A request

On the two qccasions that I have visited UK, I was surprised by the changes in dialects I came across as I move north from Eastbourne, through England, and on to Paisley in Scotland. I think the least understandable were some children in Paisley, although we did manage to communicate once everyone slowed down a bit, they did find my Kiwi accent was a bit strange(I have not got an accent)!

I remember Dad saying how he missed a number of busses when going to Milngavie, until someone asked him where he was going, he said it sounded something like Mulguy. Dad just another colonial with the RNZAF.

There are differences in the language between all countries including Australia, and NZ.

My Grandfather used to complain about the quality of the English language, saying the from before the turn of the century(19th 20th) things had been going down hill. I imagine his Grandfather said something similar.

Ian S C

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Peter,

Do you remember 'Boys from the Black Stuff' ?

**LINK**

MichaelG.

i expect written word and its rules will be subject to much change in the coming decades - ive noticed lately that quite a few tv programs flash up a box of txt on the screen as the actors are texting on their mobiles - which is teaching millions of people the NEW way of writing - personally I have dropped using apostrophes as I have come to learn that you do not need them as the context of the text implies the meaning - steve

Ian,

Understanding some Kiwi dialect is equally hard fro us back home. First visit I was re-rranging car hire collection time and the young lady kept saying 'I will meet you at teen' and possibly because of travel lag I was then trying to get her to tell me where that was! I am sure seeing it in print the answer is obvious ' meet me at ten' But they had a good laugh at me when it was finally decrypted by my Kiwi friends !!

Dialect is very interesting mid morning break in North Staffordshire is freed to as 'snapping' in South Cheshire it is called 'Bagging' and so on.

Anyway you have wonderful country and people now been 3 times and ready to go again. before that I need to go for a lozack

Regards John

Michael,

Do you remember 'Boys from the Black Stuff' ?

In a word, no! I do remember some of my colleagues talking about it, but I took no interest in it. And from the clip you posed, which appears to show a rather uncouth character, I don't want to know. It may well be that I haven't understood it, but frankly, I don't think I want to.

In general, I think, that as far as I am concerned, this discussion has now come to an end. I'm not going to change my views about the poor English education which has been, and still is being, foisted on people younger than myself, and I'm not prepared to accept that so-called text-speak and other methods of short-form writing are valid methods of communication - they are, in my view, nothing more than laziness. As I said earlier, I have no problems with genuine dialect - as long as I can understand it, but sloppy, uncouth, ungrammatical English is both a no-no and a turn-off.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

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My point was, Peter, that this was an honest representation of dialect

In the early 1970s, I worked in Liverpool and I can confirm that gi'us a job is representative.

MichaelG.

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P.S. ... For comparison, you may [or, apparently, may not] be interested to know that in the Midlands 'Black Country' dialect the use of we'm [i.e we am] is the dialect version of 'we are'.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/12/2015 14:12:01

As a rather uncouth character I'd better stop posting.

Edited By Steven Greenhough on 18/12/2015 17:29:42

Edited By Steven Greenhough on 18/12/2015 17:30:08

Actshully I too was just extracting a bit of urin. Da inglish is majic innit?

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Well said, Steven

Most of the responses have [underlying the humour] carried the same sentiment, but I applaud you for 'saying it out loud'.

I really hope it has run its course.

MichaelG.

Hmmm. The OP seems to have opened a can of worms. I entirely understand his point, but personally I would far rather see someone attempt to make a helpful post online than not, however garbled. And I found posting on forums difficult and intimidating at first.

My own grammar and spelling is, of course, faultless and exemplary, but even I am alarmed at the mistakes and simple errors I have made when reading back my own posts before I click the "submit" button. I often have to have several goes at editing before it is completely right. Imagine my horror when I reread the post 3 days later and realise that, quite apart from grammar and spelling, my original post seems to have been constructed randomly from one of those fridge-magnet poetry kits, and makes just about as much sense. "That's not what I meant to say at all!"

Slightly off topic, but following on from what some others have written here....

I have been listening to old men complain about standards of education, literacy and, indeed, just about everything else for the last 50 years. And I'm sick of it. The fact is that life as we know it has improved almost immeasurably over the last half-century. We are better fed, longer-living, wealthier, safer and happier (!) than we have ever been. The advances made in technology (and pretty much every other discipline) during my lifetime are astonishing. This has mostly been accomplished by the ill-educated, ignorant, illiterate, slovenly, lazy, disinterested, feckless ignoramuses who have left school since 1965. Let's give them some credit.

Pete

As someone whose Great Grandfather was the licensee at the Commericial Hotel in Slaithwaite and therefore possibly qualified to comment on these matters, I would agree that the name of the town can be pronounced Slaweet, or Slathwitt, but never Slaith-wait. I can confirm that Bradford can be pronounced Bratfudd and that Huddersfield can also be spoken Huthersfield. As someone who was born in Cheshire however I can definitely confirm that the dialect in Stockport can be completely different from that spoken in Hyde, they are all of 5 miles apart.

Over the last few days there has be an international conference in Dunedin (NZ) on this subject, and the English language in general. I think it maybe an annual event, held in different parts of the world each year.

Ian S C

It Is Christmas, A time for good cheer getting together with friends and family.

Can't this thread be allowed to disappear into the abyss that lessor value posts descend to in this case preferably at a very low level?

Education and literacy do not necessarily travel hand in hand with being smart. Education is no guarantee that a person is a compassionate and caring citizen or a good craftsman. History has recorded numerous illiterate but great men and women. Anyway this forum is about Engineering it is not about English literature criticism.

I am making a new year resolution. I will not post in this thread again. Let it pass across the Styx to the place where it belongs.

Regards
John

Owroight? Yam know what, Black Country dialect is supposed to be the closest to mediaeval English, so that's how Shakespeare ought to be performed (he was a Midlander, after all) and perhaps how all language conservationists should speak?

www.sedgleymanor.com/dictionaries/dialect.html

Neil

P.S. Reasonably qualified to opine on the topic being married to a Brummy and with twenty year's of working with Black Country folk under his belt).

P.P.S. yes I know Brummy is very different from Black Country, just as Dudley isn't Walsall!

MichaelG.

[Family from Worcestershire & Warwickshire & born in Winson Green Hospital]

... escaped in 1966

I blame the BBC letting oiks and plebs onto the airwaves instead of proper RP accents.

It's easier to nit pick whilst welded to an armchair than actually do anything, old bean.

The Boys from the Black stuff and Auf Weidersein Pet were about an era, it was thinly disguised as comedy but it was true.

Whether you care to encompass it or not doesn't mean to say it didn't happen. Not everyone was on a diet of sandwiches with the crust cut off and Horlicks.