Regional Dialects/Slang

[Moff Chumley]

Basically, state your area and post your favorite examples of the local vernacular.

Personally, I'm hella NorCal, and man, we're chill. I mean, like, not like those trip East Coast kids, they're hella sketch. :smallbiggrin:

[DamnedIrishman]

English East Midlands. Leicestershire particularly (Or LESTA, as the city-dwellers often refer to it). We call everybody "duck". You get it a lot over in Nottinghamshire as well.

Example:

"Y'rite, duck?"
"Not too bad duck, how about you?"
"I'm good, duck. Fancy a ***?"
"Ta much duck."

... although not often that regularly in a conversation.

EDIT: The banned word is a three-letter word which means 'cigarette', and is regularly used locally.

[randman22222]

Basically, state your area and post your favorite examples of the local vernacular.

Personally, I'm hella NorCal, and man, we're chill. I mean, like, not like those trip East Coast kids, they're hella sketch. :smallbiggrin:

Wallah I have picked up no slang! Shu haddah insinuating I speak any street talk... N'shallah, I won't get any when I move to WVU, either. Ma'a salaama.

Yeh, I live in the United Arab Emirates...

[Cicciograna]

I'm Italian, from Naples, and such is an example of my dialect:

"Uè guagliò, comm' staje?"
"Stong' 'buon' fratè"
"Che staje creann' 'e chisti tiemp'?"
"Nun sto facenn' prop' nient', me sosc' d'a matin' 'a ser'"

Meaning:
"Hi guy, how are you?"
"I'm fine, brother"
"What are you doing in these days?"
"Nothing at all, I rest from morning to evening"

[Dogmantra]

I'm from Suffolk, the most boring county for accents. No-one has a farmer accent, don't believe anyone who tells you. They're lying.

So... uhh... No slang then, I suppose. No regional slang, at least. Except Misemador(sp?), which is one of those terrifying massive insects that's like a cockroach that can fly. I'm not even sure if that is regional slang for them...

[Morty]

My native language doesn't have very distinct dialects apart from two, none of them present where I live. However, I've been told recently that my region does have some vernacular. The example I've been given is that while speaking we emphasize the consonants "sz" and "cz" and the vowels "ą" and "ę" at the ends of the verbs more than people from the other parts of the country. I don't know how true is it, but the person who told me this was a speech therapist.
Now let's see how many people undestrand what I'm talking about.:smallwink:

[SilentNight]

Basically, state your area and post your favorite examples of the local vernacular.

Personally, I'm hella NorCal, and man, we're chill. I mean, like, not like those trip East Coast kids, they're hella sketch. :smallbiggrin:
Well, I was try'na do a post here but you covered most of the Bay Moff. I'm 'bout to bounce, finna go get some lunch. :smalltongue:

[Moff Chumley]

Chill, dude. Catcha in the City some time?

[RMS Oceanic]

Mid Ulster Dialect here. Interesting dialect notes

- We have a habbit of saying "I did(n't) do that" in response to the question "Did you do that?", instead of saying yes/no. This is a result of the Irish Language, which doesn't have words for yes or no.
- We use the plural "yous" or "yousuns" when talking to a group.

Our most important piece of slang: Craic. If you have good craic at an event, you had a good time. Like the concept of luck, you could also say that if there's no craic, there's not much going on.

We also use "wee" a lot.

[SilentNight]

Chill, dude. Catcha in the City some time?

F'sho, where you at?

[B-Man]

I'm from Southern Ontario originally and moved out to the Halifax area recently. I've noticed that my "dialect" is not that much different from the "locals" here, but then again my dialect was kind of weird in Southern Ontario. I only have nitpicky examples as I pronounce stuff weirdly sometimes. Listed examples (http://bman777.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8FA53FC58574C2E2!309.entry)

[Bonecrusher Doc]

(Virginian Appalachia)

Y'all fixin' ta go down yonder ta Hensley holler? Ol' Dale an' his kin done butchered a pig, might be makin' scrapple now. Oh, didya hear Dale's bubba done killed him a bar yestiddy? He was tellin' e'r'body at the county "fire" last night.

Do they have demolition derbies at County Fairs in other countries?

[Dihan]

The only regional thing I do is trill my Rs. I do know a lot of people around here put words at the beginning of sentences for emphasis, e.g.

"Crazy, he was!"

The phrase "isn't it?" is used a lot. My old driving instructor said it in every sentence.

[HellfireLover]

South-East Scotland: A typical conversation:

"Weel hallo. Ah've no seen ee in ages? Hiv ee been awa'?"
"Aye, ah've been in Tenereefee." (local pronunciation of Tenerife)
"Hiv ee? Mei, richt enough, ee er broon!"
"Aye it wis guidlike. The bairns were soomin' aboot like wee troots at the beach"
"Soonds grand. Weel, oo must get thegither for a cup o' tei sometime."
"Aye richt enough. Sei ee agin."

...ouch. It's easier to speak than to type. :smallamused:

[Zocelot]

I'm from Toronto, Canada, and contrary to popular belief we do not talk like this: "It's aboot time we head back to the hoose, eh?". We only talk like that we we're around Americans to confuse them. A more Canadian sentence would be "Want to head over to Tim Hortons?". I occasionally use eh, but most people don't. The only thing I can think of where I pronounce things different then an American is that I drop the second T in Toronto so that it becomes Torono [Toe-Ron-Oh].

[Bonecrusher Doc]

"Crazy, he was!"


English is my wife's second language, and so she frequently rearranges her words like this. I sometimes make fun of her when she does it by doing my best Yoda impression "Mmmm?" at the end of her sentence. Something like this:

"After work, come home you will / mmm?"

[Castaras]

I come from East Anglia, from the region which has, apparently, sexy southern British accents.

Slang... dunno really any regional slang. :smallconfused:

[Dogmantra]

I come from East Anglia, from the region which has, apparently, sexy southern British accents.

Slang... dunno really any regional slang. :smallconfused:

Exactly! We're so boring when it comes to slang.

[wadledo]

New England, Cape Cod area specifically.

Apparently, we say wicked all the time (Note: this is something along the lines of "Wicked *Blank*", not just randomly saying wicked.
We don't all surf.)

[Eldan]

Well, it's difficult to explain, but switzerland has dialects for every third village in the more rural regions. And since my parents are from two different cantons in western switzerland, then moved to the north-east, where I grew up and I then went to study at a university in zurich, I don't have any specific dialect as much as a weird mix that sounds unfamiliar to everyone.

[Gem Flower]

I know it's a stereotype, but where I am in Canada people really do say "Eh" a lot. And we make fun of French by horribly mispronouncing the words and using Quebecois accents.

[rubakhin]

I'm from Toronto, Canada, and contrary to popular belief we do not talk like this: "It's aboot time we head back to the hoose, eh?". We only talk like that we we're around Americans to confuse them. A more Canadian sentence would be "Want to head over to Tim Hortons?". I occasionally use eh, but most people don't. The only thing I can think of where I pronounce things different then an American is that I drop the second T in Toronto so that it becomes Torono [Toe-Ron-Oh].

My boyfriend's from British Columbia (currently he's living in Montreal) and he nearly killed himself laughing when he found out I pronounce it "Tehranna." (Rhymes with "pirhana.") I am no longer allowed to pronounce that city within earshot.

Also; package stores, grinders, and a really distinct working-class accent that sounds kind of like a cross between a New York accent and a Boston accent. Nobody believes me when I say I grew up mostly in Connecticut, I sound too poor.

[Lappy9000]

Basically, state your area and post your favorite examples of the local vernacular.

Personally, I'm hella NorCal, and man, we're chill. I mean, like, not like those trip East Coast kids, they're hella sketch. :smallbiggrin:Yeeeah, can I get sum' N C shoutout over here, dawg! Man, we be trippin' up in all over that place wit' our southr'n accents, y'all! Peace.

It's a joke, because everyone here has a southern accent.

[Mando Knight]

...Well, I guess I can't really participate in this thread. Other than occasionally borrowing from other regions, the American Midwest dialect is rather boring. As in, it's what you hear a lot of American newscasters use because it sounds more neutral than most others.

[Mauve Shirt]

I'm from Baltimore, but I don't use any regional slang... hon.

[Recaiden]

Got to agree with Mondo. Not much slang about here.

[Dispozition]

G'day from tha land down under over 'ere mate :D

No, really, I don't speak like that. I suppose I use 'mate' a fair bit, but that's about it...

[toasty]

...

If I had slang or an accent I wouldn't know. Besides using like and dude far to much I suppose.

My mom is from NJ, dad is from Texas, I have lived in Bangladesh for ten years and have never lived in the US. However, my parents accents are not near as crazy as my relatives... possibly because they realized that people can't understand them here. :D

Though I have to say making fun of Indian Accents is by far the most entertaining thin in the world. :smallbiggrin:

[Remmirath]

While I'm from Michigan and have lived here my entire life, people always seem to think that I'm from somewhere else (typically somewhere across the ocean, for whatever reason. I've not figured it out).

So whatever the regional thing is, I apparently do not do it. And I agree with the others that the midwest is rather boring in terms of slang.

[Xyk]

I live in Texas. Fortunately, Austin is more or less an oasis from the Texan culture, but I still use "y'all" in regular conversation. Before you get ideas, just saying the word does not automatically bestow an accent. It's more like saying "you all" but faster. Also in Texas, we cannot seem to pronounce basic words like "was", or "because". We say "wuz", and "becuz".

Sample Austinite statement:
"Hey, y'all, where wuz Jimmy at?"

I'm told I speak more like an american except I sometimes overuse the words "dude" or "man".

[toasty]

I'm told I speak more like an american except I sometimes overuse the words "dude" or "man".

Isn't that a trait that most youth use anyways? I know I probably overuse those works, like, all the time, man. ;)

[Anuan]

Hee. I grew up in a small town in SW Queensland, Australia. Along with some old Australian slang (Which I usually don't use unless talking to foreigners, especially if english isn't their native language [bit mean I know but I do it unconciously]) I use some local aboriginal words and various scottish words because of the way I was raised. Anyway, some slang-terms follow;

'muntha' A local Murri (collective term for aboriginals from QLD) word meaning 'bread.'

'yaarndi' a term for any leaf/root/plant matter you smoke to get high. Think it originates from a Murri word. Guess the usual usage.

'golly' I think most Americans say 'loogie.' When you choke up a ball of saliva and phlegm and spit it out you're said to have 'hoiked a golly.'

A 'bogan' is someone loud, obnoxious and rather stupid, or a redneck.

'Myall' is an insult calling someone unruly and selfish. Usually paired with a four letter word starting with C. I used to think it came from 'my all' and was mostly about jealousy, but in fact it stems from a term used to describe Aboriginal people. There was a massacre of Aboriginals near Myall Creek. Basically the term now is used to say you're 'no better tamed than a wild blackfulla.' Yeah, I lived in a town basically made of racists.

'D.T's are those underwear-only swimmers. Swimmers in general are often called 'togs' where I'm from. "D.T's" is short for ****-togs. Here in NSW where I'm living now they're called 'budgy-smugglers,' a budgy being any small pseudo-parrotlike bird.

The term 'maggot' or the phrase 'gonna get maggot!' is used here in NSW more than in QLD, where you'd get laughed at and called a bogan for doing it. It means to get absolutely pissed. Speaking of, 'pissed' here is a term for being drunk more than it is for being angry, stems from being 'on the piss' which is going out drinking.

I'm sure there's more, but not off the top of my head.

Edit; one more. "Macca's" is McDonalds, as in the terrible fast food chain.

[Serpentine]

'D.T's are those underwear-only swimmers. Swimmers in general are often called 'togs' where I'm from. "D.T's" is short for ****-togs. Here in NSW where I'm living now they're called 'budgy-smugglers,' a budgy being any small pseudo-parrotlike bird.First of all, I think it's pretty cool that people up there use Aboriginal words. I don't think there's any used around here.
Secondly, "any small pseudo-parrotlike bird"? :smallconfused: A budgie is just a budgerigar, a very specific small parrot :smallconfused:
Thirdly, the swimwear thing is an interesting one. I've lived in both Victoria and New South Wales and been in Queensland a fair bit. The names for swimwear vary a lot all over. There's the aforementioned "togs" (I've never heard "D.Ts", though budgie-smugglers is an old one, specifically referring to speedos", but there's also swimmers and bathers, and I'm pretty sure there's more I forget. I think "swimmers" is more Victorian and "bathers" New South Welsh, but I have a terrible memory.
I don't hear "mate" used nearly enough. Every now and then - my dad uses it a bit, particularly when talking to strangers for some reason: e.g. to a taxi driver, "Train station thanks mate."
Apparently "ta" for "thanks" and "ta-ta" for "goodbye" are Aussie things.
I occasionally hear a pretty ocker accent when I talk. Normally it's in slurring my words, but also "oi" and other nasal sorts of sounds, like... ummm... well, like "loike", but it's not as hard as that. Just a hint of it. To my understanding, at least on the east coast, the further you go north the more nasal the accent becomes.
We also, apparently, shorten things in a very consistent way. Like "Maccas", and "milko" (for the person who delivers the milk, or the corner store), or "Shazza" (for Sharon), that sort of thing.
Um... I'm sure we have colloquialisms, I just can't think of any right now. I suppose here, in Armidale, specifically, we have things like "up top" for the university (which is at the top of a hill), and "Nev's" for Neville's Corner Store (a pretty locally famous boutique). Dunno whether they count, though. Oh, I suppose I have "dunno", too. Also "op-shop", for "opportunity shop". Nothing wrong with going op-shopping, you can get some great bargains.
Do other peoples call people "mongrels"? How about "tosser"?

I think I've figured out what it is about the New Zealand accent. It's not that they replace the vowels with other ones, but that they leave them out. For example, they don't say "fish and chips", "fesh end chups", they say "fsh nd chps", maybe with a soft neutral "uh" or "erh" sound.

[Anuan]

Technically yeah a budgie is just a budgerigar. Is still often used to refer to many small parrots/pseudo-parrots as a slangterm. Most people don't use the Aboriginal words (except maybe Murri and sometimes Myall. Yaarndi, too, in some circles...) but my dad raised me with a few of them and though I've forgotten most of them I occasionally still say Muntha. Mongrel is used a lot more often than 'tosser' up there, as far as I recall. The shortening thing is pretty universally aussie, as is 'tah.' I say 'ta-tah' a lot but here some people just raise their eyebrows at me. I say 'mate' a lot when talking to foreigners.

I have to disagree on the Kiwi accent, though. Maybe your NZ friends just talk really fast? :smalltongue:

[Em Blackleaf]

Personally, I'm hella NorCal, and man, we're chill. I mean, like, not like those trip East Coast kids, they're hella sketch. :smallbiggrin:
Oh man. I love this. Can I bring that to SoCal? That'd be so chill. :smallbiggrin:

Hey dude, wassup? I'm from SoCal. Yeah, it's pretty chill here. You're just jealous.

Dude, my uncle surfs like all the time. He always tells stories about like catching "gnarly pounders!" And how everything's "cool" and "awesome." No lie. Like, I'm not even kidding you. Me? I don't surf. Actually, I don't like swimming in the ocean all that much. Not a lot of people I know surf at all, but my uncle really does. And he does talk like that, dude.

My dad says I say "like" too much. And I do. You'd tear your ears off if you heard me explaining something.

"It's like, totally cool and like, I went there like... last week? I dunno, but it's still, like, totally awesome."

That's how I talk. I'm friggin' serious, dude. Like, really. No lie. I think I should count how many times I use the word "like" in an average conversation. But sometimes I don't even notice when I say it!

I couldn't work it in, but trendy/good/cool=down. That might actually be used elsewhere, but I know a lot people who say it here. But they're, like, scene posers. Like, fersher. But, like y'know, if they wanna be dumb like that and like go to stupid shows and stuff, that's like totally fine with me. Let them live their lives and I'll live mine. Whatever, man.

I think that last paragraph was a little heavy. I might have taken it too far.
Southern Cali teenagers are really annoying! When I write the way I talk, it looks messy! :smallyuk:

But, I'm still going to use the same slang. >_>

[Serpentine]

Oh, I thought of a couple more potentials! Not completely sure how endemic they are, but anyways... If an Australian says that something "is killing me" or "canes", then it hurts a great deal. We also "piss ourselves laughing", and "bloody" is a very common term. Bloody mad cat... A friend of mine used to say that a room was "like a Chinese laundromat" if it was full of steam and/or drying clothing, and there are a few similar sorts of sayings around, but I'm not sure how much they're generally used. Also, this friend has "legs that go all the way up". Someone who eats a lot is a "garbage-guts" and/or has "hollow legs".

Um... That's about it for now.

[Rutskarn]

My accent is as flat and generically American (generican) as one can get without resorting to voice synthesis software.

My dialect, on the other hand, is a smattering of stuff picked up from just about any Western nation in the world, and quite a few non-Western ones.

[randman22222]

My accent, apart from the random Arabic phrases thrown in, sounds like a mix of... say... Wisconsin/Minnesota, Canadian, and a tiny bit of Cajun. See: TINY.

[Castaras]

I'm from Toronto, Canada, and contrary to popular belief we do not talk like this: "It's aboot time we head back to the hoose, eh?". We only talk like that we we're around Americans to confuse them. A more Canadian sentence would be "Want to head over to Tim Hortons?". I occasionally use eh, but most people don't. The only thing I can think of where I pronounce things different then an American is that I drop the second T in Toronto so that it becomes Torono [Toe-Ron-Oh].


I know it's a stereotype, but where I am in Canada people really do say "Eh" a lot. And we make fun of French by horribly mispronouncing the words and using Quebecois accents.

Heheh, amusing. :smallbiggrin:

[Dihan]

Something I do is interject Welsh words into my spoken English. This is known as Wenglish. I say "da iawn" (very good) a lot, and I like asking "pam?" (why?) and "beth?" (what?).

We also make up words if there's no English equivalent.

[Anuan]

Dihan: I do that too, with a lot of languages. I'm now stealing those ones. :smallbiggrin:

[Kaelaroth]

... All your English is merely an imperfect version of mine!
Mwa-Ha-Hah! Admittedly, mine's an imperfect version of those that came before it, but still...

[Ashen Lilies]

My accent is pretty much GenericanTM, though occasionally it'll 'slip', and sound like the mutant bastard offspring of an Australian, Englishman and American, those being the most predominant (non-thai) accents at my school that don't sound completely different from each other. An example being Norwegian. I couldn't sound like that if I tried.

My speech, however, is pretty Californian however, at least according to this thread. Like, totally*. And slightly Australian too. Ah well, people understand me well enough. I hope. When I do speak that is. Like, out loud. And not with writing.

On the subject of completely obfuscating speech patterns though, I present this gem of an exchange. (Warning, slightly paraphrased, since it was a few months ago.)

Friend: Oh dude, come here man, I gotta show you this totally awesome thing dude. Dude, just come over here quick man, this is so totally awesome dude. Dude, man I can't describe how awesome this is dude. Just get over here man. Duuuuude.
Me: Sure thing, dude-man-dude-dude-man-dude-man.
Friend: Shut it, dude. Crap.

*And while I do overuse the word 'like', I don't do it nearly as much as some people. A friend** of mine used 'like' about like, 23 times in a paragraph long speech. Then, when we called him out on it, he nervously tried to explain it as being a nervous tick of his. Guess which word he used most. :smallamused:

**Different dude to the man-dude guy. Dude.

[Fin]

Being from Liverpool in England my accent is pretty distinctive, but luckily I haven't picked-up too much of the slang terms due to not living there for a few years. I currently live in town callled Southport where the entire population use the response to Generican, its called Genenglish!

[bosssmiley]

I come from East Anglia, from the region which has, apparently, sexy southern British accents.

East Anglian? It just sounds like displaced Loamshire yokelspeak. :smalltongue:


Slang... dunno really any regional slang. :smallconfused:

"Ye wittol!" :smallamused:

< Geordie. If we were north of the border we could pretend that our dialect (http://www.northeastengland.talktalk.net/GeordieDictionary.htm) is a language in its own right (Lowland Scots is a language now? Hadaway 'n' shyte!)

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I'm from Toronto, Canada, and contrary to popular belief we do not talk like this: "It's aboot time we head back to the hoose, eh?". We only talk like that we we're around Americans to confuse them. A more Canadian sentence would be "Want to head over to Tim Hortons?". I occasionally use eh, but most people don't. The only thing I can think of where I pronounce things different then an American is that I drop the second T in Toronto so that it becomes Torono [Toe-Ron-Oh].


I know it's a stereotype, but where I am in Canada people really do say "Eh" a lot. And we make fun of French by horribly mispronouncing the words and using Quebecois accents.



Yeah, I say Toronna, and I say 'eh' a heckuvalot. I also drop my 't's into some sort of d/t mix when they're in the middle of a sentence. Though I have a speech impediment that makes people think that I'm English. Oh, and I also drop the word 'mate' a lot. Except

"Hey madte, 'sup? Oh, I was jus' headin' downtown to go to Walmahdt."

[Castaras]

"Ye wittol!" :smallamused:

Never EVER heard anyone say that. :smalltongue: Congratulations.

[loopy]

"Hey kev." (not a name, just a greeting)
"Sup kent, hows the night treatin' ya? Are the Lads giving ya any grief?"
"Nah mate, the pingers they've flipped have got 'em well munted."
"Wish they'd keep their flannies on though."
"I reckon. Anyway man, I'm gonna go get my shuffle on."
"Later mate."

EDIT: If anyone wants to hear my accent, probably could be arranged.

[GolemsVoice]

I sometimes fall into franconian dialect when I'm around other's who speak this dialect. We tend to speak quite slowly, and to hold the vowels longer than usual. Also, we tend to use a different diminuitive than normally, and to aplly it quite often. It's really hard to describe in English, naturally.

[Lupy]

a budgy being any small pseudo-parrotlike bird.

Budgies are parrots!

I live in Central North Carolina, and most people have mild Southern Accents.

Ex:


What're'y'all (all one word) up to?
Weyll, I dunno yet.

[SDF]

Being originally from the bay area and now living in Idaho there really isn't a lot of slang used at all. It's just the western US, Hollywood accent. I did spend 12 years growing up in northern Minnesota where the people talk like the Fargo movie. I didn't pick it up, though.

[Rutskarn]

I once knew someone who claimed that Americans didn't really have "accents".

He was Ukrainian.

[Dr. Bath]

Maan. All I get is dropped Hs and Gs. I think those islington norf London types been stealin' 'em. Although that isn't entirely the norm. The norm would involve many more 'yeah's 'bruv's and 'bredren's and far fewer polysyllabic words.

[Anuan]

"Hey kev." (not a name, just a greeting)
"Sup kent, hows the night treatin' ya? Are the Lads giving ya any grief?"
"Nah mate, the pingers they've flipped have got 'em well munted."
"Wish they'd keep their flannies on though."
"I reckon. Anyway man, I'm gonna go get my shuffle on."
"Later mate."

Oh god, Sydney style slang :smallyuk: also, jumpstyle > shuffle :p

[loopy]

Oh god, Sydney style slang :smallyuk: also, jumpstyle > shuffle :p

Yeah, but its more like Sydney slang mixed with rave jargon and a bit of Central Coast stuff thrown in for flavor. I did try and throw as many slang words in as possible, but they shift so fast.

And jumpstyle is fun and all, but I prefer my shuffling. I am much better at it, haha. :)

I can't even describe my style of speech. Pocketa/Levyathyn/Thanatos could probably tell you.

[Aron Times]

English is my second language, but I speak General American English with no accent. Basically, I speak like a Midwesterner minus the regional slang.

[Serpentine]

I like the word "munted" ^_^

[Dispozition]

I like the word "munted" ^_^

'tis a good word that.

[loopy]

I like the word "munted" ^_^

So do I. I try and find excuses to use it, haha. :smallsmile:

[toasty]

I couldn't work it in, but trendy/good/cool=down. That might actually be used elsewhere, but I know a lot people who say it here. But they're, like, scene posers. Like, fersher. But, like y'know, if they wanna be dumb like that and like go to stupid shows and stuff, that's like totally fine with me. Let them live their lives and I'll live mine. Whatever, man.

Lol... this sounds like how me and my friends speak. I'm the only American and none of us have ever been to California.

And no, I have no clue how this came about.

[Wandiya]

I'm from North Queensland (which should be a state unto its self), i don't think i have an accent but i wouldn't know:smallwink:as for slang i use yer, as a multipurpose word
eg.
Friend:"Wait up."
Me:"yer?"
or
Friend:"we have science next right?"
Me:"yer"

[Cyrion]

As a relative newcomer to the American Midwest, the things I've noticed are gratuitous r's- wash becomes warsh- missing 'to be' in things like "It needs fixed," and unnecessary at's- "where are you at?"

Maybe I'm just showing my age with that last one.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Cornish lass here.

Examples of Cornish still used in eveyday speech:

"coombe" /koom/ - valley
"carn" /karn/ - specific i.e. well known local rock formations e.g. "Going up carn t'night?"
Some people'll throw in things like "deyth dah" /dayth da/ - good morning, "fatlah geneh we" /fat-la gen - a wee/ (I may have spelt that last bit wrong) - how are you? and "splann" /splan/ - great.
Nearly all our town names are Cornish, but that don't count.

Dialect:
"piskie" - not quite a pixie, it's more mischievous and malevolent.
"madderdo'e?"/"It dun madderdo'e" /it dun madder do e/ - it doesn't matter does it?
"drekly" /drekli/ - directly. As in "I'll gedder done drekly."
And we tend to elide prepositions a lot too, so instead of saying "Are you going down to the pub tonight?" it's "Going down pub 'night?" or "up coombe" and so on and so forth.
"emmet" /emmit/ - foreigner/person on holiday/holiday home owners/anyone who isn't Cornish. Said with as much scorn as as one can fit into the last syllable, which is almost, but not quite a glottal stop. It's alo Cornish for 'ant.
There's probably more, but you don't consider it regional slang or dialect until you go away and realise people don't know what you mean.

[Sereg]

I give you the wikipedia pages on South African accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_English) and slang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_African_slang_words)

We also use words from different languages in everyday speech. We call it "menging your tale" from "meng" - Afrikaans for "mix" and "tale" - Afrikaans for "languages". (Note, it is never acceptable to add "-ing" to the end of an Afrikaans word, no not even then, instead you add the words "besig om te" in front.

Note the following corrections to slang words that I noticed:

"mielies"- corn or maize
"gogga" can also be "goggo"
"cozzie" can also be "costume"
"chow" is not only "eat" but also "food"
"ekse" is not only a greeting, but also an exclamation of surprise (I don't know how to add the correct symbol)
"hard up" - "having financial problems"
Also, they have "higher grade" but they left out "standard grade"- "easy"
Oh yes, and of course "sommer" - a word that has no meaning (no seriously, it doesn't) but is often used as an adverb (closest equivalent would probably be "just")
"now now" - "soon"
"just now" - "later"

It should also be noted that many of these wouldn't even be considered slang by us.

Oh, and to qualify for not having an accent, you would need to not have a voice.

[Hell Puppi]

The only thing I've really noticed is Arizonians are very particular at pronouncing certain words. Mostly it's just spoken as the Spanish equivalent (Gila= 'He-lah', Estrella= 'Es-trey-yah'), but we have some odd ones such as Prescott= 'Preskit'.

My grandfather, who's from Kentucky, has one heck of a hillbilly accent.
"Ya'll geddon down dere."
"His head looked like a stump full of granddaddies."
"Just us chickens."
:smalltongue:

[Dogmantra]

Oh, and to qualify for not having an accent, you would need to not have a voice.

Though English comes close...
We have such boring voices.

[Katrascythe]

TX Slang is special... We say "fixin' to" and "y'all" and "coke"

Then there are some more of my personal faves..
"hissy fit"
"conniptions" (older slang, my grandmother still uses it)
"dad blame it" (when our more colorful language isn't appropriate XD)


Although this site sums most of it up. It varies based on the region of TX but I've heard everything on that page...
Link (http://www.englishbaby.com/blog/catsarepretty/view_entry/20837)

[Erloas]

As a relative newcomer to the American Midwest, the things I've noticed are gratuitous r's- wash becomes warsh- missing 'to be' in things like "It needs fixed," and unnecessary at's- "where are you at?"

Maybe I'm just showing my age with that last one.

I hear walsh and warsh instead of wash sometimes. As for the second two, aren't you basically saying both are problems for the exact opposite reasons?

I used to say "like" a lot as well, its sort of a filler sound like hmm or ahh. I stopped years ago though after my mom gave me a hard time about it.

If the latter two things Cyrion said are considered slang or dialect then I'm sure I have some, though I don't know of much of anything that stands out. I know we tend to pronounce aunt differently then a lot of places, basically just leaving out the u.

[OverdrivePrime]

Yah, I'm from M'wakee, howzit goin'?
Up here we speak 'Merican English proper, witha nice flat acksent that preddy much e'eryone else can unnerstan'. We've got us a couple words that we pr'fer, like "Bubber" 'nsteada super lame "Water Fountain". To make it a bit worse, my posse an' I tend to make up words left an' right, like Awes-deece or Ballznasty, and co-opt regional words from other places we've been and adopt 'em to our own nefarious purposes. Stuff like "Hoss" - a formidable ally, "Crescent Fresh" - far beyond awesome, an' "Buuuuenooooo" - good, but with a highly obscene connotation are a few examples of our ripoffery. And yah, we tend ta add "ery" to random nouns to give it a sound we like.



Question - where do people say "Heith" instead of "Height?" I hear that one every once in a while, and it drives me frickin' bonkers!

[TRM]

My English is very bland and correct, like Midwesterners', but (because an inordinate amount of people my age study it/speak it, here) there is also a considerable amount of Spanglish going on in my everyday speech. "Like" is also heavily used. Siempre, like all the time. Todo el tiempo. It's, uhm, like teenagers everywhere.


(I've never heard "D.Ts", though budgie-smugglers is an old one, specifically referring to speedos")
Haha! This is perfect! Such a great image.


Yah, I'm from M'wakee, howzit goin'?
Up here we speak 'Merican English proper, witha nice flat acksent that preddy much e'eryone else can unnerstan'. We've got us a couple words that we pr'fer, like "Bubber" 'nsteada super lame "Water Fountain"
So. I lived in Wisconsin for a while, and I NEVER heard anyone call a drinking fountain a Bubbler. Is that Milwaukee-specific? I've heard it stereotyped as being typical of all Wisconsinites.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Country: USA
State: Georgia
Region: Appalachia

I'm a very interesting speaker I'm told. I'm from the southeast, but have no southern accent, despite using y'alls, ain'ts, yonders and fixings. Am told I actually sound more australian but... not quite.

Basically, I have my own accent/slang of my own making, and have ever since I was little. Folks have commented about it for as long as I can remember.

I also use big, convoluted words and sentences... and next moment a'ights and coo's. I also love to use 'bloody' as a curse though I actually never swear.


TX Slang is special... We say "fixin' to" and "y'all" and "coke"
That's also north Georgian.

[OverdrivePrime]

So. I lived in Wisconsin for a while, and I NEVER heard anyone call a drinking fountain a Bubbler. Is that Milwaukee-specific? I've heard it stereotyped as being typical of all Wisconsinites.

Yeah, Bubbler is specific to the Metro Milwaukee area, so Milwaukee County and then Racine, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington counties. You'll find it in some of Sheboygan county and some of the Madison area (Dane County) depending on the rate of students from the Milwaukee area attending the UW.

[Castaras]

Though English comes close...
We have such boring voices.

To us, yes. I've kinda noticed American's like English accents, especially southernish sounding ones. :smalltongue:

[Telonius]

I'm currently in extreme Northern Virginia (where VA, MD, and WV come together), but originally from Erie, PA. According to a few linguistics maps I've seen, Erie's one of the few cities on the Great Lakes to avoid the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. Personally I think it's because we're so close to Pittsburgh - not that we speak more like Pittsburgh, but that we try to speak more like the SAD to make ourselves feel better than the 'burgh. (As a friend of mine put it, we're like Han Solo to Pittsburgh's Chewbacca. We're probably the only ones in the room who understand it, but we don't speak it.)

Anyway, very random pronunciation thing for Erie. I've noticed that I say "about" halfway between American and Canadian. Not "a boot" or "a bowt," but something more like "a bott" or "a baht."

My wife is from Arlington, VA, and she pronounces "crayons" like they were "crowns."

[Jalor]

I grew up on Long Island, where the letter "o" becomes "aw" or sometimes "ah". Even though I live in Florida now, I still have my accent. It was never very thick, and the accent's more noticeable on girls anyway. I don't think there's much of a Long Island dialect, and with my nigh-impeccable grammar I wouldn't use much of it.

...actually, we do say "on Long Island" and not "in Long Island". Referring to "the beach" was no help at all when giving directions, but "the anything else" was fair game; I still have this habit even where those rules no longer apply. Manhattan is simply "the city", and "upstate" is anywhere north of it. So, there is a little bit of regional slang.

[WalkingTarget]

Standard Midwestern American, from about the easternmost area where it's prevalent (central IL) and there are areas close-by where people have a bit more southern speech patterns (3 of my grandparents were from farther south originally, one Kentucky, one Missouri, and one from IL in the St. Louis/Alton area).

I've got the caught/cot and horse/hoarse mergers, but not pin/pen. Both of my grandmothers have that extraneous "r" in "wash", but neither of my parents nor my brothers and I have it.

I'm unaware of any particular slang common to my area, but my friends and I did have a habit of picking up speech patterns from media that weren't otherwise prevalent. I talk to people all over the country for my job and I do find myself falling into regional delivery depending on the accent of the other person (most common with southern accents), that's usually unintentional though.

[Moff Chumley]

Oh, the one bit of NorCal (and SoCal) that I left out: cursing, as frequently and severely as possible. :smalltongue:

So, like, here's a ridoncoulous, like, excerpt or whatever of what we sound like up here. Like, we're all hella white in Marin, but we're pretty down. Unless, ya know, you go to MA, then **** yo couch. LOL, I dunno what that even means, it's just hella fun to say. So, like, anyway, I was talkin to my friend on FB the otha day, and he said "Do you wanna jam at my place tommorow?" and I'm like "Dude, fo sho, I'm hella down." So we did this b*tchin funky-a** jam, an then we went into, like, the city to chill. So, anyway, while we were in the Castro, this old hippy dude walked up to us, and he had this, like, stick of incense behind 'is ear like a ****in pencil! It was, like, hella sketch, and he smelled hella like reefer. Anyway, we started talking 'bout Steely Dan 'cause the ice cream place we were walking by was, like, pumpin Kid Charlamagne, and we talked for like an hour. The dude was pretty chill, but a little crunk, so we, like, bolted back to the ferry.



Yah, we're badass. :smallwink:

[Totally Guy]

I grew up on Long Island, where the letter "o" becomes "aw" or sometimes "ah".

I thought this was a general American trait but maybe I'm thinking this because nowhere else uses the british plummy "o".

Say it with me now. "Doctor Octopus".:smalltongue:

[Quincunx]

(honks confused half-a/half-o sounds until Glug collapses in agony)

Despite a base American English accent which doesn't create unnecessary homophones (marry, merry, and Mary are different sounds!), I seem to be missing about half the vowels 'a' and 'a'-based characters can represent. My 't's melt into 'd's if I'm not careful. (Listening to Scottish accents reverse that change is just fascinating.) Put me around a Philadelphian and "Yo" will resume pride of place all over my sentences, although I can't remember the last time I was challenged for using a slang term specific to my region instead of not using the one specific to this region. Put me around someone from the northeastern US and I will get back up to speed; the Weiss/Hickman description of Gnomish is accurate enough to describe this.

[KilltheToy]

I live in Texas. Fortunately, Austin is more or less an oasis from the Texan culture, but I still use "y'all" in regular conversation. Before you get ideas, just saying the word does not automatically bestow an accent. It's more like saying "you all" but faster. Also in Texas, we cannot seem to pronounce basic words like "was", or "because". We say "wuz", and "becuz".

Sample Austinite statement:
"Hey, y'all, where wuz Jimmy at?"


This, but without the Austin bit.

You know, there are parts of Houston that provide an oasis from the Texan culture. It's not just Austin that's keepin' it weird.

[Innis Cabal]

Oh, the one bit of NorCal (and SoCal) that I left out: cursing, as frequently and severely as possible. :smalltongue:

So, like, here's a ridoncoulous, like, excerpt or whatever of what we sound like up here. Like, we're all hella white in Marin, but we're pretty down. Unless, ya know, you go to MA, then **** yo couch. LOL, I dunno what that even means, it's just hella fun to say. So, like, anyway, I was talkin to my friend on FB the otha day, and he said "Do you wanna jam at my place tommorow?" and I'm like "Dude, fo sho, I'm hella down." So we did this b*tchin funky-a** jam, an then we went into, like, the city to chill. So, anyway, while we were in the Castro, this old hippy dude walked up to us, and he had this, like, stick of incense behind 'is ear like a ****in pencil! It was, like, hella sketch, and he smelled hella like reefer. Anyway, we started talking 'bout Steely Dan 'cause the ice cream place we were walking by was, like, pumpin Kid Charlamagne, and we talked for like an hour. The dude was pretty chill, but a little crunk, so we, like, bolted back to the ferry.



Yah, we're badass. :smallwink:

This is any city in America. We cal em wiggers where I come from.

[Anuan]

Innis; I lol'd :smalltongue: Though NoCal male slang seems like a cross between 'wigger' and 'valleygirl'.

[Moff Chumley]

Wigger? Not fammiliar with the term...

Anywho, it LOOKS superficially similar to any American city, but you'll find that there are some subtle differences: Chill, sketch, hella, and crunk are fairly regional, but I digress.

[randman22222]

To us, yes. I've kinda noticed American's like English accents, especially southernish sounding ones. :smalltongue:

QFT. :smalltongue:

Also, lookie what I found:
http://fallenangel.furtopia.org/JUNK/total-county.gif

[Innis Cabal]

Innis; I lol'd :smalltongue: Though NoCal male slang seems like a cross between 'wigger' and 'valleygirl'.

Seems so. Its really the Fo Sho' and the Hella that does it for me. Though the random likes interjected into just about everywhere certainly gives it that Valley Girl feel. Though Valley Girl is SoCal so....its not like its misplaced for the region.



Chill, sketch, hella, and crunk are fairly regional, but I digress.

I hear these all over the place from NE Ohio where I live to Little Rock AR to Flagstaff AZ to Tama FL. Crunk is a muscial style and its hardly all that isolated to the West Coast. Chill is common venacular of the last 30 years of American culture. Hella is slang, and has at least been present since the early 90's as can been seen thanks to No Doubt. Sketch is the only one i'm really not aware of where it came, but i've been hearing it since college and thats been a while ago. The California dialect is slowly becoming the social norm for American English, so it shouldn't be surprising that alot of terms would be prevelant through out.


The midwest, Ohio no expection, is a rhotic accent, so unlike a good deal of our friends east of us, we use all our letters. But myself, having a great deal of family from Maine and thus having my speech patterns from them early on had to adapt to this. So my R's can be pronounced with more inflection then most.

So instead of saying wata, Bevly, caa, or ringa like my grandmother or the rest of the family up north, I say waterr, Berverrly, carr or and ringerr, a hard and forceful R sound. Not that its common or part of the regional venacular.

The region of NE Ohio I grew up in also had alot of pick up words from the south and from New England, though it was more on account of the boarding school I attended, where korean and british english also leaked into common vocab.

We used the term bangers and fish and chips. Dropped our random letters like a good ol' southan drawl, and ta be honest no one paid no mind to it. Jus' the way everyone talked. The habit of adding a question onto the end of the sentance was something i've never seen outside of NE Ohio, more or less a ya? or you know? added to the end of a sentance. "Going to the store" was changed to "Going to the store ya?" even if it was plain to see with your own eyes it was the case. Or "Don't stick that fork in the light socket ya know?" clearly, bad idea but your still leaving it up to the person to decide wether or not they really want to do it.

[Anuan]

A 'wigger' is somebody that acts in the cliche 'gangsta' style and uses their slang; the word is a portmanteu of 'white' and a not very nice term for black people. 'Crunk' is one of the words a 'wigger' would use, though possibly in a different way. There's various explanations on -why,- but if you're crunk you're high and drunk at the same time. One such explanation is it's a portmanteu of 'chronic' and 'drunk.'

Also, I love that the above map calls itself a map of 'generic names for soft drinks by county. We use the proper term, hurrah :smallbiggrin:

[randman22222]

To the Californians: Frank Zappa's Valley Girl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnVE3UTIgEM).

(No offense meant. It's funny. Give it a listen. :smalltongue:)