How does your region speak English?

That's as dumb as:

"What vehicle will you have?"

"Ford."

"What type?"

"Toyota Camry."

 

How does your region speak English?

Generally pretty poorly, but interestingly, where ever I go there will be some one whose English is understandable.

 

Yes and we share the heritage of a nation to lazy to even pronounce our capitol city's name correctly.

But back to the US. In the south they seem to have a real love for mashing or cutting the button.

 

I'm speaking about Laos

 

Yeah I know North Queensland....I do know some geography

 

Where I live, it is the raising vowels and vowel slurs that are distinctive and often makes it easy to point out a local.

Most people I meet laugh when I tell them about the "California Accent", but it really does exist. This is most noticeable in how we actually say things. Especially freeways.

Go to say Alabama, and they will tell you to "Go south until you hit I-10, then go East". In LA, they would say "Go south till you hit the 10 and go East". Calling freeways "The number" instead of "I-number" is a pretty distinct California way of talking.

We are also more likely to use the name of the freeway instead of the number. You will hear people say "The San Diego Freeway" as often as they will say "The 405 Freeway". Or "Go to the Nimitz" in exchange for "Go to the 880". Where in every other part of the country they would say "Go to the I-880" or "Go to Interstate 880".

 

That's not really true. In Michigan, we commonly call M-10 "The Lodge" (In fact, I had to look up what number "The Lodge" actually is, and if you told me M-10, I wouldn't recognize that.) People around my area don't usually say "I-94" or "US 23" or "M-14". We would just say "Take 14 west to 23 north", or "Take 23 south to 94 west", or "Take 275 to 696".

 

Yea, and that happens also.

But notice, you do not say "take the 14 west to the 23 north". In California, we would tell somebody "take the 405 north, then the 10 west".

There is also things about the way we talk that is specific to California, and is even spreading.

Coming from LA originally, like everybody else I am used to traffic alerts being called "Sigalerts". This was a uniquely LA term, originating in the 1950's when a radio broadcaster named Lloyd Sigmon used the term to alert local drivers of traffic problems. When I moved to the Bay Area in 1990, they were called "CalTrans Alerts", since nobody here knew who Mr. Sigmon and his alerts were.

But in the last 20 years, this term is now common here as well. CalTrans Alert is a dead term now in this area, and everybody now calls them Sigalerts. Even though nobody knows how they got that name.

 

How does my region speak English? Well, um ... like, you know ... Oh my God -- that's a hard one. Um, like you know, they, you know, well, you know, they speak pretty good, you know. It's like some of them don't speak too, um, uh, real clear you know, but you know they do okay, you know. I dunno know though, um, you know, some of them say "you know" an awful lot, you know. And most all of them, you know, say "Oh my God" a lot, you know. But, like it's ... kinda cute, you know.

A bro I know -- um, says like you know, "yo! 'sup mon?" That's like kinda cute too, you know.

 

Do they say...."go down I-20 till you get to mile marker 24 and take that exit"?

 

I know that when I was in Alabama, everybody would say something like "Take 231 until you get to I-10", and some gave me funny looks when I would say instead "take the 231".

Of course, I could tell you some hilarious stories about trying to get directions in Alabama. One of my favorites (when I did pizza delivery) was more or less "Go down County Road 13, then turn a half mile before you get to where the old Baptist church used to be..."

Now how I would know to turn before I get to something that is no longer there, I have no idea.

 

Yeah, my partner teases me about that kind of stuff all the time. (He's one of them city folk.) "Turn right at the big tree, go the hill over and the bend around, then turn left where the cows cross". Who needs a GPS?

 

They also expect you to know everyone and exactly where they live....by the way....my house is on 231. Just north of the trade school.

 

Lotta ghetto slang in H-town. Even trying to avoid it, it's crept into my vernacular over the years.

 

Wow, small world here, eh?

I left the Wiregrass in 2007, but still have fond memories of the area. I still keep in contact with a few friends in the area, thanks to social media sites.

 

I told my buddy at work about "the old Baptist Church" and he thought it was hilarious.

He then informed me that everyone should know where the old Baptist Church was.

 

LOL.

Well, it was the old one that used to be in Headland. One of my coworkers told me it had burned down like 15 years ago, and that was in 2007.

 

If you're ever in the Ocean State, be very careful when you ask for directions. You will hear something like "Go down the road for a mile and take a right where the old Stah Mahket used to be....".

And here is a lesson on understanding the local lingo:

[video=youtube;ikdawnIY8RA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikdawnIY8RA[/video]

 

Or directions in Rhode Island: "Follow this road to the Tim Horton's and turn left". What they don't tell you is that there's a Tim Horton's on every corner, and that the road forks several times before you get to the right one!

 

väll her in sviden vi spik inglisch lajk dis, vaj do jo vondär?

 

It's worse than that, there are no Tim Hortons in Rhode Island......

 

Interesting. Apparently they closed them in 2010? That was well after my last trip there.