What's on your mind? (2024)

Not About Food
966

Why would waitstaff correct your pronunciation? They obviously understood what you were saying.

2 Likes
967

You would if you spoke to me.

968

I had a waiter at a Brazilian cocktail bar in Germany “correct” my pronunciation of gimlet. I think I just repeated my order with a hard g.

Correcting your guests (or, really, any adult in public) is just uncouth.

4 Likes
969

The only time something like that happened to me was when a very young server took my broosketta order and repeated it back to me as brooshetta. A passive aggressive incorrect correction.

1 Like
970

I’ve come to accept the anglicized pronunciation of bruschetta, but I still struggle with people using “panini” for a singular panino, and “paninis” for plural, although that might be kinda the same thing. I don’t really expect Americans to know the intricacies of grammar in any foreign language — most of them are bad enough with their own :wink:

4 Likes
971

I’m originally from Chicago. I’ve always pronounced it ‘sca -lups’ with the a rhyming with the a in ‘’dad” and the final u (or i) being the schwa sound, written phonetically as an upside down e.

Whanever I’ve heard them call ‘scoll-ups’ or ‘scaw-lups’ (o rhyming with ‘dock’ or the aw as in a New York ‘caw-fee’ and the lups rhyming with ‘pups’) it’s almost always been someone with roots from the East Coast.

I personally love linguistic quirks alike this. There’s a lot of really excellent info about the features of various English accents and dialects out there. Look up Dr. Geoff Lindsay on YouTube. His vids are fantastic.

5 Likes
972

I can waste days on youtube watching those. I’m absolutely fascinated with accents & dialects.

ETA: My mom was a total snob about pronunciation (insecurity, I suppose) and thought there was really only one way to pronounce a word “properly” with no regard for regional variations.

1 Like
973

Many years ago I (a Philly girl) went to grad school in the midwest. I became the topic of an English language study–besides the obvious “wooder,” apparently my distinction between words like “merry\marry\Mary,” “roof\rough.” and I forget what else was a source of linguistic fascination. And yes, those words are pronounced differently and yes, the liquid that come out of a tap is wooder.

1 Like
974

But originally from the crick :wink:

1 Like
975

We were actually a creek family; but I certainly understood crick :slight_smile: And my grandmother lived near the earl works and shopped at the Acuhme.

3 Likes
976

My bow & arrow career ended abruptly, at around the age of 10, with an arrow embedded in my leather covered headboard. Parents not pleased. :woozy_face:

977

The ‘merry/Mary/marry’ thing is a known way to differentiate certain accents. My speech does not separate them at all.

‘Roof’ for me is usually with the oo from ‘boo!’ Or sometimes the oo from ‘book’. ‘Rough’ rhymes with ‘gruff’.

My ex is from a more rural Illinois town. She is a ‘crick’ person (I am ‘creek’). She is also a ‘warsh’ person as opposed to a ‘wash’.

Then there’s the whole ‘button’ question. Is the ‘tt’ in the middle pronounced with a hard, aspirated T sound? Is it softened to an unaspirated ‘D’ sound, or has it almost completely disappeared into a glottal stop? “Buh-uhn’”

And then there are the Ozzies and kiwis who (respectively) seem to try and speak out of their noses or swallow all their vowels.

1 Like
978

Another of my Irish Philly grandmom’s words . . . I wonder where they found all the extra Rs?

979

There’s tons of them lying around after all the New Englanders and Southerners dropped them from ‘car’ and ‘park’ and ‘bar’ and ‘Harvard yard’.

5 Likes
980

Regional accents are disappearing. Rural communities are less isolated. Here’s an old Boston Irish word. Buh DAY doze. Haven’t heard it in ages, though.

2 Likes
981

:rofl: :rofl: I guess some headed north, some south and they met in the Midatlantic?

982

I here it pronounced so many different ways also .its easy. Bru - skeh - tuh . Same with limoncello.

1 Like
983

‘Rhoticity’ is the quality of English accents to pronounce the ‘r’, and there’s a (fuzzy, but firmer than you might think) line that cuts Britain into a northwest half (rhotic) and a southeast half (non rhotic). And, mostly, this line is WORLD WIDE. The US and Canada are (largely) rhotic, except for pockets of non-rhoticity in (surprise) the earliest English-speaking regions. And South Africa, Aus, and NZ are distinctly non-rhotic.

The Philly accent is a tough one. It has lots of elements of Boston or certain NYC ones, but is very much its own thing.

Then, of course your have the Pennsylvania ‘yinz’ which is a whole other thing….

2 Likes
984

Early on I had opportunity to teach school in Texas. A mother (from New Orleans) came to me and asked where I “was from”. I told her San Francisco. She snapped her fingers and responded, “I KNEW I recognized your accent.”

985

My cousin from Pittsburgh drove to London, Ontario to visit, and he was lost. He told me he was parked at a Tim Hortons near the Lowiss.

I said “Lois, like the first name?” ( There are no businesses called Lois in London , as far as I am aware)

He then said, " No, I’m at a Tim Hortons near the Lo Wiss"

We went back and forth for a while. I finally asked him to put a Tim Hortons employee on the phone, and I got the address.

I met him there.

It was the Tim Hortons near Lowe’s, the hardware store.

A few months later , I asked his sister how she pronounced Lowe’s. She pronounces it like I do. Like Lows, long o, silent w, one syllable :joy:

I asked if his pronunciation was a Pittsburgh thing, and her answer was that it was just her brother’s thing.:joy:.