I always notice when a British person tacks on the unnecessary (to my reasoning) time.
AE: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
BE: “I’ll be there in ten minutes time.”
To me, in US English, “geezer” connotes a grumpy old man.
Or “Shug.” (Short for “Sugar.”
No, normal people don’t say “youse guys” in New Jersey. Nor do we say “bada bing bada boom.” Or “Joisey,” for that matter.
I’ve only ever heard youse guys used once, by a school lunch lady on Long Island* in 1978 or so. I remember it because I went home and asked my mommy what she was on about.** Never heard it in “in the wild” again.
“Y’all” is common, even outside the South. “Yinz” was definitely in use in Pittsburgh, at least amongst working-class folks in the early '90s when I lived there - though I think it was typically avoided because “Yinzer” had become a negative stereotype.
- Long Island is indeed pronounced Lawn Guyland by natives, though not in such an exaggerated way.
** Deliberate use of a British-ism there.
We would say “what she was talking about” instead.
You have to come to Australia for that one…
…but there, I got nothin’
Perhaps not subtle but while evacuating from Irma I listened to the Beeb overnight on my 22(!) hour drive from Melbourne to Louisville and some - but not all - announcers pronounced the name of the next hurricane as “Joe-zay”. Which made me cringe but then I realized that the American pronunciation of “Hoe-zay” probably makes Spanish speakers cringe equally.
And many New Jerseyians totally do say “Joisey”, though not in such an exaggerated way.
Or at least that’s what it sounds like to most people from elsewhere.
Back in college, I had a roommate from New Jersey, and in most regards, his accent was basically just the Wonder Bread newscaster accent that you could hear anywhere in America… except that he called the compartment you pull out in a dresser a “draw”, instead of a “drawer”. I’m not sure if he thought it was spelled “draw”, or knew the spelling and was just eliding the final R.
“Youse” and “youse guys” is definitely used among some (sub)dialects in Chicago. I will occasionally use it in the phrase “Hey, whatchoose guys up to?” “Youse” is far more common. I could swear I’ve heard it in the New York metro area, but there’s just so many accents out there.
I had a roommate in the Air Force from Youngstown, Ohio who sayd “yunz”.
When I was going to college, there was a guy in one of my classes from Southern Georgia, who spoke with what would almost have qualified as a New Jersey/Brooklyn accent, with the “joisey” pronunciation.
But does it then become “ten minutes’ time”?
Oh, that’s how we say it here as well - so it’s a “chest of draws” - even though you’ll write “chest of drawers”
The subjunctive mode is common – you must remember (1) that in England, politeness is often a form of rudeness, and (2) openness is an American characteristic. A British TV character wouldn’t call his friends “nice” or “good” unless he was taking the piss or was unsufferably worthy.
On the other hand the subjective tense is local dialect. An Australian would say “he wasn’t a bad bloke” or “He’s not a bad bloke”.
One I’ve been wondering about is “hold by”.
In Orthodox Jewish communities, it’s a way of saying you follow a particular religious ruling- i.e., “I don’t do X, I hold by Rabbi Ploni.” I don’t think I’ve heard it used in any way in the wider world. I don’t know if there are other English speakers who say something similar, or if it’s just a Yiddishism that found its way into Yinglish.
It’s somewhat common where I grew up, almost always in the negative “I don’t hold by these newfangled ideas.”
In my mid-Ohio accent: /dɹɔɹz/, rhymes with “wars”. I’m not surprised a non-rhotic dialect like from New Jersey would drop the latter “r”.
My Scottish grandmother used to use the term “He makes a good screw” to describe someone who had a good job/salary. This didn’t go over well with the other wives in town until it was explained to her what that meant on this side of the pond.
Folks in the Great Lakes area frequently append unnecessary possessives to business names, regardless of whether it’s in the name or not. e.g. Let’s shop at Meijer’s
Yes, we do. It just sounds right to us.
Oh, that’s right!