Terms Which Have Disappeared

[MissMittens]

"Ipso fatso."

It was common in the Era to refer to someone who'd had too much to drink as being "non compos mentis."

My father used that a lot

 

[Ticklishchap]

"Ipso fatso."
It was common in the Era to refer to someone who'd had too much to drink as being "non compos mentis."

My father used that a lot

Ipso facto, surely?!

These expressions used to be in frequent usage here in the UK. Now they are barely used at all, partly because Latin has so much fallen out of favour in the education system.

De facto and de jure are still in use as legal terms.

 

[Dm101]

There's a lot of English and especially Scots Irish influence in the accents and vocabulary of the Deep South. I hope I can get away with saying that Southern speech in general (not just the Deep South) sounds old-fashioned to my ears. An extreme example: I recall getting a cab in Washington DC in the mid-80s with a driver from rural Virginia. His English sounded almost Shakespearean, as if frozen in time. It was wonderful to listen to him.

Lucky you. Most of the deep south vernacular that I've heard has been the most guttural shortcut-speak that you can imagine.
From DC on south to Floriduh....ugh.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Lucky you. Most of the deep south vernacular that I've heard has been the most guttural shortcut-speak that you can imagine.
From DC on south to Floriduh....ugh.

There is a sense that Florida is different from the rest of the South and has a lot of influences from the rest of the US as well as the strong Hispanic culture. As a digression, I love the Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) language, which I first heard in NYC but which is also spoken in Miami.

 

[The Jackal]

Lucky you. Most of the deep south vernacular that I've heard has been the most guttural shortcut-speak that you can imagine.
From DC on south to Floriduh....ugh.

Every regional dialect has an equivalent though. The southern accent gets the most hate, but I've had conversations with people from all parts of the country that left me wondering how they survived to adulthood when they can't even string legitimate words together into proper sentences. The south included.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm a big fan of dialects -- I think "proper English" is whatever the local consensus deems it to be, and I'm proudly non-rhotic. If people want to hear "r" enunciated, then go somewhere else. But that said, the deep, deep Alabama-type accent has always given me trouble when I hear it spoken -- I knew a guy once, with a very deep voice, who spoke in this slow, sorghum drawl, and I couldn't understand more than half of what he said. I'm usually able to duplicate accents or dialects reasonably well after listening to them for a bit, but that's one I've never been able to convincingly master.

 

[The Jackal]

It just occurred to me that I use an antiquated term that I rarely, if ever, hear anyone else use:

Mayhap

I will often use mayhap in place of perhaps. I'm not exactly sure where I picked it up, because I can't think of a single person I've heard use it. I googled the word and even merriam-webster lists the word as "archaic".

 

[tonyb]

"Sugar"
A few days ago Crooner Radio played Frank Sinatra's "When I Take My Sugar To Tea". I associate "sugar" as a term of endearment with America (it never caught on this side of the Pond) and the era of black and white movies. Am I right in thinking that it is no longer used in the States? It would be a shame to lose it altogether.

The Old Man, a child of the South, said it frequently. He also frequently called people of any familiarity at all “honey.”

 

[tonyb]

"It's a crying shame." ...

This is an English phrase I very rarely hear these days: I don't know if it is familiar to North Americans as I can't recall hearing it in the US or Canada.

I was reminded of it last week when one of the tabloid newspapers ran 'Crying Shame' as a headline, a reference to Theresa May's resignation tears outside 10 Downing Street, with accompanying facial contortions curiously reminiscent of Bozo the Clown.

I very much associate the phrase with the London of my youth (70s/80s/early 90s) and the old-fashioned type of Londoner who has now moved out to Essex or Kent.

It’s a common enough phrase among people of my age and older. I use it, and not sarcastically (not necessarily sarcastically, anyway).

 

[tonyb]

I'm a big fan of dialects -- I think "proper English" is whatever the local consensus deems it to be, and I'm proudly non-rhotic. If people want to hear "r" enunciated, then go somewhere else. But that said, the deep, deep Alabama-type accent has always given me trouble when I hear it spoken -- I knew a guy once, with a very deep voice, who spoke in this slow, sorghum drawl, and I couldn't understand more than half of what he said. I'm usually able to duplicate accents or dialects reasonably well after listening to them for a bit, but that's one I've never been able to convincingly master.

Yup, usage trumps, eventually, no matter what the prescriptivists might say about it.

I wish I had the ear to replicate accents. Alas, I don’t. I’m a lousy musician, too. And furrin languages, in their spoken form, give me trouble as well. I might be able to diagram the sentences, but it’s a safe bet that I couldn’t tell you what they mean. I think it’s all related. It might have something to do with those Manhattans Mom imbibed back when I was in utero.

I once told a comely youngish music teacher about this auditory-processing deficiency of mine. She said she was sufficiently confident in her own pedagogical skills that she could get me to sing.

“I’m sure you could,” I replied.

 

[EngProf]

There is a sense that Florida is different from the rest of the South and has a lot of influences from the rest of the US as well as the strong Hispanic culture. As a digression, I love the Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) language, which I first heard in NYC but which is also spoken in Miami.

Most Southerners I know consider the northern 3/4 of Florida as really being part of the South. The bottom end is referred to as Lower New Jersey (in terms of accent and attitude). (As Michigan has the Upper Peninsula as a physically detached portion of the State, so has New Jersey with south Florida.)

 

[EngProf]

I'm a big fan of dialects -- I think "proper English" is whatever the local consensus deems it to be, and I'm proudly non-rhotic. If people want to hear "r" enunciated, then go somewhere else. But that said, the deep, deep Alabama-type accent has always given me trouble when I hear it spoken -- I knew a guy once, with a very deep voice, who spoke in this slow, sorghum drawl, and I couldn't understand more than half of what he said. I'm usually able to duplicate accents or dialects reasonably well after listening to them for a bit, but that's one I've never been able to convincingly master.

Don't feel bad about not being able to mimic one of the *many* Southern dialects. There are a number of famous and/or Academy-Award-winning actors who can't do it either.
Two that come to mind are Paul Newman and Carroll O'Connor. I can't bear to hear them try to do a realistic Southern accent. Newman in those Southern-plantation potboilers is so bad that I can't stand to watch/listen to those for more than few minutes. (I don't like those types of movies anyway, so it's no loss.)
In O'Connor's case, his character in the "In the Heat of the Night" TV show has such a bad Southern accent that I can't even stand to watch the commercials for the show's re-runs.

I think that TV and movie people think that all Southerners sound like Foghorn Leghorn and (try to) pronounce words in that mode.

Actually, there are a lot of Southern sub-dialects that are identifiable if you have been around them and pay attention. More, in fact, than you can count on both hands. (However, we Southerners can count twice as high, since as everyone knows, we don't wear shoes.)

From where I sit, in Nashville, which is near-centrally-located in terms of Southern accents. I can list the following accents at different distances and directions:
1) near here - Middle Tennessee/Southern Kentucky accent
2) 75 miles northwest - Cumberland Mountains accent
3) 150 miles east - East Tennessee accent
4) 250 miles east - Appalachian accent
5) 250 miles southeast - North Georgia accent
6) 100 miles south - North Alabama accent
7) 200 miles south - middle and southern Alabama accent
8) 300 miles southwest - Louisiana accent
9) hundreds of miles southwest - Texas accent
10) 100 miles west - West Tennessee accent
Shoes off at this point for non-Southerners
11) 250 miles west - Arkansas accent
12) far off to the northeast - Virginia and West Virginia accents
13) far off to the east - North Carolina accents

This is definitely not a complete list, but it gives the idea. Using "Southern accent" in singular form is like saying "dog". They are all canines, but a dachshund doesn't look much like a Great Dane.

As a recent specific personal example, I watched the movie "The Highwaymen", which is partially set in south Louisiana. Upon hearing one of the actors speak, it came into my head without conscious effort: "Why is this guy from Louisiana speaking with a Middle Tennessee accent?" I looked him up on IMDB and the reason is that he's originally from about 40 miles west of Nashville.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Pretty much the same deal with "British" accents -- most Americans assume "Oi, guv'nor" is close enough. I used to get asked in radio to "do an English accent for this bit," and I'd ask "which one?"

As far as bad movie accents go, I've never heard an accurate Maine accent in a movie. They always sound like off-center Boston accents or like that mess Tom Bosley used to do on "Murder She Wrote."

That "Foghorn Leghorn" accent was originally intended to be a Texas accent -- Kenny Delmar, the actor who played "Senator Claghorn" on radio (the character the Warner Bros people ripped off for their chicken), based the voice on a loudmouthed Texan he'd picked up hitch-hiking. "Claghorn" was a fad in 1946-47, and the character was such a broad, outrageous caricature of ultra-Southernness that it became *the* Southern stereotype accent.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a replacement comedy sidekick for our upcoming radio show, since my regular one has been called away on a secret mission to Greenland, and I'm finding that I can't use the phrase "straight man" to describe what I'm looking for without a lot of confusion. How else do you describe a performer whose role is to feed setups and react to gags? I need a "straight man," and I don't care if he's a straight man or not.

 

[Fading Fast]

...since my regular one has been called away on a secret mission to Greenland...

I'm sorry, but I have to ask - huh?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Believe it or not, that's not a gag. He called me yesterday to say this trip to Greenland has suddenly come up and he won't be available for the broadcast. Some kind of archaeological mission, but he can't give specifics. He's not even an archaeologist -- he's an insurance agent when not stooging, so I am at a lost to explain. It has, however, given me the opportunity to put some new lines into the script --

Me -- So, you're filling in for Dan for tonight! You know, he's off on a trip to Greenland!

Announcer, whoever he turns out to be -- Wow! Greenland! Cool!

Me -- Well, not as cool as it used to be.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Most Southerners I know consider the northern 3/4 of Florida as really being part of the South. The bottom end is referred to as Lower New Jersey (in terms of accent and attitude). (As Michigan has the Upper Peninsula as a physically detached portion of the State, so has New Jersey with south Florida.)

The New Jersey accent would seem to be your social and cultural equivalent of what we call 'Estuary English': a nasal, flat, lower middle class evolution of Cockney associated with the Thames Estuary but spread over South East England. It lacks the colourful inventiveness of real Cockney and has none of the polished qualities of Standard English. In short, it is an incredibly ugly accent and so are the attitudes that tend to go with it. ...

 

[MisterCairo]

The New Jersey accent would seem to be your social and cultural equivalent of what we call 'Estuary English': a nasal, flat, lower middle class evolution of Cockney associated with the Thames Estuary but spread over South East England. It lacks the colourful inventiveness of real Cockney and has none of the polished qualities of Standard English. In short, it is an incredibly ugly accent and so are the attitudes that tend to go with it. ...

Generalize much? Care to provide a sound sample of what your, presumably, "proper" English accent sounds like?

And tell me your thoughts on Scouse. If Estuary English gets up your kilt, I can only imagine...

 

[Ticklishchap]

Generalize much? Care to provide a sound sample of what your, presumably, "proper" English accent sounds like?

And tell me your thoughts on Scouse. If Estuary English gets up your kilt, I can only imagine...

Actually you’re quite wrong. Scouse accents are eloquent, poetic and a pleasure to listen to. Ditto Yorkshire and Lancs accents. The original Cockney accent is marvellous as well. It’s just Estuary English that sounds ugly and nasal. Yes I know that’s subjective but I’m not bothered. ... Well, that’s not strictly true: I am bothered if I’ve upset you as I really don’t want to do that, but I really did want to get off my chest my dislike for this new form of southern English speech.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I would like to apologise for offending anyone by criticising a certain type of English accent. It was an aesthetic judgement that’s hard to justify objectively and I know that accent is an emotional issue for many people, not least in England. ...