Terms Which Have Disappeared

[EngProf]

That's how we do it here, but it's more a "lah" on the end than a "luh." Most of these Northeastern dialects come from a common root -- the hash of European accents that clustered around the docks in the 19th century -- and I imagine the subtle regional nuances are only distinguishable to those of us who live here. To a Southerner or a European, I imagine we all sound like nose-talking characters out of a Warner Brothers potboiler in 1933.

Speaking as a Southerner, you are 100% correct. Aside from the particulars of the pronunciation, the terms themselves are totally alien.
"Bubbla" for "water fountain"? In my entire life I have never heard that word. I can imagine an encounter with a New Englander:
"Where's the bubbla?"
Where's the WHAT!?"
The "bubbla"...
The WHAT??

 

[Trenchfriend]

We prefer to say "white schnaps", here.

 

[2jakes]

^^^^
I thought "white schnaps" meant "Weißen Schnaps?

 

[ChiTownScion]

That's how we do it here, but it's more a "lah" on the end than a "luh." Most of these Northeastern dialects come from a common root -- the hash of European accents that clustered around the docks in the 19th century -- and I imagine the subtle regional nuances are only distinguishable to those of us who live here. To a Southerner or a European, I imagine we all sound like nose-talking characters out of a Warner Brothers potboiler in 1933.

Well... I suppose it IS a stereotype, but the actor ("act-tuh") is from Maine: Parker Fennelly.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ayuh, he was from Bucksport, which is about fifteen miles from where I grew up. He spent fifty years in show business playing nothing but cranky old men from Maine.

 

[MisterCairo]

Prandial.

 

[Zombie_61]

I catch myself asking people:

"What's your 20?"
Or
"I'm 10- 8 , you copy?

And for a moment wondering but quick to realize that not everybody speaks the "10 code" like I have done for many years in the news department. A habit that is hard to separate when communicating with civilians.

A good friend was a firefighter before I met him, and in the 30+ years I've known him he had become a paramedic, then an EMT, then an emergency dispatcher after he injured his back trying to carry a heavy victim over some "awkward" terrain. As such, most of his friends are also people who work in the fire/emergency field in some capacity. He'll tell a story by regularly using phrases like, "So we were 10-39 to a 10-33...", and most of the time I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Prandial.

Every weekday after lunch I take a post prandial perambulation.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Aaah, your term "Moonshine" means just white (hard) liquor, woohoo! Now, I got it.

While it does mean that, it doesn't "just" mean that. Moonshine is illegally distilled liquor. Illegal because the distiller hides his work from the tax man.

The tradition in the U.S. goes back at least to a time shortly after the revolution. The federal government was short of revenue. Some sharpies conned war veterans out of the bonds the government gave them as compensation in exchange for what was promoted as fertile farmland. After fighting the natives for the land, they found that while they could grow corn (maize) it was too bulky to take to markets in the east over non-existent roads. But, when it was distilled into liquor, they could get this high-value product to market much more easily.

Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington, decided that the feds could finance themselves by heavy taxes on liquor. The catch was that the distiller/farmers had to pay the tax as the liquor was distilled, not after it was sold. Since hard money was scarce, they had no way to come up with the tax money, so hid their stills from the tax man. The heavy-handed enforcement lead to a rebellion (The Whiskey Rebellion) where federal troops were dispatched to suppress them.

The tradition of distilling liquor in hidden places, mostly at night, lead to the nickname "moonshine", and the tradition continues in the southern Appalachian mountains to this day.

This is a nice piece of American history.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Does anyone still call a miscellaneous bunch of stuff a "Duke's mixture"?

 

[Stormy]

We have a doorbell and it does get used. What else do people call a doorbell?

I've heard "the bell" and "buzzer" in recent years.

 

[tonyb]

Does anyone still call a miscellaneous bunch of stuff a "Duke's mixture"?

Not anyone I know.

 

[2jakes]

Does anyone still call a miscellaneous bunch of stuff a "Duke's mixture"?

I have a room designated as the "junk pile".
That's where I file all my miscellaneous bunch of stuff including the Duke's mixture.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Duke's Mixture was a once-common cheap tobacco blend for rolling your own. It was named for the Duke family of tobacco tycoons, who, among other things co-founded Duke University. Duke's Mixture was the standby for workingmen, soldiers and sailors, who couldn't afford to buy tailor-mades. It was gone by my time, but my father and his generation referred to anything mixed up and mismatched as a " Duke's mixture." much as we now still say "Heinz 57."

 

[Trenchfriend]

Duke's Mixture was a once-common cheap tobacco blend for rolling your own. It was named for the Duke family of tobacco tycoons, who, among other things co-founded Duke University. Duke's Mixture was the standby for workingmen, soldiers and sailors, who couldn't afford to buy tailor-mades. It was gone by my time, but my father and his generation referred to anything mixed up and mismatched as a " Duke's mixture." much as we now still say "Heinz 57."

Smoked Kentucky-tobacco, like the stuff, exported to the GDR?

 

[BlueTrain]

In the house where I grew up (was raised, as they said), we had a buzzer for the front door. The buzzer itself was actually located on the back porch and was rather loud, presumably so it could be heard at the back of the lot, where there were several sheds. Where I live now, however, it is not a buzzer but a bell that goes ding-dong. It frightens the cat, too.

Regarding accents, I think that sometimes people exaggerate their accents and colloquialisms for the humorous effect and sometimes for other reasons. But I think that the choice of words might be a little different. That is, using certain words to either prove you're a regular guy (one of us), or well educated or even to sound like an expert on a subject by using big words without really saying anything (double-talk or obfuscate). But as my wife pointed out the other day, an expert is someone from out of town.

I had a lot of trouble understanding people in England when we were there a few years ago and now I even have trouble understanding a lot of people that I hear around here. All women, too, for some reason, and I'm referring to people on local television stations giving the weather forecast or traffic news. But what is really embarrassing is to hear someone speaking in what might be called a hick accent and then realize that is exactly how I sound when I open my mouth.

That is, when I actually get a chance to say something.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sociolinguists call the use of different dialects for different audiences "Code Switching," and it's a very common thing among people who grow up speaking either a low-valued or a high-valued dialect. Code switching often goes hand in hand with hypercorrection, which is, in part, the habit of being overprecise in the use of certain pronunciations that are customarily dropped your own native dialect. Around here this usually takes the form of exaggerated rhoticity -- the unctuous overpronunciation of the letter "r" -- and an exaggerated "g" sound at the end of words ending in "-ing."

This type of hypercorrection, if you listen for it, is a dead giveaway to someone who is "code switching." My mother got into the habit of this when she worked in a hospital dealing with lots of middle-class/middle-brow people, and developed the habit of stretching final "g's" and "r's" out beyond the point of endurance. "I'm goingggggggg to see the lawyerrrrrrrrrrrr" instead of her normal pronunciation of "I'm goin' ta see tha lawya." She also hypercorrects words ending with an -oh sound, which she grew up pronouncing -ah: windah, p'taytah, tamaytah become windohhhhh, po-tay-tohhhhh, to-may-tohhhhhh. Makes my ears hurt. She does this all the time when she's out in public, but if she's just talking to me, the old pronunciations come back in force.

I learned to do the same thing myself during my years in radio. Although my normal speaking voice is fast and nasal, when I was doing news I spoke what you might call "NPR English" -- that low, even, standardized from-the-chest pronunciation that all radio news broadcasters are expected to speak. Since I was also playing all sorts of other characters with all sorts of other dialects in commercials at the same time, I thought of it as just another acting job. That characterization has come in handy over the years -- I use it on the phone to this day when I'm dealing with some business functionary who doesn't want to see things my way. A friend called this my "scary lawyer voice" after I used it to convince AOL to cancel her account and refund her overpayment.

 

[MisterCairo]

Moonshine is illegally distilled liquor

In Canada moonshine is officially any whisky less than years old. At three years' aging it can be marketed and sold as whisky (usually aged much longer, of course).

BUT you can market and sell moonshine provided you call it moonshine!

We have a new distillery, one of the new breed of craft distillers, open in Stratford, Ontario, and as their whisky is not yet three years old, they are marketing some as moonshine:

http://www.junction56.ca

 

[BlueTrain]

It is something that makes language fascinating. It happens in other languages, too, judging from what I've noticed listening to both Spanish and German. My boss, who worked in Europe for many years, speaks German but not "high German" (Hochdeutsche). He claims that he was told it was hopeless for him to attempt to learn high German now.

There are other differences among spoken language, too, as opposed to written language. It's nothing more than formal language versus informal language. Presumably, in formal speech, you make an attempt at least to speak in complete sentences, avoid slang and vulgarity and do your best to enunciate so that you may be understood. Naturally, not everyone has a need to talk like that. And likewise, you don't bother to talk like that in the kitchen, so to speak. It also goes without saying that not everyone can speak clearly, either, which can sometimes be a drawback, but that's not the same as not being able to understand someone's accent.

Some of us can't write very well, either.

 

[BlueTrain]

Moonshine was sold in the state liquor stores in West Virginia but I have no idea what sort of specifications, rules or regulations applied to anything described as moonshine. Generally speaking, it is a distilled spirit made from corn. Since much of it is made illegally, it is an uncontrolled product and may not be all that pure. If ever the term buyer beware applied, it is to illegal products, including moonshine.

When offered for sale in the state stores, it was in the traditional packaging of a glass canning jar.