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Archiver > APG > 2008-02 > 1204055655


From: philip thorne <>
Subject: Re: [APG] Dialects, Language, Regionalism
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:54:15 -0500
References: <669581.54715.qm@web84101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <669581.54715.qm@web84101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Hello Yall,

Last year I was in Americus, GA and just before I got on the highway
to drive back up north I said let me stop to get something to eat at
Burger King. I'm standing in line and I'm listening to two teenage
girls who are having a conversation in front me. If my life depended
on knowing what they were talking about I wouldn't be writing today.
Their Southern rural accent was so think that I could only pick up a
few words. Atlanta isn't so bad because there are so many people
from NYC who have relocated there but still you hear the Southern
accent. The first time I went to LA I was like these people sound
weird. On the flip side by parents being West Indian sounded normal
to me but they didn't sound normal to other people.

I have never thought about it until this discussion but where in the
U.S. do people say soft-drinks? I'm sure it's a term used here.
Anyway because liquor is something that everyone drinks in the
Eastern Caribbean (you can get that before clean drinking water)
anything other than liquor is called a soft-drink because it's the
opposite of something hard like Jack Iron Rum. So if I am visiting a
relative and they ask me what I want to drink and I want juice or
soda I'd say, can I have something soft. Of course we also speak
British English that sounds like it is crossed with an East Indian
accent along with a mixture of French, African and Hindi words.

And NO I don't think that NYC is the center of the universe. In
fact I grew in Phila. and enjoyed going with my father to the Italian
market on Saturday morning and eating my Philly Cheese Steaks and
driving along the river and through Fairmount Park on my way back to
Mt. Airy which was the north western most part of the city. People
used to say, oh you live up there as if I was living in another part
of the state and I dared not venture in to Southwest Philly because
that was the ghetto but I recently went to visit a friend there and
that has changed due to gentrification.

Anyway just some random thoughts.

Philip Thorne

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