Questions tagged [dialects]

This tag is for questions related to mutually intelligible variations within a language.

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Is "wheat skin color" a thing in any dialect of English or just a bad translation from Chinese?

While shopping for action figures, I came across various sellers offering "wheat skin" colored figures, for example here and probably more notably Walmart. That color seems to be what I'd ...
Guntram Blohm's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
42 views

Prefixing a road name or number with "the" -- geographical preference or proper English? [duplicate]

In reading about the LA Freeway Fire this week, it struck me (from the East Coast) as very awkward when they consistently refer to roads by prefixing them with "the". i.e., "The I-10&...
ereisch's user avatar
  • 111
-2 votes
1 answer
91 views

What is "Antipodean English"? [closed]

I was watching this video where the English gentleman asks the Scottish MP to speak in "Antipodean English". From what I know, 'Antipodes' refers to the southern hemisphere and I am unable ...
Shriram's user avatar
  • 57
2 votes
0 answers
40 views

“Core” as the name of a class in school

When I was in middle school (roughly ages 10–13 years old) in the US in the early 1970s, they combined English—or what might now be called language arts—with social studies into a single class that ...
PaulTanenbaum's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
84 views

Use of definite article in school grade names

I'm a younger speaker from Chicago. All throughout my education, I've noticed two different ways in which people can refer to grade levels. One includes the definite article and one does not. For ...
Graham H.'s user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
89 views

What's the meaning here of "until I would have frailed him"?

Jewel, the one she labored so to bear and coddled and petted so and him flinging into tantrums or sulking spells, inventing devilment to devil her until I would have frailed him time and time. — As I ...
Soroush Gh's user avatar
20 votes
2 answers
4k views

What does this Peter Sellers sentence mean?

What does the sentence mean which Peter Sellers is here quoting from his grandad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mbUdsQfSq0&t=294s (I refer to the sentence he says immediately after you start ...
yglodt's user avatar
  • 319
18 votes
2 answers
4k views

Origin of the phrase "crazy as a coon"—is it racist?

Encountered most recently in the Procol Harum song "Lime Street." Does the phrase refer to a raccoon, or is the word here used in the sense of the slur?
guangming223's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
98 views

I was trying to describe a recipe to my friend that I'd had a go of

Is this dialectal use: And I thought I've got a nice kitchen now maybe I should learn to cook. And I'm learning, it's going quite well. I don't always know the right words for things. I couldn't ...
tes389's user avatar
  • 39
5 votes
2 answers
146 views

Do "radiant" and "brilliant" rhyme for the purposes of poetry? Wiktionary says their transcriptions are /ˈɹeɪ.di.ənt/ and /ˈbɹɪljənt/

Is this a dialectal/idiolectal thing, where some merge /i/ and /j/, and others don't? I'm ESL and always thought they're merged until now.
capet99's user avatar
  • 59
6 votes
1 answer
120 views

Is "did" used conditionally, regionally or otherwise? e.g. "Did you want..." instead of "Would you want..."

My partner frequently asks me questions that, when read literally, are questions about the past, but in intent and intended response are actually conditional questions: Did you have any thoughts ...
Michelle C. Funk's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
221 views

Is there dialectal variation in the weak form of "on"?

This question is related, but not quite identical, to a previous one and to another similar one. In a recent video, phonetician Geoff Lindsey claimed that the words "off" and "on" ...
alphabet's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
162 views

Apparent trill in the "br" of "bridge"

I occasionally hear "br" in words such as bridge, bring or British, pronounced with almost a bilabial trill. One example is the word "bring" in The Assumption Song by OneyNG, ...
arctiq's user avatar
  • 53
2 votes
1 answer
114 views

Unusual conjugation of "to be" [closed]

I encountered several times a certain type of sentences (in colloquial contexts) which were clearly grammatically incorrect but seems to be widely spread and, as a non-native English speaker, I would ...
Falcon's user avatar
  • 121
3 votes
1 answer
219 views

Meaning and usage of "head(s) AND tails above"?

I've come across the expression "head(s) and tails above" (the rest, the competition etc; different from something like "can't make head or tail of something" i.e. can't figure it ...
Plus jamais quoi encore's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
100 views

Is there a documented merger or split responsible for whether or not people treat lair and layer as homophones, and if so, what is it called?

Discovered a weird bit of pronunciation distinction in friends today, between three words: lair (as in home to monster) layer (as in levels of a cake) layer (as in "one who lays things down"...
ShadowRanger's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

"Swear" as a noun as opposed to "swear word"

I'm a teenager from Chicago. During my childhood (and, presumably, that of almost all English-speaking children), I was taught that some words were "bad" words; these words were ...
Graham H.'s user avatar
  • 890
1 vote
1 answer
171 views

Flapped r after th in English?

I have heard a few English speakers — native — say the word “three” with what sounds like a flapped r. This might include other words that begin with “thr”, but I can’t remember. It’s just been ...
user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
62 views

*an unitary operator* or *a unitary operator* [duplicate]

The rule that I usually use in such cases is that *an* precedes a vowel sound, while *a* is used before a consonant sound. I understand sound as different from letter - conventionally u would be ...
Roger V.'s user avatar
  • 211
0 votes
2 answers
262 views

How are decimal numbers read or pronounced in different locales (different decimal separator)?

In the USA we use a period (dot) as the decimal separator. The word "point" is normally used for the decimal separator when reading such a number. For example, a number such as 3.14 would ...
HangarRash's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
132 views

Y'all pronounced as "yah"

I grew up in Texas, and I've heard and often said "yah" instead of y'all. I've never seen it listed as an alternative word to y'all. Has anyone else heard this pronunciation? I cannot seem ...
Charlie's user avatar
  • 13
-1 votes
1 answer
46 views

Does anyone know what the word "Some" means here? [closed]

Just to context: I've playing a gang context game and after a funeral the rival gang drives by shooting and then the characters that were at the funeral have the car blown up and then they have to run ...
curiousUser's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
1k views

Meaning of “a dizzard”

I’m working on translation of an American novel, dating back to the late 19th - early 20th centuries, and the main character came from a local little Vermont town. The author describes him as “old ...
Alex V's user avatar
  • 91
-2 votes
2 answers
101 views

In which Englishes are "distant" relative clauses acceptable?

Are sentences like these The man got beaten up who James saw take the train yesterday. The potato was eaten that Hayley said she wanted. with these meanings The man who James saw take the train ...
theonlygusti's user avatar
  • 3,350
1 vote
0 answers
105 views

Terms for grandparents and other relatives [closed]

I’m a teenager from the Midwest. Different people obviously refer to their relatives in many different ways, and I’ve noticed a wide variance in what people call their grandparents. Many people who ...
Graham H.'s user avatar
  • 890
2 votes
0 answers
95 views

Where does the subcontinental usage of 'one' to mean 'named' come from?

Sometimes, when reading texts published in India, written by authors of Indian origin, I notice a usage of the word one in the sense of 'named,' or 'is called.' For instance, it's present in this ...
Heartspring's user avatar
  • 8,280
3 votes
2 answers
120 views

Is there a word for 'everything' in the Northern English dialect?

I'm wondering if there's a word for everything in the Northern-English dialect that's spoken in and around Yorkshire. I know that there's summat (something), owt (anything), and nowt (nothing), but is ...
Qiu Ennan's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
366 views

Is it common to pronounce "machinations" with /sh/?

In the show The Sandman, Ep7, a character speaks "machinations" with a soft /sh/, as "mash-in-ay-tions": You seek to snare him in your machinations again? I expected the "ch&...
ANeves's user avatar
  • 169
4 votes
2 answers
117 views

Figurative meaning of the (verbal) phrase "(play at/run) kittly-benders"?

A kittly-bender is « an area of yielding or broken ice on a body of water; also fig; hence v phrr run kittly-benders, play at ~ to run or skate over such ice as a sport » (DARE): 1871 Hale How to Do ...
Plus jamais quoi encore's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
75 views

Why does the 'Intrusive 'R' appear in the state of Mississippi?

I've seen people discuss the intrusive 'R'. I have also been very curious about this subject, because I am from Mississippi and both my Mother and my Grandmother use the intrusive 'R'. ('Warsh', ...
RiverMiss's user avatar
30 votes
10 answers
11k views

What would a British person call the biscuits that Americans put gravy on?

What are the biscuits that Americans put gravy on called in British English? They're very different from British biscuits. I like both kinds of biscuits, but the British ones would not be good with ...
Someone's user avatar
  • 758
0 votes
1 answer
83 views

Is using "what" in place of "that" associated with a particular dialect of English? [duplicate]

While watching Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, I heard the character Pete say the phrase "reindeer what fly" instead of "reindeer that fly". As a native English speaker, I have ...
T Hummus's user avatar
  • 131
2 votes
1 answer
267 views

Are "orange" and "ginger" synonymous (cat color)?

I recently watched a movie A street cat named Bob, where the cat was described as ginger cat. I thought the color of the cat is described as orange, too. (confirmed with google image search) The ...
sundowner's user avatar
  • 501
3 votes
4 answers
2k views

"call out" vs "call in"

When I am ill and cannot go into the office to work I say "I called out sick". I now live in Texas and people like to correct me and say that it's "call in sick".This doesn't make ...
Kris's user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
2 answers
100 views

Talking "saloon"

I recollect vaguely a line found in some piece of poetry by Dylan Thomas, and it suggests a question in many ways puzzling that I could hardly answer. I have not been able to find the poem and I ...
LPH's user avatar
  • 19.2k
4 votes
0 answers
167 views

Non-standard grammar feature in British dialect?

I moved from Worcestershire in the UK to a non-native English speaking country when I was a child, which has made me very aware of my accent. Unlike my parents, I used to have a regional accent. I ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 41
1 vote
3 answers
298 views

Why does "we have been over this" mean something different from "we are over this"?

The whole sentence is: We’ve been over this a thousand times. The data is irrefutable! What does it mean to "have been over this" here in this context? How does this meaning differ here ...
dae's user avatar
  • 121
4 votes
2 answers
155 views

Examples of the "Proper" use of "ain't" etc. in Georgia/American English Southern dialect?

In Hendrickson, Robert. The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms. New York: Facts on File, 2000. p6 the introduction to "Whistlin' Dixie" we find (emphasis added): Another ...
Julian Moore's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
43 views

Is there a term for use of "would" conditional to indicate lack of precision?

In the Northern Irish dialect, a speaker can say You see, I would have been very shy, and his encouragement really helped me. Here, the "would have been" is used to indicate that the ...
goofballLogic's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
183 views

Why is ‘Gentiles’ considered a two-syllable word?

When I say the word Gentiles I make three specific vowel sounds. I posted a poem in a writing group recently and everyone gave the feedback that a particular line was missing a syllable, when in my ...
jaredad7's user avatar
  • 133
0 votes
1 answer
490 views

Why is 'e' pronounced like 'a' in some words?

I'm not a native English speaker and I have noticed that 'e' in some words are pronounced like 'a' by native speakers sometimes. For example, "Texas" sounds like "Taxes", or "...
Sepp A's user avatar
  • 27
5 votes
1 answer
692 views

Pronunciation of “tour”

Is the following pronunciation of the word “tour” attested in any common dialect of British English? [tɔ˞] This is approximately how I, a native British English speaker, pronounce it. However, it’s ...
TheProseMix's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
264 views

What does "pack a buck for miles" mean?

I am reading "Where the Crawdads sing" and I stumbled upon this sentence "pack a buck for miles". Does this mean some money (e.g., US dollar)? "The Land . . . being marshy ...
Maru's user avatar
  • 109
1 vote
0 answers
60 views

Does any dialect really use 'thee' instead of 'thou'?

There's a John Wayne movie - prolly Angel and the Badman (1947) in which our injured 19th-century hero's Quaker nurse speaks what sounds like a doubly idiomatic form of English… 'Doubly idiomatic' ...
Robbie Goodwin's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
345 views

Does Mia Khalifa speak English with an accent?

She immigrated to America at age 7 (other sources say ten) she seems quite fluent to me. From Wikipedia Khalifa attended a French-language private school in Beirut, where she also learned to speak ...
ingaualbanian乚's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
194 views

Term for different pronunciations of the same word

Does anyone know what it's called when a word's pronunciation changes based on context? I am not talking about different people pronouncing the same word differently (i.e. caramel). E.g. I say "I ...
Anna's user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
3 answers
529 views

Getting "poured out" in legal terminology

A common expression in Texas legal circles is, We got poured out down at the courthouse. The clear meaning is that their team lost a lawsuit. I’ve been unable to find a source, first use, nor an ...
Scott Shirley's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
39 views

Welcome travelers and locals to your premises

"Welcome travelers and locals to your premises." I believe that sentence would be understood by Australian/NZ people. I'm just checking, is that something an American would understand and ...
user1946932's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
522 views

(Mis-)pronunciation of ‘accoutrement’ that ends in -L not in -NT?

I’m interested in the apparent mispronunciation of the word accoutrement [əˈkutrəmənt]. Although it’s not a word I encounter daily, when occasioned upon, I often hear the speaker pronounce it as [...
retriever123's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
86 views

Usage of the term "good egg" [closed]

I came across the informal idiom good egg which means a likeable or pleasant person. The idiom seems somewhat old-fashioned. My question is: How common is this idiom inside and outside the USA ? And ...
Mohamed Ali's user avatar
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