English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

My Dad's American but I grew up in Greece and went to university in the UK so my dialect is a weird mix of stuff I;ve read, my fathers 1940's expressions and 10year old northern English slang so I never know who I'm talking like

I would tend to say 10 past six for example.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

My dad was Greek and I grew up in America.

Bradd Szonye

@terdon Past is not necessarily BrE, but it's not typical where I'm from. I think.

It would probably strike me as Mid-Atlantic – East Coast or BrE.

terdon

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 really? Do you speak Greek?

@BraddSzonye I assume that's what my Philadelphia-raised Dad would say but it might be the Brit influence in my case

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@terdon I wouldn't say that.

Bradd Szonye

1:25 AM

People talk funny in Philadelphia. It's harrible.

terdon

:) So they say @Bradd, never actually been there

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I know some curse words, kyrie eleison, and christos anesti.

Yinz guys are funny.

terdon

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 there you go then! That's weird though, I always think its a shame when a language skips a generation

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@terdon it is.

terdon

I have a couple of friends, she's French, he's Italian, they live in Barcelona so their 4 year old speaks perfect Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian and is learning English at school. How cool is that!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

1:28 AM

@terdon It's hard to believe that America is a superpower, that's how cool.

And that's a leap, but I've had a drink.

terdon

You're not alone there... By the way, I assume everyone tells you you looks like Peggy from Mad men in that picture you have on your site right?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

And since Audacity won't let me channel isolate my track, I'm gonna go play my piano.

@terdon no! Ha! I just put that up.

terdon

I looked you up the other day and had to look twice to make sure you weren't she :)

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Most of my life, I've heard Jodie Foster.

terdon

Hey, you could do worse!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

1:31 AM

@terdon I haven't watched that since the tippy top of season 3.

I saw the first few episodes into SterlingCooperDraperPryce land.

terdon

Yeah, got kinda tired with it too, but the dialogs were brilliant!

Bradd Szonye

Ah, I can see the Jodie Foster thing.

I work with a Greek guy named Panos – but it's his first name.

terdon

@BraddSzonye yeah, 'bout 32% of us are called Panos ;)

MadMen had one of my favorite puns ever. They had an episode where during the party for a new manager, there was a horrible accident and someone lost his foot. Sterling quipped :'Yes, it's tragic, and just when he'd got it in the door' :)

Bradd Szonye

Interesting, Panos doesn't seem to be cognate to any English names.

terdon

Well, it actually comes from the Greek word for the Virgin Mary, Panagia

it becomes Panagiotis for men's names and is shortened to Panos

Bradd Szonye

1:35 AM

behindthename.com/name/panagiotis

Yeah, I was just looking it up on BTN.

terdon

Hey, do you guys have any idea what 'Oh Dear !' means?

I mean, is it Dear God? Dear me?

Is it dear as in expensive?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@terdon really!

terdon

been thinking about posting a question but I'm afraid I'll be sent to ELL

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 really?

Bradd Szonye

Huh, I have no idea. You should ask.

terdon

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 ah, the name

Bradd Szonye

1:37 AM

Well, after you research it.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@terdon I wanted to express that I was surprised, but not that I didn't believe you.

terdon

Yes, I had assumed you were an Nth generation Greek who used to be called panagiotopoulos or something long winded like that

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

So I went with the bang.

@terdon Well, my Dad was born to a guy named Litsos. Panos was his stepdad, but they were young enough that their name changed.

Bradd Szonye

@terdon I wonder whether it's related to “Oh bother!” in meaning or derivation or just form.

terdon

Well, you do actually hear it as a last name in Greece but not very often

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

1:38 AM

@terdon @terdon I'm not sure if it qualifies as a minced oath.

terdon

@BraddSzonye I guess, it sounds like a euphemism, I would imagine it is a shortened version of Dear God but can't find proof

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I've said it for a few months now instead of oh no.

terdon

That's the thing, I don't know and it's hard to search for cause I keep finding explanations of the meaning and not the origin

Bradd Szonye

There's also “Oh my!” and “Oh my word!” which are more obviously minced oaths.

terdon

Exactly

Bradd Szonye

1:40 AM

“Oh dear God!” and “Oh dear me!” both seem about equally plausible.

terdon

I just read it the other day and it got me thinking. This is all y'all's fault, ELU bug

Bradd Szonye

And in both cases it seems to be “beloved” rather than “expensive.”

(although I imagine the two senses are related)

terdon

@BraddSzonye very, I was fascinated to find that in Catalan, the word for "I love you" is "I estimate you"

think, estimate as in consider worthy, of value

Bradd Szonye

Yeah, makes sense. I imagine that English estimate and esteem are related too.

Value's a flexible concept.

terdon

But then again, the Iberian peninsula has some very strange word choices. My favorites are consolador for vibrator (I'm sure you can see the origin of that word, the ENglish equivalent is to console) and the word for wife is the same as for handcuffs

Strange language...

Cerberus

1:45 AM

@terdon Haha.

My guess would be dear God.

terdon

@Cerberus yeah, that's my guess as well but that's all it is.

A guess, I mean.

Cerberus

Shortened by some in order not to use the name of our Lord in vain...

Bradd Szonye

I don't have a good idiom dictionary.

Cerberus

Yeah OK.

Perhaps the OED will deliver us...

terdon

That's why I've been afraid to ask, it seems so obvious but I can't find someone to confirm.

Ah-ha!

Also, oh dear. A polite exclamation expressing surprise, distress, sympathy, etc. For example, Dear me, I forgot to mail it, or Oh dear, what a bad time you've been having. These usages may originally have invoked God, as in dear God or oh God, which also continue to be so used. [Late 1600s]

yourdictionary.com/dear-me

Citing The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms

Cerberus

1:47 AM

C. Used interjectionally. Dear!, Oh dear!, Dear, dear!, Dear me!: exclamations expressing surprise, astonishment, anxiety, distress, regret, sympathy, or other emotion. dear bless, help, love, save us (you): ejaculations of astonishment, usually implying an appeal for higher help (obs. or dial.). dear knows! goodness knows, Heaven knows (I do not).
These uses with a verb suggest that dear represents or implies a fuller dear Lord! Thus dear knows! is exactly equivalent to the Lord or God knows!; cf. also the elliptical Save us! Help us! Keep us! and the like; but the historical evidence is n…

terdon

Late 1600s? Wow, I'd have guessed earlier

Cerberus

Oldest quotation:

> 1694 Congreve Double Dealer v. xxii, O dear, you make me blush.

terdon

@Cerberus thanks, that's the OED I take it? The only publication that dares use ejaculation in that context today I guess ;)

Cerberus

Yes, the OED.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hi @Cerb!

Cerberus

1:49 AM

And we should encourage it, shouldn't we, dear?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yo.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Ask Me About Instrument Isolation in Audacity.

Cerberus

arches eyebrows

terdon

asks

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I only mean that in the Ask Me About My Grandchildren sense.

Well...

There's an option under the Effect menu called Vocal Remover, but it does more than advertised.

terdon

I hate Audacity's interface...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

1:51 AM

You can remove or retain a frequency range. I wanted to isolate the piano as best I could, so I retained a large portion of the range of piano frequencies.

terdon

I did a professional project one (the one time I worked as a 'professional' musician) and the sound engineer had Logic and Reason. wow. just wow.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I got pretty familiar with it when I made an audio commercial for Advertising class.

Bradd Szonye

Does it also cross-phase the stereo channels?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

shrug

Bradd Szonye

That's common in vocal-removing algorithms, to remove the center channel.

Might be counter-productive for some uses.

I used to use GoldWave, I think, but I don't remember much of it.

Cerberus

1:54 AM

@terdon What's that?

terdon

@Cerberus the mac software for recording and processing music/sound it's very powerful and ridiculously easy to use

Cerberus

Ahh.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@BraddSzonye I started with that, but the strings were still in the way.

@terdon what's your instrument?

terdon

Guitar, some percussion. Used to play violin as a kid but would only cause it and you (an me) pain today

Yours?

Ah,piano, you said that.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Guitar, voice, and lately, piano again.

Cello for a few years in school.

I'm terrible with anything you have to blow into.

I can sort of play a recorder.

terdon

2:01 AM

Cello is wonderful! My group's bassist's girlfriend is a classically trained cellist and we get to jam with her every once in a while, it's pure joy!

She has a project going with a guy who plays the cajon, just cello and cajon and they can blow you away.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Ooh!

Bradd Szonye

I hate it when I run across a string of excellent or terrible posts by the same author and start worrying that I'm going to trip the serial voting algorithm.

Cerberus

Oh, I usually pretend I don't know it exists.

terdon

@Cerberus are you Dutch? You learned English as a foreign language?

Bradd Szonye

Oh I don't overly worry about it. Just an idle fear.

terdon

2:07 AM

Whenever a friend asks me where he should go to learn English, I suggest Holland. I am convinced they speak better English than both Brits and Yanks

Cerberus

2:18 AM

@terdon Ja.

@terdon Haha, I wouldn't say that.

And I think certain parts of Scandinavia win anyway.

What is your friend's native language?

terdon

Various people, I find it is often the non-native speakers who speak the language best. Since they had to actually learn the grammar and all.

I've just often been taken aback by the quality of English that Dutch friends speak.

Contrast with a conversation I had with a Scottish friend who tried to convince me that Where has Dave went? is correct English grrr.

Cerberus

Haha.

Well, it depends on your standards, I suppose.

Learning a language as a native speaker often teaches you more slang and informal constructions.

Which is a blessing and a curse.

terdon

True. I had the privilege of having both actually. I am a native speaker but grew up in Greece so I had to go to English class. Usually spoke better English than the teachers, but I did learn the formal rules.

Cerberus

Heh.

They say schools in England and America teach you little about grammar.

I'm not sure it is true.

We did learn stuff about grammar.

Dutch school.

terdon

We did in Greece to but then Greek is a much more orderly and rational language than English

For example, there actually are rules :)

Cerberus

2:29 AM

I remember laying out paper triangles of different sizes and colours for nouns, adjectives, and pronounce; prepositions were a crescent, I think...a Montessori school.

terdon

Most of it can be traced directly back to ancient Greek which helps. English is such a wonderful mess of sources it is hard to rationalize.

Huh? How did that work?

Cerberus

Right, somehow you never got an Académie Anglaise.

terdon

Heh, they probably would have called it that too :)

Cerberus

You wrote out a sentence with lots of space between and below the words. Then you had to glue the right paper symbol underneath each word.

terdon

How about Dutch? Do you have an official body?

@Cerberus Ah, I see.

Cerberus

2:31 AM

Yes, the Nederlandse Taalunie. But don't think we obey their crazy and whimsical dictates!

terdon

Is there an Académie Hollandaise? Or would it be Pays Bas-aise?

Cerberus

Heh.

We're not a French colony any more!!

terdon

But do they also dictate to other Dutch speakers or only Holland? I am thinking of Flemish and Afrikaans (if that's still around)

Cerberus

Flanders and Suriname, yes. Afrikaans, no: it is considered a different language. And, yes, it is very much still around.

I presume people from Flanders and Suriname have some voice in the institute.

terdon

Is it? I thought it was an offshoot of high Dutch, isn't that what you guys speak?

Cerberus

2:33 AM

So why did the English never found such an institute?

terdon

Interesting question, especially given how old Johnson's dictionary is.

Cerberus

@terdon Umm I don't think there is such a thing as high Dutch. Afrikaans is based in pre-1800 Dutch but influenced by African languages.

terdon

I don't remember where I got the term from, some book or other.

Cerberus

I think most if not all European countries/languages have them.

@terdon There is High German, which is now standard German.

terdon

I had no idea Suriname spoke dutch.

Cerberus

2:35 AM

They do! Not sure what percentage, though.

terdon

During the Renaissance in the 16th century, differentiation began to be made by opposing duytsch (modern Duits) "German" and nederduytsch "Low German" with dietsch or nederlandsch "Dutch",[6] a distinction that is echoed in English later the same century with the terms High Dutch "German" and Low Dutch "Dutch".

That's where my confusion stems from.

Cerberus

Sep 1 at 1:43, by Cerberus

Mar 22 at 18:01, by Cerberus

Sep 1 at 1:44, by Cerberus

Mar 22 at 18:00, by Cerberus

@terdon Ah OK, I see. I didn't know they used "High Dutch" for High German then, but what do I know about the 16th century...

terdon

More than I, at least you knew it was not Dutch :)

Cerberus

Heh.

The map above shows the distance from standard Dutch.

terdon

Distance in what sense?

Cerberus

2:38 AM

Linguistic distance.

Somehow they didn't include numbers for Suriname and the Antilles. They're much closer to standard Dutch than Afrikaans.

terdon

So each of those is a different dialect?

Haarlem has its own dialect?

Cerberus

A dialect or accent, I presume.

Because Haarlems is more or less the same as standaard-Nederlands.

terdon

That's really cool, I wonder if we could find an equivalent one for English

Cerberus

Go forth, and fetch us such a list!

I know I'm the dog, but it's your language...

terdon

I never argue with three headed dogs.

Cerberus

2:42 AM

Presumably RP would be number 1?

Good.

terdon

RP?

Cerberus

Received Pronunciation.

Or there could be different lists with different centres.

terdon

Huh, this one is pretty cool:

businessinsider.com/…

Cerberus

Haha.

Nice.

terdon

Some of those are great! We really should show it to @ryebread :)

Cerberus

2:47 AM

I've seen the soda/coke/pop one before.

Why to him?

terdon

Ah, nothing I got into a spat about his insistence that if he pronounces something in a given way, that means that Americans do.

Cerberus

Hehe.

terdon

Did you see the one about water/drinking fountain and bubbler?

Cerberus

Regional myopia.

No?

Let me see...

terdon

search the page for bubbler

there is a very strange geographical divide

Cerberus

2:49 AM

Odd, I see it.

Never heard bubbler before.

Are you of English or American descent?

I also didn't know tennis shoes was so big.

terdon

American

Cerberus

OK.

terdon

But I went to university in England so my dialect is really strange

Cerberus

Do most people really say tennis shoes?

terdon

See my previous comment

Cerberus

2:51 AM

Ah, more of an Atlantic dialect?

Bradd Szonye

Those maps are awesome!

terdon

Yup, my Daddy calls it a 'mid-atlantic' one

Cerberus

Right.

terdon

@BraddSzonye aren't they!

Cerberus

Kosmonaut used to post a different version of the pop/coke/soda map here all the time, in 2011...

terdon

2:52 AM

I find the geographical divides fascinating

Cerberus

Have you seen some of the countless Youtube videos where people say these words?

terdon

those cases where the same usage is found only in specific places that are miles apart

@Cerberus no, which? Coke/pop/soda?

In the UK (at least where I was) I often heard give me a cola

Cerberus

They work through a list of questions like "what do you call these shoes: sneakers, gym shoes, or tennis shoes? What do you call drinks like Pepsi Cola and 7Up?" etc.

@terdon We say cola too.

terdon

You being the Dutch?

Cerberus

Yes.

In France, I say cocà.

terdon

2:54 AM

yeah, me too

The Greeks do something I find funny, they say koa kola, eating the middle K

Cerberus

Wow.