Appalachian English: Why We Say 展arsh Rag & 鏑ow Tar

[bigtiller]

Ghetto talk gets me wondering what was said occasionally. I herd someone on TV talking about Taylor Swift. The name was pronounced Tail Swif

 

[stuckmotor]

Swy, 2oz packet of tobacco, origin, no idea.

Bunyip,
Thanks! That's another of life's mysteries I don't have to worry about.

 

[/pine]

Actually I think when referring to Appalachian vernacular "swy" is short for "that's why" or "that is why"

 

[Wagtail]

Aussies tend to drop the trailing 'r' of words but I got very confused when someone, giving me directions, referred to a "ca pa"...

I eventually figured it out as "car park". :confused2:

 

[bcp]

Q: Did you know that the three wise men were firemen?

A: It says they came from a far.

 

[bunyip]

I saw a documentary some time ago about a ships crew from one State in the USA, trhe accents were almost musical and they tried to recruit all crew from the same state, I cannot recall were it was but the accents were quite unique and I would never have identified them as American, can anyone enlighten me, I think it was either a large container ship or an ice breaker but had a substantial crew.

Just did a bit of digging and found out that 'swy' is the game of two up played by Aus servicemen in the past and was also a two shilling coin, apparently swy comes from the German Zwie for two.
Pre decimal coins had slang terms like zak and deener (6p and one shilling) but I had never heard if swy.