I was listening to the news, and there was an interview with a guy in Florida who said he would remain there in spite of the hurricane damage. As he put it, “I’m oan stay.”
“Oan” is obviously a slurring of “gonna”, which itself is a slurring of “going to”.
What words or phrases specific to a region, or accents or pronunciations that are specific to a region, “stick in your head”?
I’m rather fond of ther Maine accent. Evertime my wife and I go up there we always ask someone for directions, to a place that is tough to get to.
Phlosphr: E
damn hampsters…
Phlosphr: Excuse me sir…who do you get to Camden from here???
Maine Gentleman - Weelll…you can’t get they-a from hee-ya…
Another old joke: Lost guy in a hot-air balloon pauses over a Maine blueberry farm and asks: “Can you tell me where I am?” Maine farmer: “Ay-uh, you’re up there in that little basket!”
Localism that I detest: ‘Spendy’. As in “Boy that truck is spendy.”
Anywhere near Pittsburgh, you’re likely to hear that a defective vehicle “needs fixed” and a dirty one “needs washed.”
Here in Wisconsin you’ll hear people call drinking fountains “Bubblers”.
In Alabama, people from south of Montgomery, when asked how they are going to get somewhere usually answer: “I’m traveling on my car”.
North of Montgomery, it’s “I’m traveling in my car.”
Anyways, this makes one pause to wonder why we ride in an airplane but on a train.
The phrase “not for nuthin’, but…” seems to me to be a Brooklynism. My brain can’t find the words to explain what the phrase means, so I’ll use an example: “Not for nuthin, but she needs to get out of those pants - they make 'er ass look fat”.
Ugh…that one drives me batty. But there’s also y’inz and 'nat which translate as “you guys/you ones/y’all” and “and that” respectively.
Ex: “Y’inz goin’ dahn to da Cricket, 'nat?”
:: wonders where mouthbreather put that Pittsburgh Dictionary ::
“A-ight”, that charming contraction of “All right” that has infiltrated even the most white-collar parts of Oakland. I hate it.
More Maine-isms:
Cape Papas (Cape Porpoise)
My boss writes like that.
Need I say that I hate it?
Not, “needs worshed?”
I was watching Survivor the other night and heard Chris, the Ohioan, say a sentence that ended in, “like 'at.” For some reasons, Ohioans cannot say the first “th” in “that.” Sticks with me, man. Regionally related to 'nat for “and that”.
Another regionalism from another region: I was working in a BMW plant and someone asked me for a “hose pipe.” Took me a good ten minutes of pointing to different supplies before I realized he wanted a garden hose. :smack:
Lived in Kentucky for a few years. My mom had tomato plants in her backyard.
I can’t count the number of people who called them maters.
Also, it’s not a crick, hot dammit, it’s a creek. :mad:
In Cincinnati when the locals want you to repeat something you’ve said they say “Please” Just Please, not please repeat that.
Thus a conversation between a tourist and a local downtown.
Tourist “How do I get to the Taft from here”
Local “Please”
Tourist “Ok, How do I get to the Taft from here, Please”
It’s no end of fun.
Cricks and creeks are two different things, at least up here in da UP. A crick is a wild thing, and has a size limit. You’d never see a crick running through a town. Cricks don’t have trimmed banks or landscaping around them. Cricks run through the woods, and may appear and disappear in different places. A crick can be anywhere from a few inches across to a few feet; any larger than that and it becomes a stream or a creek or a river.
I didn’t know any of that. Still, I must defer to Mister Webster on the subject of whether it’s a correct usage.
Plus, and more importantly, people saying it make my left eye twitch.
Here in Massachusetts, too. But with a real Massachusetts accent it comes out “bubblahs”
One weird regionalism is from Utah, the Land of the Squeaky-Clean folks. It’s normal practice to replace “Hell” with “Heck” there – “What the Heck?” “Get the Heck out of here!” etc.
But one that makes no logical sense is the Utah expression of surprise and dismay: “Oh, my Heck!”
“Oh, my Heck?” What? Nobody says “Oh, my Hell!”, so where the Heck does this come from?
Ed Bagley, Utah editorial cartoonist extraordinaire, used it as a title for one of his books.
Johnny L.A., if I’m not being careful about my pronounciation, I’ll sometimes say “I’m oan…” Never at work, but if I’m tired or drunk, it slips out.
Another good southern one is “might could” for maybe. “I might could do that.”
Two that come to my mind are the lunch ladies and waitresses (among others) around Cambridge, MA who referred to any kind of soda as “tonic.”
Also, in an old, handwritten recipe notebook, I have my grandmother’s recipe for chilli sauce, which contains no chilis, but does call for “mangoes”—aka green bell peppers.
“Jiminy Christmas, don’t be sittin’ on the davenport til you’ve worshed your hands in the lavatory.”
-Grandma Dooku (Southern Illinois)
It always amuses me when I visit my friend in Dallas to hear them call every type of soda a coke.
“Something to drink while you look over the menu?”
“I’ll have a Coke.”
“OK, what kind?”
“Dr. Pepper.”
“We’ve got some cokes in the fridge, Dooku.”
::opens fridge, sees nothing but Sprite::