Dialogue and the Oddities of the English Language

[jannifer]

One of the wonderful things about the English language is its richness. There are so many regional variations -- not just among British, American, Australian English, but within those countries. Some of these expressions are wonderful and could offer something special in dialogue within our fiction. Other things are just interesting little bits.

I've added some new comments with more goodies I remember my grandmother using. Yay!

UPDATED QUESTION: Could some kind speaker of UK English explain the meaning of the phrase "no better than she should be"? I have the basic idea, but some clarification would be helpful.



In the conversation following the release of Chapters 51 and 52 of VLSV, ScaryLady and Lenna mentioned a few of these phrases in regards to having a fight or throwing a fit (as we might say in the States).

From ScaryLady -- "Caerwyn throwing an almighty paddy at the uncaring archdemon made this chapter for me.

'Oi, AD, quarter to four, school gates. I'm 'aving yer out.'"

In a later post -- "having a strop? throwing a wobbler? losing his rag?"

From Lenna -- "Duking it out. Scrapping. Busting someone's ass. Giving a knuckle sandwich. Opening a can of whoopass. Er, uh... Kicking the shit out of someone?"

Now, because this post and its attendant comments have the potential to wander waaaaaaaaayyy off the DA topic of this community, I've written a post over on my journal which offers up a few of the turns of phrase I've heard here in my little corner of heaven. I'd like for you to stop by and add your various regional expressions, turns of phrase, metaphors and slang. I'm sure that some of these expressions will be useful in dialogue and some won't be. All of them will be great fun!

Please, join the discussion! You may comment here or at http://jannifer.dreamwidth.org/2172.html

Comments

[sleepyowlet]

The Spanish have a lot of th-es, pronounced the same way as in English. Most people in Latin America pronounce it differently though.

Most Germans I know pronounce the th as a voiced s, though. So they go "zink", and "zank you"... and they tend to pronounce the voiceless s at the beginning of a word as a voiced s. And then there are the "false friends" - "gift" means "poison" in German, and "become" is very similar to "bekommen" which means "get" so it might happen that a German patron will ask the waiter "When will I become my food?"

The English have difficulties with Umlauts and both ch-sounds (one made at the back of the throat, one made between your palate and the back of your tongue) and they usually ignore the fact that voiced and voiceless s are the same letter in German...

Linguistics are fun. Most of my fellow students grumbled about them being boring, but I quite enjoyed the subject.

[jannifer]

Oddly enough, I can manage the ch sounds, partly in thanks to my singing in languages other than English and partly thanks to my course in Middle English. Actually, I can sing an umlaut much more easily than I can say it.

I'd like to take a proper linguistics course. I think it'd be very interesting, especially since English is such a melting pot of a language.

[1smut_princess]

Yeah like my friend Ceinida - it's said "The-nigh-da", or in Malaga we said "Gra-thi-ah" instead of "grass-E-as" like they do over here in the States.