A gazillion years ago when I was an active pilot, I got into the habit of using “Say again?” It’s perfectly acceptable in the cockpit but not so much in the real world, and I tried to be very conscious of it.
As a kid, I had to endure all the neighbor kids who were going to "take an’ " do something. As in “I’m gonna take an’ wash my dad’s car for five bucks!” or “We’re gonna take an’ scare the little kids.” I don’t know how widely spread that expression was, but I haven’t heard it in decades.
Who shot who with what now?
Johnstown/Western PA: Y’uns. Contraction of “You” and “Ones”. Pronounced as “Yoo-uns”, super fast, so it’s kinda like “yoons”.
My wife does it. It’s dumb.
Also, a West Virginia thingy: “Whenever I was in my car today, …blah blah blah”. No, it’s “WHEN I was in my car today”. Not whenever, just when. When and Whenever are two different words, and have different uses…different applications. “Whenever you find yourself in a car” is acceptable. “Whenever I find myself in a car” is acceptable. “Whenever I was 5 years old” is not.
God I hate that soooo bad.
The one I hate? “Aw, bless your heart.” “Actually, go fuck yourself. Condescending prick”
Explain this thing you call ‘a bubbla.’ This strange concept angers and infuriates me!
I say this, and it probably drives people crazy. I also sometimes say “do what now?” And I am from the south, although my accent has somewhat diminished.
Fixin’ & fittin’
Wha ‘choo fittin’ to do?
I’m fixin’ to go to the store.
mmm
The more regionalisms, the better! Some sound funny to me, but I wouldn’t want them to go away. Also, many of them carry more meaning than is commonly understood by people who don’t share them. They’re not always just alternative ways of saying the same thing.
Here’s my peeve: A drawl is not a twang. I’m tired of hearing these terms used as if they were interchangeable. I’m not very good at explaining speech in writing (I know it when I hear it), but I’d say drawling has to do with the structure of the sound; twang has to do with the tone. (If anyone who’s studied language can do better here, please jump in.) It’s possible to have one, or the other, or both, or neither. There are certainly lots of non-Southern voices with twang.
Finally, it strikes me that people who are employed in telephone customer service would do well not only to tolerate and understand the widest possible range of accents and speech patterns, but also to cultivate their own voice to be comprehensible to the widest possible range of listeners.
I don’t think it was that. My theory is that it came from Spanish speakers, who sometimes say “¿Qué pasó?” when they want you to repeat something, and if they’re thinking in Spanish and speaking English, sometimes they’ll translate directly and say “What happened?” when they mean “What did you say?” My Venezuelan friend used to do that sometimes. And if you say “What happened?” with an accent, it sounds like “Wha’ hoppin’?”
I believe you mean “shot who in the what now?”
I work with people who use the “needs” thing all the time and it drives me insane. This needs checked. This needs washed. Or even better, “this needs warshed”. GAH!
I don’t make too big a deal of it, because I’m sure I say lots of strange things that annoy everyone else, since I’m from a foreign country. At least I’ve mostly dropped my accent, eh. But I still close the lights, dammit. Can’t seem to shake that one.
Monty Python, of all people, had a little ditty that went like this:
Do what John, do what John?
Come again, do what?
Do what John, do what John?
Do what, do what, do what?
Do where John, do where John?
With what, with whom and when?
T’rrific, really t’rrific!
Pardon, come again?
It was on their Contractual Obligation Album, and of course it just comes in out of the blue with no explanation.
I like it actually.
You tend to dislike already Ugh!
Hella is hella lame. I, a civilized person from Southern California, never say hella. I did find out they said it in Las Vegas, which was weird.
Stop saying hella, Cartman!
This simply shows that you don’t understand it. 99+% of the time, in any given context, “Bless your heart” is offered with absolute sincerity. No sarcasm, no irony. It’s mostly an expression of empathy. It can, however, in extreme cases of rudeness, be used as an expression of dismissal. This usage is a double-edged sword, however, since the user can easily be thought rude for acknowledging the rudeness to begin with, or for using such an extreme response for something that might not have called for it. Make no mistake. “Bless your heart” of the second type, that which you so brazenly decry, is an absolute dismissal which is only used to respond to the most deadly, uncalled-for insults. It is not used lightly.
And you have it pretty much backward. Any fiery “Actually, go fuck yourself”, or “Condescending prick” would be what earned you a quiet “Bless your heart” of the dismissive type.
And rightfully so.
Alright already…
Indiana is the only place in the world (that I know of) that refers to a vacuum cleaner as a “sweeper”, and this I cannot stand. It’s not a sweeper! It’s called a vacuum cleaner because it CLEANS using a VACUUM.
On top of that they will use the word “sweep” as a verb just like normal people use vacuum.
Them: “I’m going to sweep the carpet while you’re gone”
Me: Oh really? I don’t think that will work very well because the broom and the carpet won’t work together. You should vacuum it.
grrrrr
It isn’t regional, but I dislike the " X had Y ", as in:
Bob had his colon perforated.
Jill had her car stolen.
I really doubt that people ( outside of masochism, fetishes or insurance fraud) have these things done to them.
Yeah, but by requesting them to say their name, you are asking them to do something. You may dislike the phrasing but technically they’re not wrong.
Watah bubbles up outta it as ya drink from it. What’s so hard to understand? What do you want, for it to spay watah out at ya? We got one of those ovah theyah. It’s called a hose.