"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Jolipapa said:
Don't need to go that far to find differences, every province and in the provinces every region has an accent and different meanings for words. Some are most confusing like "truffes" (truffles) used for potatoes in some parts of Burgundy, or "réduis-toi " (get reduced) said in Savoie for "move" they also use "serrer" (clamp) instead of "ranger" (stow)!
In Belgium "savoir" (know) means"pouvoir" (be able to).
But more and more (except Québec and Louisiana) in towns they tend to use "Parisian" French (without the accent), what Southerners call "pointu" (sharp).
Créoles and patois are yet another thing, sometime a real language.
Problem with Canadian French is the disturbing mix of French and English words, car is a "char" but for us a char is either a tank (char d'assaut) or a chariot.
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I lived in Quebec for a while, and I think my favorite adoption into Quebec French is "chum" instead of "ami" (though "ami" is used as well of course). Nothing sounds more Quebec to me than "Ay! Salut mon chum!"

And then I also appreciate how the swearing is all religion based in Quebec, a la "Tabarnak!" Whereas the French seem to use more of a mixture of scatological curses, like English speakers.

When I was taking French in college I would occasionally make the professor laugh with my Quebec accent and idioms. Especially the way I would say 16. Made her laugh every time. Also when I would add the extraneous "le" at the end of sentences ("C'est bon le").

Some words are just never going to leave me conversationally in English. I'll always prefer saying "mouchoir" to "handkercheif."
 
Then we have swearing and cussing...at which Australians are best. See we can do both simultaneously.
Search Rodney Rude McDonald's for an example if you dare.
American author Bill Bryson in The Lost Continent writes about the Roanoke and Ocrakoke islanders.Their local language includes archaic words and phrases from 1600s England....it's very interesting.
WillPower I have a revenge plan for your dodgy eBay vendor ....I was inspired by earlier talk of marmite(disgusting),there is also a similarly horrible product called Promite and if course the king of them all our own national iconic yeast based by product of the brewing industry Vegemite.
Simply take a Nutella label and relabel the Vegemite as sweet chocolaty hazelnut spread. Send to the culprit as a Thank you gift....When he tastes it he will be most unpleasantly surprised as the taste of incredibly salty burnt motor oil with notes of yeast infection and a subtle hint of fresh exhaust pipe carbon scraping assaults his taste buds....he will be gagging andrunning the hose to flush his mouth out....but the taste will stay forever.
Sadly many innocent Japanese tourists to this nation suffer the same fate....they think it's chocolate because it looks like chocolate. I often imagine the reason we invented the awful stuff was a a repellent for some of our more venomous and dangerous creatures. A saltwater crocodile might be able to swallow a rancid buffalo but one sniff of vegemite will send it scampering back to its watery lair.
The term Happy Little Vegemite is from the advert of the 60s but has become a somewhat sardonic description of a grumpy or angry person.
 
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r redden said:
Will Power Will Power gravy biscuits are one of my favorite breakfast foods although not very healthy the gravy is usually made with pork sausage and served alone or perhaps with eggs and bacon. Here's a great biscuit recipe and here's a great sausage gravy recipe. You should try this incredibly delicious good old American recipe

CVR_SFS_Bisquits_20Sausage_20Gravy_2001_279513.jpg
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Mmmmmm...probably my favorite breakfast in that photo right there :)
 
I'm going to re-post something here that I posted last July, and I'll copy-and-paste it rather than quote it so it doesn't get quote-compressed. I seem to remember it sparked some interesting conversation with regards to regional dialect and vocabulary, and it seems applicable to the discussion currently taking place... but mostly I just think the quiz and the resulting map are fun. :D If you weren't here back when I first posted this, you should at least take the quiz and see how accurate your results are.

Here's my post from July 2017:

The semantics discussion in the scales/covers/handles/etc. thread (which I've enjoyed following) reminded me of this regional dialect quiz I came across a while back, and I thought some of y'all might enjoy it.

Here's the link to the quiz.

I've taken it myself a few times (you don't always get the same questions), and I've had friends and family members take it, and the results seem pretty accurate. Here's my result. The red areas and pinpointed cities represent places that are most similar to your answers. (I was born in Little Rock and lived in Arkansas until I was 26.)

Lx0m0kN.png


(Obviously this is only really applicable to those of you from the US, although I'm sure some of our international forum members would get some interesting results if they took the quiz.) :D

I'll also say that some of the multiple choice answers are quite funny, particularly if you get the question "What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?" o_O
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Interesting map actually even with your results highlighted. For example, you wouldn't think there would be a slightly different accent in Oregon than the rest of the west coast but there is. I remember my uncle used to call a creek a "crick" and I could never figure out why. I can't call it a southern accent because the map shows it isn't like that. Same for Utah and same for Washington state.
I lived in Arkansas for a while and can attest to the deep southern accent that is prevalent there :) My California accent stuck from a young age though even Arkansas couldn't break that.
 
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btb01 said:
I'm going to re-post something here that I posted last July, and I'll copy-and-paste it rather than quote it so it doesn't get quote-compressed. I seem to remember it sparked some interesting conversation with regards to regional dialect and vocabulary, and it seems applicable to the discussion currently taking place... but mostly I just think the quiz and the resulting map are fun. :D If you weren't here back when I first posted this, you should at least take the quiz and see how accurate your results are.

Here's my post from July 2017:

The semantics discussion in the scales/covers/handles/etc. thread (which I've enjoyed following) reminded me of this regional dialect quiz I came across a while back, and I thought some of y'all might enjoy it.

Here's the link to the quiz.

I've taken it myself a few times (you don't always get the same questions), and I've had friends and family members take it, and the results seem pretty accurate. Here's my result. The red areas and pinpointed cities represent places that are most similar to your answers. (I was born in Little Rock and lived in Arkansas until I was 26.)

Lx0m0kN.png


(Obviously this is only really applicable to those of you from the US, although I'm sure some of our international forum members would get some interesting results if they took the quiz.) :D

I'll also say that some of the multiple choice answers are quite funny, particularly if you get the question "What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?" o_O
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I find it funny that this quiz always puts me in California, even though Alaska is dark red. But then again, I did spend a lot of time in California as a kid (not nearly as much as Alaska and Oregon), so I guess some California rubbed off.
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2MiBfew
 
Cool quiz.

Most similar: Worcester, MA (I grew up 70 miles from Worcester)
Least Similar: New Orleans

Two places that could be quiz questions.

edit: this quiz was pretty spot on for me.
 
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For me, most similar are San Antonio, Jackson, and Honolulu. Grew up two hours from San Antonio and lived there about four years. (Passed through Jackson once; never been to Hawaii.)
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
Go to YouTube search "mountain talk" that's my people, hard to spell phonetically the way it sounds, and even in the mountains the way people talk on one ridge may sound differently that the very next ridge over!
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I was watching a video of folks speaking Old English the other day, could barely understand a word of it! :D

btb01 said:
I'm going to re-post something here that I posted last July, and I'll copy-and-paste it rather than quote it so it doesn't get quote-compressed. I seem to remember it sparked some interesting conversation with regards to regional dialect and vocabulary, and it seems applicable to the discussion currently taking place... but mostly I just think the quiz and the resulting map are fun. :D If you weren't here back when I first posted this, you should at least take the quiz and see how accurate your results are.

Here's my post from July 2017:

The semantics discussion in the scales/covers/handles/etc. thread (which I've enjoyed following) reminded me of this regional dialect quiz I came across a while back, and I thought some of y'all might enjoy it.

Here's the link to the quiz.

I've taken it myself a few times (you don't always get the same questions), and I've had friends and family members take it, and the results seem pretty accurate. Here's my result. The red areas and pinpointed cities represent places that are most similar to your answers. (I was born in Little Rock and lived in Arkansas until I was 26.)

Lx0m0kN.png


(Obviously this is only really applicable to those of you from the US, although I'm sure some of our international forum members would get some interesting results if they took the quiz.) :D

I'll also say that some of the multiple choice answers are quite funny, particularly if you get the question "What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?" o_O
​
Click to expand...

Here's mine from last July! :D :) :thumbsup:

Diaalect.JPG
 
I found it interesting that I took the test three times when Barrett originally posted it, with all the variant words I’d ever heard of growing up in Australia, and every result put me smack bang in New York City.

I put it down to the Irish influence on Australian English and NYC, both.

Those Southern areas which came up for Jack must have had a more exclusively English influence.

Did you take the test meako meako ?

Regarding the disparity between French and French Canadian, there was an interesting story in the book Voices from D-Day, where the Canuck soldiers who had landed on Juno beach, were mistaken for Americans taking the mickey out of the Norman villagers they were trying to communicate with, such were the archaisms which peppered their French!

I suppose it would be similar to someone identified as a modern Australian suddenly appearing in a North Yorkshire village pub and lacing their speech with Elizabethan English terms from Shakespeare!
 
Ha ha! My map came out nearly all dark blue as I relate to an extinct British English:cool: Tomato/Tomayto But there were some things I've never heard of, drive in liquor store?? Surely not, pulling my leg:D I could use it though, kind of Mobile Offy;) I got some matches in N.York and Yonkers comes from reading Arthur Miller:) thought Sopranos might have an influence but no. I like old Pathe newsreels for extinct British Accents (Exsunts) and also posh American N.England ones, were people more DEAF then??:D They're all delivered in this roaring stentorian voice wherever they come from, Finnish and Swedish stuff is the same:cool::D Must've been the microphones I suppose....aluminium/aloominum?o_O
 
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I guess I can't hide. The first time I took it, all three of my highest matching cities were in Louisiana: New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. I guess I've been around too many out-of-town contractors on this job since my dialect has spread all the way to Mobile, Alabama!
 
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knarfeng said:
If I remember correctly, when I took that quiz it showed me as being in Glendale, California, which is a few miles from where I grew up. Apparently we tend to pick up our colloquialisms early in life.
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That's an interesting conjecture, Frank, but I wonder if it's also related to "personality type".
One of my brothers lived in Michigan until he finished vet school at Michigan State. He then moved to West Texas and New Mexico, and soon developed what the rest of the family considered quite an accent. Similar situation for one of my sisters who has spent most of her adult life in Florida. On the other hand, I spent over 10 years in my 20s and 30s in central Indiana, which certainly seemed to me to have its own dialect and accent, and my speech characteristics were apparently unaffected. Maybe both siblings I mentioned were "people pleasers" more than me, or worked harder to fit in, and were thus influenced by the "language" of their surroundings, while I'm less empathetic and continue to "do it my way". I'd like to see the "map results" for those siblings.

(Numeric observation: this thread is on page 2^10!! Quite a milestone. ;))

- GT
 
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