English Language - Queries, Quirks and Quandries

Living on a south pacific island for awhile as a boy, learning to speak pidgin english was a challenge, indeed. Coming back to the states as a freshman in high school and still talkin' da kine made me a weirdo except among the surf punks with aloha nui loa. Geev um Brah!
 

Great thread. I'm loving it but have little to add.

One word I've probably always mispronounced seems to have been handed to me by my mother - we pronounce 'squeamish' as 'squawmish'. Anyone else do this ?
 

Haven't pronounced squeamish like that here Warrigal, don't hear that word very often, but never heard anyone say squawmish. :)
 
Something that always confuses me, is whether to put quotation marks before or after the period, question/exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. Luckily I'm not writing anything important, or I'd have to look it up. I see from SifuPhil's post he's got them after, at the very end. Since he's a well-known professional writer, I'll take that as bible. ;)
 
I've noticed lately when I go to the library that a lot of people are sending or receiving cell phone calls. :rolleyes: Anyhoo, full grown adults will tell the other person that they are at the "liberry". :p

One word I've always struggled with is February. It should be pronounced Febrooary...but it's much easier to say Febuary, and leave out that R.

We often mangle those too but again slightly differently, and if anything even worse!
Not all the time, we can and do 'talk nice' when we have to, (to tourists etc) but tend to get 'casual' among ourselves sometimes.
The usual lazy mispron~s heard are:
Translation: Library = lie bree .... February = Feb ree, Feb yew ree, even Febba ree (My own bad habit is Febra wary )
For some odd reason January fares better but sometimes it's Janya ree or Jan yew ree.
Weekdays are often dees or even tees, as in Mundee Tyewsdee Wensdee Thersdee Frydee Sattee/Sadda dee and Sundee.

We abbreviate shamelessly too. Everything we possibly can. Dropping half a word or phrase and replacing it with ee or o does the trick.
e.g. Biscuits are bikkies, never cookies (except on deceptive packet labels). We rarely hear the word cookie except pertaining to computers, or as a very brave man's nickname for his wife.
A Service/Gas station is pronounced Servo, a Bowling club is the Bolo.

We transpose double Rs in names to Zs, Barry = Baz or Bazza. Sharron = Shaz or Shazza. It's more a tongue in cheek 'familiarity' tradition than laziness and only spoken that way to those who are well known or friends.

Complicated innit? Gets worse, different States and cities have different quirks and terms. Even different suburbs do. Things have changed.

Back in the early 50s a study found that Australia was one of very few 'Westernised' Countries where it was impossible to tell which region a person had grown up in as it was the most homogenous language and accent around. From Perth to Sydney, country and city we sounded much the same. (Except of course for ABC news readers who talked like toffy Poms.)
It's quite sobering to watch a really old newsreel and hear how very differently we sounded and spoke back then.

I'd hazard a guess that OZ has been the fastest evolving English language changer on the planet.
In 60 years we've progressed from being Nationally homogenous to being able to pinpoint a person's origins to a particular group of suburbs in Sydney, or as coming from Perth 'Pirrith' from their 'accent' alone. We instantly recognise that someone who says muick for milk is from Adelaide, and those who end a sentence with eh? and can still say six, which eliminates Kiwis, have been in Queensland too long.

We've absorbed the various and numerous different cultures/terms/accents/phrasing from immigrants and media and adapted them into our language, for good or bad. So much for multiculturalism, the 'old' Aussies are the ones who have assimilated.

I never understood why people refer to the Aussie drawl because we speak a lot faster than many, Americans and Canadians in particular. We have to slow it down to be comprehended, my Canadian friend was always waving me down to a slower speed. Now it has speeded up even more and the acronyms and abbreviations make it harder to follow younger conversations than ever sometimes.

It's kind of sad for we older 'ears', but that's how it goes for a 'living' language.
 
Something that always confuses me, is whether to put quotation marks before or after the period, question/exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. Luckily I'm not writing anything important, or I'd have to look it up. I see from SifuPhil's post he's got them after, at the very end. Since he's a well-known professional writer, I'll take that as bible. ;)

Well, now ... if I might expound upon that premise ... *ahem* ... :rolleyes:

The "rules", such as they are, for inside or out are complicated and dependent upon whether you are in the US or the UK. Most American usage will find periods and commas inside the quotes; Brits will place periods inside and commas outside. But you'll find writers that quite often switch teams and don't stick to their own conventions.

In addition, Brits use single quotation marks while Americans use double. Again, it's a rule only in the sense that it's waiting to be broken, especially since that same rule demands that quotes within quotes use single quote marks for the Americans and double for the Brits. :hopelessness:

Confused yet? Yeah, so am I. I only do it the way I do it because of years of repetition. I've never had an editor yet (American) change it up on me, so that's what I stick with.
 
Most American usage will find periods and commas inside the quotes; Brits will place periods inside and commas outside.

Sounds right, I don't remember if I was taught the 'Brit' period inside, comma outside method but that's how I do it when I'm paying enough attention to care.

I'm guilty of using single quotation marks to stress a sarcastic or ironic word or term.
It makes sense to me but I often wonder if it does to anyone else.
 
When and if you can look at all these comments on the English language you realize how interesting it is. I was fixing to comment on some of y'all's remarks, but realized there were to many to set right. SifuPhil is correct; in the US, everything goes inside the quotation marks. I have used 'fixing to' far too many times before I realized everyone else did not use the term. I might have used 'y'all' more had I known how to spell it. Instead, I wrote it out.
 
How about this word: Nauseous..Is it Nosh..us, or Nozzie..us ?

I say.. to may toe, you say... tah mah toe..

Had a friend from Boston, she pronounced drawer, drawrer and bra, brarer, always that extra 'r' thing.
 
Byou ro . We don't encounter that underwear confusion as we don't call furniture bureaus, we call 'em chests of drawers.

Oh ... I thought you guys would call them armoires or bureaux or some other artsy-fartsy term ... :p

It IS terribly confusing for me, though, as FBI can also stand for Fat Boy's Intimates.
 
I've seen learnt used a lot online. Instead of "I learned the hard way"...they say "I learnt the hard way".
 


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