peopleofthedas | Dialogue and the Oddities of the English Language

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

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Hopefully a few more Aussies will de-lurk to help with this, because I'm completely useless about accents. Besides finishing words with an upwards inflection, I have no insight to the pronunciation of Australian English.

When somewhere is going to be packed out (full. Very, very full) you will often hear the phrase 'everyone and their dog will be there'.

A person who is being particularly uncouth and/or is dressed in a rather slovenly manner will get called a yobbo.

The popularity of Top Gear aside, nobody calls a truck or van a lorry, and most vehicles have different names from both Britain and the US. Food is a bit of a nightmare for the foreigner, 'chips' means both fries and crisps, and you can only tell which by context. Lots of vegetables go by different names.

Plus there are a lot of words from the surrounding Asian languages in common usage. Thanks to TV most Australians will understand you, but I've learned we confuse the living daylights out of Americans until they get up to speed on the lingo.

Yes, that's the kind of thing I mean. How about the word "behemoth" used for what I would call a tractor trailer or an eighteen wheeler.

Yikes. Nope, I've never heard any of those terms. That's a semi, or semi-trailer if you aren't shortening it. I've also never heard the vehicle to pull those style of trailers called tractors (to me those are rigs) - here a tractor is a non-road vehicle used for cultivation.

Wiki also just taught me that road trains are legally limited to under 20m in America. That would cripple road transport here. But it would make driving a bit less nerve-wracking.

I've heard semi also used to refer to that kind of rig. Of course, we do use "tractor" to refer to those vehicles used for farming. But, if I'm referring to a big rig of the kind used to transport goods, I'm most likely to use the term "tractor trailer".

Some of our rigs do use double trailers, but it requires a special endorsement in addition to the regular commercial license to operate them. Those trailers are also shorter than the usual length for a single trailer. I'd have to look up the exact lengths. Okay, it seems that the usual length for trailers pulled as doubles are 28 ft. per (roughly 8.52 meters) while a single can be from 38-40 feet(app. 11.7-12.3 meters). Longer trailers are used depending on load. For example a trailer used to haul heavy equipment or steel beams might be as long as 45 feet (app 13.8 meters). (You'll have to take my conversions as fairly rough since I'm using the imprecise method of feet to inches to meters.) We have few roads, other than those interstate (federal) highways in the Great Plains and certain Western states which would readily accommodate the kind of rigs I've seen in Australia. Sorry, my maternal uncles all drove trucks for a living at some point in their lives, and the youngest of them made his career in trucking.

You know, the old mule trains in the US often had more than one wagon hooked together with a team of up to 20 mules pulling them. It wasn't a common configuration, and most long mule teams were used in industries such as logging and open pit mining or quarrying operations.

We're getting off-topic, but I always enjoy learning the small details of how damn different home is from the rest of the world, bizarre wildlife notwithstanding. This whole thread is a goldmine. Some of the terminology in the baked goods discussion has me in stitches.

The mule comment has me curious, because I think they were never widely used here. All the Colonial era art I've seen is bullocks or horses.

Yes, I know we're sliding off topic here. According to the Wiki, mules are valued for their intelligence and their greater strength relative to their size. They can also subsist on less than ideal fodder and tend to be very healthy animals. In the American South, heavy clay soils are common once you get away from the coast. These soils are very fertile, but aren't easy to work. Mules were the draft animal of choice, particularly for poorer sharecroppers. And unlike an ox or bullock, mules are more comfortable to ride. Their intelligence makes them versatile, so the same mule may pull the family plow, the family wagon or carry the wife to market.

There's a wonderful breeder in my area who breeds mules from Percheron mares. Many of their customers are Amish, who do not use machinery to work their farms and prize these big work animals. Okay, back to language...lol!

Oh, to keep this somewhat on topic, a male mule is often called a Johnny while a female is a Jenny. On the rare occasions that a Jenny produces offspring, it's called a Molly (a general term, like foal).

I'm getting a vague idea about what kind of vehicle you're talking about. In the UK we call it an 'artic' (articulated lorry).

Yes, that's it. It's the same type of rig. I found that on the Wiki, but forgot to mention it. :)

'everyone and his dog' is widely used in the UK too. Maybe that one went over on the... *ahem* early boats.

An American would likely say "everyone and his brother."

As a slight aside, if you're doing something out in the open for everyone to see -- possibly something just a tad risque or plain bold -- a Southerner may use the phrase "in front of God and everybody." "That boy walked in the room, and she kissed him soundly in front of God and everybody."

Here we might say 'she kissed him bold as brass' although I think that may be a little oldfashioned nowadays.

Dialogue and the Oddities of the English Language

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