Britishisms sneaking into American vernacular

[esteban68]

she got it all going on....seriously nice dress too!

et voila: Mad Men's Christina Hendricks

 

[Big Bertie]

I live in Great Britain but today we tend to use United Kingdom and I speak English
one of seven official languages of Britain, Not British however there are about 27 variations of English,

I would hate to sound like a linguist-pedant, but I believe English is the only official language spoken here. Welsh has some official protection in Wales, and Gaelic in Scotland, but that's about it.

 

[Nipper]

I would hate to sound like a linguist-pedant, but I believe English is the only official language spoken here. Welsh has some official protection in Wales, and Gaelic in Scotland, but that's about it.

That's all I can think of unless you include Cornish. Mind you, there's also Brummie, Geordie, Scouse...et al

 

[davidraphael]

I would hate to sound like a linguist-pedant, but I believe English is the only official language spoken here. Welsh has some official protection in Wales, and Gaelic in Scotland, but that's about it.

Yes, English is the only official language.

The other officially recognised languages, as mostly already indicated are:
Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Ulster Scots, Welsh, Cornish & British sign language.

Scouse, brummie, etc are not languages but regional dialects or simply regional accents.

 

[Big Bertie]

That's all I can think of unless you include Cornish. Mind you, there's also Brummie, Geordie, Scouse...et al

I know we have any number of regional accents, some better than others, but the posting I was answering mentioned official languages (of Britain - UK?). I wasn't even sure the UK had an 'official language', but according to Direct Gov we do and it's English.

You mention Cornish, but it's sadly an extinct language. I think Manx might still be spoken, but I'm not sure, and there is also Romany I believe, but neither has any official standing.

 

[DJH]

Nice one!!

But tell me, does it translate into 'American'? Do they use that word over there?
Shame you can't use that reg over here. I would love to get me Germans on a plate like that for my motor!!

Doesn't really translate into American, I'm afraid. Usually the only people who have a clue are old Sex Pistols fans.

Interestingly, there is a Scottish guy in our town with a version of Dogs Bollocks as his reg number - DOGS BOLX or something like that.

 

[David Conwill]

I'm surprised nobody got upset over this one: "Anyone who says bespoke...is just 'showing off'."

I'm going to start saying "custom made". It saves a lot of explanation anyway.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I had never heard, read, or seen the word "bespoke" in my life until I joined the Lounge. I figured it was "forumese".

 

[davidraphael]

"Bespoke" is a standard term if you're in any kind of design business, whether it be clothes, jewellery, interior design or graphics.
I wasn't aware of the term until I became a designer.
Generally, people only get to hear the word when they're rich enough to be able to afford items that are custom-made for them

 

[LizzieMaine]

In my world, we'd say "custom made" as opposed to "off the rack" when referring to clothes. The guy who owned the last radio station I worked at would come in wearing a fancy new topcoat, and when anyone admired it or commented on it he'd give his head a swanky little toss and say "Custommmmm maaaaaade." That was the signal that we of the peasantry were supposed to be impressed.

We never had a term for custom jewelry, interior design, or graphics because, as you say, we didn't know those things existed -- all the jewelry we were aware of came from the Diskount Kredit place or the pawnshop, interior design was what you found at Sears and Roebuck, and the nearest thing to graphics we knew about was the guy on a scaffold painting a big sign for Dubble-Ware Overalls on the side of the Kilroy's Building.

 

[Louise Anne]

I do not think there any thing is stopping any one from using " Old english today" and yes that english but would any one undestand you or think you mad using it ,is another matter today and there around 27/26 other ones which have gone out of use or used very little.



English language in England:

Northern In the far north, local speech is akin to Scots[2]
Cheshire
Cumbrian (Cumbria including Barrow-in-Furness)
Geordie (Tyneside)
Lancastrian (Lancashire)
Mackem (Sunderland)
Mancunian-Salfordian (Manchester & Salford)
Northumbrian (rural Northumberland)
Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland)
Scouse (Liverpool)
Yorkshire (also known as Broad Yorkshire) (Spoken in Yorkshire)
East Midlands
West Midlands
Black Country English
Brummie (Birmingham)
Potteries (north Staffordshire)
Telford accent
East Anglian
Norfolk dialect
Suffolk dialect
Southern
Received Pronunciation (also known as Queen's English (or King's English) or BBC English)
Cockney (working-class London and surrounding areas)
Essex dialect
Estuary (Thames Estuary)
Kentish (Kent)
Multicultural London English (Inner London)
Sussex
West Country
Anglo-Cornish
Bristolian dialect

Scotland

Scottish English
Highland English
Glaswegian
Scots (sister language originating from Middle English)
Doric (North East of Scotland)

Wales

Welsh English
Cardiff

Northern Ireland

Mid Ulster English
Belfast
Derry
Ulster Scots
South Ulster English

Republic of Ireland

Hiberno-English
Dublin
Cork
Waterford City
Kerry and Cork County
Connacht
Sligo Town
Galway City
Rural Munster (Tipperary, Limerick County, Clare, Waterford)
Limerick City
North Leinster (Louth and Meath)
South Leinster (Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Offaly, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow)
Donegal

Isle of Man

Manx English

Channel Islands

Guernsey English
Jersey English

Malta

Maltenglish

North America
United States

American English - Standard American English is the general form

Cultural
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)
Chicano English
New York Latino English
Pennsylvania Dutch English
Yeshivish
Yinglish

Regional
New England English
Boston accent
Boston Brahmin accent
Hudson Valley English
Lake Dialect or Lake Talk
Vermont English
Inland Northern American English (includes western and central upstate New York)
Northeast Pennsylvania English
Mid-Atlantic dialects
Baltimore dialect
Philadelphia dialect
Pittsburgh English
New York dialect
New Jersey English dialects
Inland Northern American English (Lower peninsula of Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, the suburbs of Chicago, part of eastern Wisconsin and upstate New York)
North–Central American English (primarily Minnesota, but also most of Wisconsin, the Upper peninsula of Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
Yooper dialect (Upper Peninsula of Michigan and some neighboring areas)
Midland American English
North Midlands English (thin swath from Nebraska to Ohio)
St. Louis
South Midland (thin swath from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania)
Southern English
Appalachian English
Tidewater accent
Virginia Piedmont
Virginia Tidewater [3]
Coastal Southeastern (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia area)
Cajun English
Harkers Island English (North Carolina)
Ozark English
Southern Highland English
Gullah or Geechee
Texan
Yat dialect (New Orleans)
Ocracoke
Western English
California English
Boontling
Pacific Northwest English
Hawaiian Pidgin

Canada

Canadian English:

Newfoundland English
Maritimer English
Cape Breton accent
Lunenburg English
West/Central Canadian English
Northern Ontario English
Quebec English
Ottawa Valley Twang
Pacific Northwest English

Bermuda

Bermudian English
Native/American indigenous peoples

Native American/indigenous peoples of the Americas English dialects:

Mojave English
Isletan English
Tsimshian English
Lumbee English
Tohono O'odham English
Inupiaq English

Oceania
Australia

Australian English (AusE, AusEng):

Cultural
General Australian
Broad Australian
Cultivated Australian
Australian Aboriginal English
Regional
South Australian English
Western Australian English
Torres Strait English
Australian Kriol language
Victorian English
Queensland English
Norfuk language

New Zealand

New Zealand English (NZE, NZEng):

Maori English
Southland accent

Other

Pitkern

Central and South America
Belize

Belizean English

Bay Islands Department

Bay Islands English

Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands English

Guyana

Guyanese English

Caribbean

Caribbean English

Anguilla

Anguillan English

Antigua

Antiguan English

The Bahamas

Bahamian English

Jamaica

Jamaican English

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidadian English

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Vincentian English

Asia
Burma

Burmese English

Hong Kong

Hong Kong English

Pakistan

Pakistani English

Thailand

Tinglish

India

Indian English
Hinglish
Punjabi/Delhi English
U.P/Bihari English
Bengali/Assamese English
Oriya English
Gujarati English
Maharashtrian English
Kannadiga English
Telugu English
Tamil English
Malayalee English

Malaysia

Malaysian English (MyE)

Philippines

Philippine English (PhE)

Singapore

Singapore English

Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan English (SLE)

Africa
Cameroon

Cameroon English

Liberia

Liberian English

Nigeria

Nigerian Standard English

Malawi

Malawian English

South Africa

South African English

East Africa

East African English

Uganda

Ugandan English

Kenya

Kenyan English



********************

 

[Louise Anne]

I would hate to sound like a linguist-pedant, but I believe English is the only official language spoken here. Welsh has some official protection in Wales, and Gaelic in Scotland, but that's about it.

Do have a look on the internet and see what you can come up with ... pedant is right as I sure there a lot of people doing that on the web with the results you find ....

 

[Big Bertie]

That's excellent although I think you have missed out a few. What about Zummerzet? West Country is a bit of a broad term. I like Pitmatic (spoken only by coal miners so presumably it's dying out).

 

[Louise Anne]

Thank you , but did you spot the mistake Big Bertie?

 

[Big Bertie]

Thank you , but did you spot the mistake Big Bertie?

There are a few, aren't there?

 

[Louise Anne]

I not sure how many have you spotted, that's a list I pulled off the web, the main one as I see it "English language in England:" it's all English and it just modern regional variations e.g. ( Broad Yorkshire) is English

 

[Yeps]

Wonderful list. It is fun to see how complex language gets (and trust me, English isn't the only one that is like this.) New Orleans provides a great illustration of how specific regional dialect can be.

New Orleans

The various dialects of New Orleans make it the most unusual dialect situation in all of North America. Some neighborhoods speak Classical Southern, and other neighborhoods speak a dialect which doesn’t sound Southern at all, but instead sounds exactly like New York City until you listen for a while. I have taken several dialect samples from this clip from the “YEAH, YOU RITE” documentary. This clip is a dialect student’s dream, and explains in some detail the dialect situation in New Orleans. I used four samples from this clip because it was clear what neighborhood of New Orleans they were each from. I would have used more, but it was impossible to determine what part of town the other speakers were from.

The entire documentary does not seem to be available on the Internet, except for purchase. I did, however, find a transcript, which helped a bit in identifying speakers. 14-Jan.-2011

New Orleans seems to be the only city in North America in which the entire city does not have the same dialect. In this respect it is like London of the early 1900’s, as is implied by the speaker on the park bench who refers to “’Enry ’Iggins or Higgins”, the dialect expert in the movie My Fair Lady. This fact, explained in some detail by several of the speakers in the “YEAH, YOU RITE” documentary, seems to have been missed by the ANAE (Ch. 18) (see pages 259 and following), since they treat the city as a whole in their descriptions.

Help! I need a lot more info about New Orleans neighborhoods and their dialects. In particular, I would love to know who the guy on the park bench is, and where exactly he grew up. (I at least now have that information about the narrator, Billy Delle!) 14-Apr.-2011

Wards: It is not uncommon for New Orleanians to identify where they are from by their ward number, and several of the speakers do so. These are not neighborhoods, but voting wards, and seem to radiate away from the Mississippi River in long strips. For a map of the wards. see: www.louisianarebuilds.info/files/wards.pdf. 23-Feb.-2010

 

[Big Bertie]

I wonder who compiled it? I suspect not English (not that there's any particular reason why they should be) as some of distinctions are too broad (e.g. East Midland, West Midlands) and contain various dialects, some listed some not.

 

[esteban68]

Quite so BB...North East Derbyshire/South Yorkshire isn't on and is quite different from even it's near neighbours, when I go down to the bottom of the shire the people down there have difficulty with my accent, especially the young people as they all now appear to speak a 'Hollyoaks' type dialect.

 

[kiwilrdg]

Along with the regional dialects there are also sub-culture dialects like each branch of the military.

While TAD at DG with AMC an airman was FUBAR when he asked how many clicks to the BX. He knew the BX was called the PX in the Army but didn't know to ask for the skinny on the exchange in the Navy.