Nancybee,
I don't know about that one.
I seem to have lots of loose weight these days . . .

Howling, here, Jodokus! You're killin' me...as I'm fixin' to fix myself a peanut butter and banana sammich and hopin' my jewry doesn't get all messed up in the maynaise and I don't go trippin' on them flo-boreds and have to file me a law-suit. 'Corse it could be cuz my arthuritis is actin' up. I didden think about that. (Sorry, got carried away, and I hope I don't have to translate)

Annie, I love that book and have given a couple of copies to my British friends. They were totally 'gobsmacked' (my favorite British slang word)!

Recently I saw a huge, professionally-made banner which read, "MINITURE HORSES FOR SALE." I suppose I should give them credit for using "SALE" instead of "SELL", which I see all too often.

I know a couple of people who say "supposably", and one person who repeatedly uses the phrase "just for grims" (instead of grins).

A banker friend of mine told me that she could barely hold it together one day in a meeting with a lifer at the bank who was famous for cheerleading when he didn't really have anything to contribute...on this particular day, he said, "We've got to be bold! we've got to be brave! We've got to shoot from the seat of our pants!"

This is such a fun thread!

...my dear 99 year old uncle who says his grandson is going to be an arch-i-tect.

...Mom always said myur-ah for mirror, alblum for album, prespiration for perspiration and often signed up for a magazine prescription

...Dad talked about planting popular trees, and we had to watch out for poison ivory. But he also used an expression that I loved..."don't give me none of your rhubarb" meaning don't talk back.

awm03 - you owes me a new monitor. somehow the diet coke I was drinking spewed everywhere.

This whole thread is thoroughly entertaining - love it when a bunch of wordsmiths get wound up.

I once knew a woman who had really bad headaches.
She called them mind-grain headaches.

"...when a bunch of wordsmiths get wound up"

Good phrasing :) I'll have to remember that.

One of my betes noirs is that the plural of bete noir isn't betes noirs, it's betes noires. Sorry, I just could not resist! :)

Good one Lynxe. Also, "Holly wood" is Hollywood:) Bronwynsmom, I think your mistakes in this thread support my premise that many spelling and other errors are often just typos rather than ignorance.

For lynxe (it came back to the fore in the debate over the correct plural of "iPhone 5"):

Here is a link that might be useful: William Safire orders a Whopper

Actually, two were typos and the other ignorance!
I left the pluralizing "s" off of "evils" in "the root of all evils," and CLBlakey caught that one - quoting a different translation as "all kinds of..."

Hollywood I know, because I used to live down the street therefrom...

The "betes noires" was the ignorant one. Thank you, Lynxe! My French is perfectly awful. Time to spend a couple of months in Paris.

I wish...!

Very-close-veins.

Love this thread, Bronwynsmom!
Kitchendetective-my coworker called what her mom had on
her legs "varicle veins"....and her attorney put their
money in an "escarole" account...and they were like "two
peas in a POT"

Here's one that I often notice on GW, and it's scary:

People are putting SHUDDERS at their windows!

I shutter to think of it...

>> She once brought a dinner party at our house in Boston to a complete halt by commenting on the beautiful summer sky, and the "cleah ayuh." Bronwynsmom, I'm confused. Does that say what I think it says? the "clear air"? That's what I think it says and the reason I do is because that is exactly how I would say...with the exception of a not so heavy y.. ayuh is more Maine... or Kennedy speak. The Kennedy's accent was/is different from the more typical Boston accent. There are 2 hilarious morning DJ's on WROR radio in Boston, they do the Loren and Wally Show and they have a long running segment called "Men From Maine". Hysterically funny! Maybe you know of them?

E

Which brings me to my confusion...if the dinner party was in Boston and it was YOUR house, I assume the guests were all out-of-towners then?

It's funny, most people say I have a heavy Boston accent..and I used to be a telephone operator, Directory Assistance, actually, and the callers all used to ask me to talk some more just so they could hear my accent.

I say most because I have taken cruise vacations where you meet people from all over the US (other countries, too) and if I am overheard having a conversation at the bar people from the Midwest and other parts of the US will say "Oh, honey.. listen to her talk, a real N�Yawkah....and suddenly, the 2 guys from NY sitting at the end of the bar, and the 4 broads from Jersey sitting in the corner will loudly proclaim, in unison "Whaddaya nuts! She ain't no N�Yawkah she's from Bahstan". lol Which, oddly enough is NOT the way people from Boston pronounce it!

What part of Boston, if you don't mind my asking. I lived in Boston most of my life..and I miss it, and Massachusetts, terribly. And I can't believe I'm going to say this but, yes, even the friggin' cold!

This has been wicked (VBG) fun!

E

Here is a link that might be useful: Maine accent

How funny, ENMc! Yes, clear air.

My mother is pure Tidewater Virginia, born and bred. But now that you bring it up, I can hear the "cleah ayah" spelling pronounced Down East just as easily, and the two sounds are somehow very different!

We were in Lincoln for four years. Before that, three years on Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay. It all sounds terribly ritzy, but we were in a wonderful big apartment first, then in a lovely cluster house community with conservation land around us in Lincoln - not in one of those glorious houses on umpty-ump inherited acres! We loved it, too.

I bet you say "foe-ah" for 4, don't you! And my memory of the local pronunciation of Boston carries the same vowel sound as "shop" and "porter." The New Yorkers clearly confused the sound with "car" and "Harvard."

I'm glad to hear you say that about the Kennedys - I think they had a lot of their father's Chicago in their speech.

But as a native Bostonian, you know that there are many many Massachusetts accents, and you can probably tell the difference between somebody from Quincy and somebody from Marblehead, can't you?
(I now know to say "Quinzey...)

Thanks ,Bronwynsmom, for the clarification of the word ask.
I always wondered why they would pronounce it "AX".
Since I work in a hospital setting the words that come
immediately to my mind are "prostrate" vs "prostate"
"masectomy" vs "mastectomy" and perscription vs prescription...
I went to Catholic school and the nuns stressed phonetics,
cursive handwriting (the palmer method)and how to diagram a
sentence...it makes me feel like I was born in the stone age!

Some of my Mississippi relatives say:
My fathah and mothah...
It only cost a dollah.
Good mo-ah-nin!

I could definitely hear some of them saying,
"Cleah ayuh."

When I was in Boston, I used to tease a local gal about how she could tell the difference between a shark and a shock as she pronounced them both the same.

deep seeded for deep seated-
kitchen detective, lol about the loose weight!

Funny thread!

I think ENMc meant IMs and colas not IM's and Cola's...

A few sound bites : Silly yankees ( non -southerners, that is)insist on pronouncing " Dawn", a woman,s name, and "Don", a man's, just the same. Wha???
Virginians , especially in the Tidewater area, share some pronunciations ( still!!) with New Englanders dure tot our early colony days.
As for regional accents, on another thread a few years ago, some were seeing its demise. Our Alabama poster, Allison, said her children had no accent. That made me sad. We 're becoming so homogenous .
Ipads! Grrrr. I adore mine, but find i post on here much less as tiyping can be so annoying. I want to jump,in, but sigh andbthe moment passes. I should get a keyboard,, I s'pose. :>)

The thing about the boston accent is not only do they drop "r"s as in pock for park, but they also add them where they don't belong....Donna becomes Donnar. Way back when JFK was president, he talked about missiles in Cuber. Cuber???

That may be from the original English. After 20 years here I no longer say Cuber, Alasker, and Tamper but my family and friends in the UK still pronounce them that way.

"The "betes noires" was the ignorant one. Thank you, Lynxe! My French is perfectly awful. Time to spend a couple of months in Paris."

My pleasure. However, I think you definitely need to practice, wouldn't you agree? This is the perfect time of year to go to Paris...er, I mean, to school. ;)

"The thing about the boston accent is not only do they drop "r"s as in pock for park"

You're not even close, here. It isn't POCK for PARK. Or Mock for MARK.

It's pahk and mahk ;)

And like I said, the Kennedy accent is different than the typical Boston Accent. It is unique to the Kennedy family.
Whether talking the Kennedy accent or the Boston accent, it is notoriously hard to nail from anyone not from here! ;)

And bronwynsmom, yup.. Quinzy, not Quincy.

And think more Southie than Boston when I say I'm from Boston. Not from Southie, from Charlestown, but most people know what Southie sounds like..Charlestown and Southie are very, very close in sound. Think of the Scorcsese film, The Depahhted!;0 Google or YouTube The Housewives of South Boston if you want to see hilarious!

The new news anchors get crucified when they mispronounce a city. They always mangle Worcester.

Worcester is Wusstah
wuss rhymes with puss, now add the stah
WussStah.

I've seen people try to explain it as WOOSTAH... but that's wrong... Woo would rhyme with poo. The anchormen think they are all set and look dopey as all get out when they say WOOSTAH. Rhymes with Roostah (Rooster)

My sister lives in Florida, been there only 4 years and she already pronounces her R's. Says FORE (4) instead of Foe-ah 'Course, FORTY is completely different than foe-ah. Fawhty.

Again, this has been wicked pissah fun!

E

Chaahlestown, eh??!

I can just hear you saying what I think is the perfect sentence for your accent...
"The shuttle cah doesn't stoap at Leechmeeah."
Or Birricka either, for that matter.
;>)

Remember Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch in the recurring sketch..."You aah!" "No YOU aah!"

I tried to just post an ;)

signed with an E

Wouldn't accept it.

I do love regional speech - perhaps in my next life I'll choose linguistics as my career. Most of those wonderful accents, whether from the North Carolina mountains or the shores of Lake Michigan, only exist there, and only in people who haven't lived anywhere else for generations.

I doubt that they will survive television, which seems to be homogenizing our children's speech. I no longer sound like my mother (although I can pull it out of my hat if I need to encourage somebody nawth of he-yuh to help me do something...).

One of my friends grew up near Worcester (Wusstah). When she was a teen she took the train somewhere (I don't remember where) and when she wanted to return to Worcester she went to the ticket counter in the other town and asked for a ticket to Worcester. The clerk looked at her and said they don't go to Worcester. She told him they DO, because she had come from there. No, I'm sorry there is no town named Worcester on my list. My friend was in tears because how could she get home when they are telling her it doesn't exist? Finally she went to the counter and asked if they went to Wor - ches - ter? Oh, sure they did, and she got her ticket home.

I remember on one of my early trips to FL, I went to a tag sale figuring I'd hear a real southern FL accent. Hah!

I stopped at a table and the lady said, "Oh dahlink, that would look beeyutiful on you! And what a bahgin compaired to the depahtment stawhs!"

I have many pet peeves when it comes to grammar, punctuation, and spelling but I have too many faults to let the misuse of same by others get to me.
Comma left out of a series. Journalist have allowed the comma in a series rule be forgotten. The use of a comma after each item in a series is for clarity. The example I use is: John, Mary and Joe will share the inheritance equally. Because there isn't a comma after Mary, a judge could rule that John gets 50 percent and Mary and Joe would get the other half.
To keep it decorating related: Either side, which is ALWAYS used by decorators. I was considering purchasing bachelor chests for my bedroom. The decorator at the furniture store said "You can put them on either side of the bed and still have room." I told her that I wanted one on each side of the bed. She said "That's what I suggested." No, you said I could put "them" on either side of the bed and I took that to mean that I would have two chests on either this side or that side. Of course I knew what she meant but I was being a smart aleck.

This is intimidating, I am aware that I make errors when posting but the errors are more because of a hurried post or in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.

How about a mute point instead of a moot point. And people who use mute will defend to the death that they are using the correct word.

Also, someone mentioned above realator instead of Realtor, I work in a RE office and it's amazing how many actual Realtors get this wrong!

My personal pet peeve, which I know I've mentioned before is the rampant misuse of myself. As in "James and myself will be going to the seminar". Or "you can give your report to Jane or myself".

Here's a great site of common errors in the link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Common Errors

In an IEP meeting on Friday, the classroom teacher said, "me and him work on homework before he leaves." I was mortified. Most of our parents are not native English speakers, so they don't recognize mistakes. I think I need to retire. It is horrifying to me when teachers and administrators make grammar mistakes. I also hear, "give it to _____ or I." Aaarrgghh.

Here's one. I just read this elsewhere and I remembered how it's such a pet peeve of mine.

Writing "Yea!" instead of "Yay!".

"Yea! My team won!"

NO...it's

"Yay! My team won!"

Can be yea as well. Originally, it was always yea, but now the spelling has two accepted choices. 'Yeah' is the spelling when you are saying something like, "yeah, right" meaning yes.

Oh yes, Oakley. Another online one: "hehe"

?? Do they really mean "hee hee" (like a giggle) or "heh heh" (like gloating)?

I always understood "Yea" to be the opposite vote to "Nay" when some people stopped saying "Aye."

I think Congress still says "Aye," don't they?
(That is, if they are ever for something...!)

While we're on the subject of accents, did anyone see this SNL skit making fun of Californian accents? This skit nailed Californian accents - the vocal fry, surfer talk, nasal tone, and the obsession with avoiding freeways. And putting a "the" in front of highways -- the 405, the 10, the 280.

"Uhhh...wahhhht arrre yoouuuu doinng heeerrre?"

Here is a link that might be useful: SNL skit

1. The hanging jaw has made its way into acting, too. It drives me nuts. Do these actors think that leaving their mouths open and their jaws slack gives them expression? Interesting that Californian, which was once referred to as a "regionless accent," is now becoming its own variety. The rest of the country is homogenizing.
2. For a fascinating read on the development of English and its varieties, formerly known as dialects, see Baugh and Cable, A History of the English Language, if you haven't already read it.
3. See also, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, even with its lousy editing.
4. Does anyone recall the BBC (maybe PBS?) documentary about English--done in the eighties? Included rap, pubs in Cornwall, etc.?

What a great thread, says she who is taking a break from grading papers, sitting in Rhode Island, but having lived in Tidewater, VA.

For my students at least, I do think the issue is not reading much. Their world is largely oral and visual (images, not text -- or primarily very abbreviated text). They hear a word, understand (generally) what it means and then try their best to spell it -- such as "waa laa" for "voila."

Of course, I go crazy about there/their/they're; weather/whether; its/it's.

My current favorite is this: referring to a defining experience as a "seminole moment"!

Posts that start with "Okay" as a warm-up word. "Okay, my contractor screwed up and I need some advise. I should of come here sooner. I would of if I'd known about GW. I could of saved myself a lot of aggravation."

Marti, funny you mention typing on an iPad. If I have a lot to write, I go to the PC. But I have a friend who does most of her stuff on her iPad, including emailing.

It's gotten to where I don't even want to read her mail anymore! She doesn't use paragraphs and changes topics in the same paragraph. I'm like, "WTH is she talking about?"

How hard is it to pay attention to what you're writing on an iPad? It's pretty easy.

May flowers, guilty as charged with beginning a sentence with "Okay." LOL. Or I'll write "Well,".

E-mail blasts that dispense with a proper salutation and begin with "Hey -"

I don't answer to it on the street, nor do I respond to it in my inbox.

It amazes me that so many people don't take the time to write a clear, coherent message, expecting the recipient to do the work of puzzling it out (while feeling the waves of disrespect that come along with it).

I would congratulate all of you on your perfect grammar and impeccable spelling, but---since you've already done it---I won't.

Kswl, I totally get what you're saying. In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people act like the Grammar Police. I have friends who are Librarians, English teachers, etc., and they constantly get in the school marm mode of making fun of others regarding proper grammar and punctuation. I'm too old for lectures when most mistakes are just that, mistakes.

Using advice/advise in the wrong context constantly drives me insane! lol.

Hey Bronwyn, lol, with my close friends we use "Hey" quite a bit. It's usually if we're sending off a quick email asking something. Also, in the region where I live, saying "Hey" is the norm in greeting close friends and family.

Oakley, I'm in Virginia, too, and we say "Hey," too, to people we know and love. As in "Hey, darlin'!"

I meant in place of a salutation, from someone who doesn't know me, soliciting something.