Dialects, got to love them

Deere Dude · Jul 25, 2021

We moved from WI to remote TN 8 years ago. What was most memorable to me was the first church service we visited/attended. I swear I coud not understand a word anyone said for the whoe hour. Everyone sounded like they had lazy tongue. Now my hearing is getting worse which doesn't help matters.
It is embarassing sometimes. I was talking to an aquaintance a few months ago and he was speaking right at me from 4 feet away. I had him repeat the sentence 3 times and finally told him to just text me.

A few years ago I was talking to a Indian from India on the phone. Finally after 5 minutes of not understanding his sentence structure I had to excuse myself.

One other time snowbirding in southern FL I was talking to a contractor and he was talking about all the coal they have in FL. I never saw any mines but just went along with it. Finally it dawned on me he was saying coral, not meaning coal/

Jstpssng · Jul 25, 2021

I tried to place an order over the phone once, long before the internet. I gave off the part number I needed several times; every time she read it back to me wrong. I finally gave up and cancelled the order.
She said that she couldn't understand my accent. I don't have an accent, everybody else does!

dadiehl · Jul 25, 2021

The coal region of Pennsylvania has a language onto its own. I live maybe 45 minutes away and have no idea what some of their short cuts translate out to. An old Sgt. We had here from there would bounce over to it and it sounded almost foreign. He called it Shendo-Speak.

k0ua · Jul 25, 2021

Alien said:
What else is it called James?

Parking Lot

Sigarms · Jul 25, 2021

Jchonline said:
I have worked with so many people that have accents I am pretty good at understanding them all. Ironically probably the hardest for me is Louisiana deep swamp stuff….but my wife understands it perfectly! She lived there 8 years when she was younger.

Trained a guy in Mobile and Pensacola who was from Louisiana who was Cajun. First time talking to him on the phone without meeting him, I called my boss and told him we may have issues because I really didn't understand a word he was saying over the phone. It wasn't until the 2rd or 3rd day where I started getting more familiar with what he was talking about (and I knew he was trying to make it easy for me). I knew it wasn't just me as when we'd go out to eat the waitresses were having some issues as well LOL

I've found southerns who have a heavy dialect who talk fast I have a hard time sometimes as well. One guy I've known for 15 years now, and on the phone, I still have a hard time with him from time to time. However, company he works for I know about 15 "local" employees who I've worked with on a regular basis, and even the company employees tell me it's not just me trying to understand him over the phone when he talks fast LOL I have one co worker like that as well.

Sigarms · Jul 25, 2021

dadiehl said:
He called it Shendo-Speak.

No different than Pine Grove but still different LOL

Shendo speak refers to the town of Shenadoah

As the locals would say "Shendo dah fook"

That said, Shenadoah isn't as bad as Frackville or St. Clair IMO.

cqaigy2 · Jul 25, 2021

Speaking of dialects and accents, i was working with a crew made up of a group from the Philippines. It took me a while but i got pretty good at understanding, mostly, what was being said, and getting the point across what needed to be done. One day, I was talking to one of the crew, when their head person walked up asked how it was going with his crew, told him i was starting to pickup on the accent of the English they were using. He kinda laughed and said what accent? I said that last guy i was talking to, he said that last guy you were talking to you only used one English word the rest was Tagalog, i was, 'say what??'. I said, "Ha ha, nice try", he said 'no not joking, he said this crew spoke the least English he'd seen in a while.

One of the funniest, to me anyway, was when my neighbor's were talking of when they rented a largish catamaran in New Zealand and decided to go into port to pick up supplies and such. They radioed, the Harbour Master and got directed to "park" next to the para vessel. So of course a para vessel should be pretty unusual and easy to identify, except nothing there looked like a para vessel. After a bit of back and forth with the Harbour Master, the New Zealander, said, your vessel uses wind for propulsion, ones that don't use wind, are para(power) vessels.

k0ua · Jul 25, 2021

I have been an Amateur radio operator for 50 years, and I have heard just about every version of English there is to be had out in the wide world. I can usually zero in on the various accents and the different words and phrases fairly quickly. And of course there are Europeans in various countries that speak English better than a lot of us here on this side of the pond.

fried1765 · Jul 25, 2021

Sigarms said:
Couple years ago, never forget down around Atlanta for technical training with some customers. Class ended on Friday and there was a bunch of us from my neck of the woods. One guy brought his wife down, and they were staying overnight so his wife could check out some of the shopping. Another guy was staying for the state fire, which had me perplexed, so I asked him where they were getting the wood for a state fire, and we both looked dumbfounded, and then had a good laugh when I realized (actually mentioned about another "NC local" he meant state fair.

Last week, I met my new direct supervisor, who flew down from Boston. We're talking with another employee (born and bred in NC) and my supervisor starts asking me about pots. I'm thinking to myself what the heck does pots have anything to do with our business, and I look at my co worker, and he has the same kind of expression I do. Turns out my superviosr was talking about "parts".

I use to live on Cape Cod as a kid. Lost that accent a LONG time ago. Genearlly can pick up a New York city (or surrounding area) or Jersey accent even if someone has lived in NC as long as I have (20 years).

Made me think about how quick one can lose or gain an accent, and at what age plays a variable in the equation.

I took my boss out to eat with a customer, I was going to do Mexican, but my boss mentioned isn't NC known for BBQ? Dawned on me he wanted to eat "local". I've been in NC way to long I guess as it was interesting having our customer explain the menu to the guy from New England and the things I take for granted now (BBQ slaw is NOT like cole slaw as you'd expect it from up North as one example and my boss mentioned that they know how to make sweet tea up north ).

I grew up on Cape Cod, and am retired there now.
I left the Cape at 22 for USN flight training in Pensacola.
When I came back 18 months later my mother said I
"talked funny".

Though I did not have a Southern twang, I had lost my New England accent.
I am 80 now, and spent nearly 40 years listening to the accents of worldwide aircraft control center operators.
My Cape Cod accent is still long gone.

Sigarms · Jul 25, 2021

fried1765 said:
I left the Cape at 22 for USN flight training in Pensacola.
When I came back 18 months later my mother said I
"talked funny".

A friend lived in California for the first 25 years of her life, moved to NC with her husband (who is a native NC'er), she has been here for about 20 years, and anytime she goes back to visit her family in California, they all tell her that she has a southern accent now. I've know this woman for a good 10 years, and not once did I ever detect a southern dialect on her.

If anything, she reminds me of an italian because she's always talking with her hands LOL

GaryM · Jul 25, 2021

k0ua said:
I have been an Amateur radio operator for 50 years, and I have heard just about every version of English there is to be had out in the wide world. I can usually zero in on the various accents and the different words and phrases fairly quickly. And of course there are Europeans in various countries that speak English better than a lot of us here on this side of the pond.

Last letters of my call is GOM. I've found some Europeans have trouble with Golf Oscar Mike, so I switched to Germany Ontario Mexico.

fried1765 · Jul 25, 2021

GaryM said:
Last letters of my call is GOM. I've found some Europeans have trouble with Golf Oscar Mike, so I switched to Germany Ontario Mexico.

The Asians would likely have a problem with "Ontario".

ponytug · Jul 25, 2021

If you like the bubbler/spends/median word usage patterns, have a browse (check out/take a gander) at the Dictionary of American Regional English. Lots of fun...

There are reports that when the TVA flooded some valleys, that there were some folks who emerged speaking Shakespearean english. Apparently, they had come across the Atlantic, gone up in the hills and hadn't really interacted with outsiders for 300 years.

All the best,

Peter

bunyip · Jul 25, 2021

Took our grandmother to France, she had never been outside the UK, she was stopped by french customs asking if she had anything to declare, she became quite indignnant and wanted to know what business it was of theirs, they said that they stopped all foreigners, well, that was just too much as she pointed out that she wasn't foreign, they were, british arrogance at its best.

fried1765 · Jul 25, 2021

bunyip said:
Took our grandmother to France, she had never been outside the UK, she was stopped by french customs asking if she had anything to declare, she became quite indignnant and wanted to know what business it was of theirs, they said that they stopped all foreigners, well, that was just too much as she pointed out that she wasn't foreign, they were, british arrogance at its best.

Kinda like the old former WWII US army Sgt. going to France to visit the cemetaries at Normandy.
French immigration agent at De Gaulle airport was somewhat irate that the old Sgt. did not have his passport out for inspection.
Sgt. said he had not needed to show a passport the last time he entered France.
Agent said: Impossible, you must always show your passport to a French immigration agent.
Sgt. said: When I landed at Normandy there was not a Frenchman in sight!

Sigarms · Jul 25, 2021

fried1765 said:
Kinda like the old former WWII US army Sgt. going to France to visit the cemetaries at Normandy.
French immigration agent at De Gaulle airport was somewhat irate that the old Sgt. did not have his passport out for inspection.
Sgt. said he had not needed to show a passport the last time he entered France.
Agent said: Impossible, you must always show your passport to a French immigration agent.
Sgt. said: When I landed at Normandy there was not a Frenchman in sight!

For the record, I can only guess that's a made up story.

turnkey4099 · Jul 25, 2021

Sigarms said:
For the record, I can only guess that's a made up story.

I've heard several different versions of it.

Alien · Jul 25, 2021

Last time I was in New Zealand I laughed at the way my nieces pronounced some words. The language sounds strange to me now even though I was born there. For example Fish and chips sounds like fush and chups, Megabit sounds like Mugabit. They call a block of land a section. Many other things that confuse me now. I have been in Oz since 1976 and never have anyone asking me if I am a kiwi like they used too many years ago. In fact some friends I have had for years were surprised to learn that I was born a kiwi.

/pine · Jul 25, 2021

The part I remember always hearing about is the frenchman thanking the Brit or the American that he was not speaking German...!

Sigarms · Jul 25, 2021

turnkey4099 said:
I've heard several different versions of it.

I call internet myth on all the versions.

1 - Don't blame the soldier for the governments action, lack of action or strategy. I get the fact that we bust on the French, but it wasn't the French soldier, but the French government.

2 - I'd be willing to wager that the people in France probably reconize the US soldier more on their own soil than Americans reconize their soldiers who fought during the same time frame on our soil. We've never had an invader on our soil, in part due to geography. People tend to forget that the French were and are still very grateful for the help they recieved during WW2.

Per the original story of a veteran being asked for his passport when he was going to visit Normandy, it's a very simple story to knock the French.

That said, I did find this story from 6 years ago...