program or plan -- it takes some concentration to keep in mind that an insurance scheme, for instance, is in no way sinister. of course, they do also use the word "plan"; but then, where we use "scheme", they tend to use something like plot, and we can have "plot" in that situation as well. completely unrelated example: couple weeks ago in semantics we were reading a bit of ... wittgenstein? bah, who remembers ... talking about games, what makes a game, etc., and on the question of whether opponents were necessary, the text said "But consider patience." i had to look helplessly around the room until someone told me: solitaire. ah, dialects!]

what i can't do, and this is very frustrating to me, is react quickly enough to get what's up? and [you] all right? right. these questions have opposite meanings in britain and north america; to me, the first question means "how's it going" and the second means "are you okay", while around here (as i learned the hard way when i was in edinburgh, through weeks of confusion between self and flatmates), the first question means "what's wrong" and the second means "hello". i can respond correctly to "y'alright?" when i hear it, but i cannot, cannot, cannot train myself to produce it. this is very frustrating. i've been trying not to say "what's up" at all, since while americans understand it the same way i say it, brits are often knocked for a conversational loop -- but i can't get myself to say "hi, y'alright?" it's not that it sticks in the craw; it's that the conversational muscle memory just isn't there. should probably think about switching to "how's it going", which i believe is an unloaded phrase.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

omg, I love you for this.

I just learned a whole ton of things. And, while, yes, it is not at all helpful to you, it was interesting to read. ♥

What about potato? *winks*

and jacket potato (which we know as a baked potato, a popular lunch entree with cheese or baked beans)

interestingly, the "a" in potato is always ay. nobody says potahto.

nobody says potahto.

...not even my father, who (back when kids and grownups ate separately and tater tots featured prominently on the kids' menu) used to dance around the kitchen singing "you say potato, i say tater tots" to us while he cooked dinner.

Huh. So those annoying "wazzzzuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup" commercials would've had a whole different vibe in the UK?

hmm. maybe if you said "What[sic] up, homegirl [first initial of addressee]?"

Because a) what[sic] up is much more fun to say, and b) would seem to transcend the british meaning by being so obviously not of the british meaning.

Yeah. Or just train yourself out of asking how people are, I guess.

that "all right?" thing used to freak me out. I finally asked someone if I looked sick because people kept asking me if I was all right. She was very nice about it. I also like the hiya (and it's lesser known counterpart, heya (but not in the Outkast sense)) It's fun!

I'm, personally, still having problems with "trousers", "juice" (as in, it means soda), "roll" (for bread with something in it), and a few other things I can't think of at the moment.

I can't bring myself to say "cheers" because of the whole "but I'm not British" thing. I probably will eventually.

I am also having problems, like you, of not wanting to be seen as mocking people, and therefore, not talking like them as much as I could.

it's a similar thing to what's up/y'alright -- i can remember not to say pants, but it's hard for me to get my mouth around the word "trousers" for some reason. fortunately, most of the time i'm wearing jeans, which is a happy substitute. :-)

juice -- that may be an edinburgh thing. juice is juice down this way, though soda isn't soda ... can't remember if i've heard a generic name for soft drinks.

wrt "cheers", my trouble is i do say it a lot, always have, and now i have the occasional fear that people will think "hmm -- not quite, love" and i should knock it off. probably unnecessary paranoia. but i certainly can't say ta for "thank you".

I don't like the word "trousers" either.

I've also heard soda called a "fizzy drink". And that reminds me -- another one is making sure I get "still" water instead of "sparkling", if I just ask for water. And of course the lemonade = clear citrus flavored soda.

fizzy drink, yes. that i do year. and the lemonade issue will never really go away -- fortunately, i don't normally crave what i know as lemonade, so i don't have to worry about how to ask for it. (i do admit that having a name for clear soft drinks as a class is a useful thing. in my world, we're pretty much stuck with brand names or the cumbersome "lemon-lime soda". urgh.)

as for water,

servalan routinely asks for tap water, in an ongoing attempt not to be charged close to two pounds for bottled still water. :-)

Isn't it more charmingly foreign never to ask the question the way locals do? The only Southerner I know who went to England told me people mobbed her friend's house at tea time just to hear the accent.

Even if you're not from Louisiana, as long as you're responding correctly to the question asked, why wouldn't it be part of your charm to ask in your own way?

responding to their question is no problem. asking the right question in the first place is a separate issue entirely. if you had a random co-worker who asked "how are you feeling?" every time you passed by her in the hall, wouldn't you eventually explain to her that that's a completely different question from "how are you doing?"? :-)

Well, this is true. They would stay labled "foreigner" in the "charmingly dense" category rather than perhaps the more agreeable "charmingly foreign" category.

This is interesting stuff! My two penn'orth:

"How's it going?" has always been my amiable enquiry of choice;

"trousers" is one of the most ridiculous words ever.

british dialect notes

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