More "divided by a common language" stuff

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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

THAT is a 100% tzimmes. :lol:
MikeS wrote:I think the term for these is sociolect.
A good word to remember.
MikeS wrote:There is a tape of an interview the BBC did many years ago with Gustav Holst. Apparently his heavy Gloucestershire accent was deemed outside of acceptable standards. They transcribed the initial interview and then spent three days with Holst, coaching him on how to speak his own words “properly.” The result was weird and totally lifeless, but the ears of Britain were spared from hearing “pirate talk.”
I suppose adding subtitles would probably have been thought the more demeaning of the two, so the lesser of evils was RP, by golly. But it occurs to me that Holst himself mustn't have been without some agency in this decision.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by GreenWood »

david_h wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 2:38 pm
GreenWood wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:54 pm However David, that is the problem, who is supposed to make allowance for who ?
I said 'allowances for each other" .... but I might speak at a more relaxed pace and be more careful with my diction.
That sort of reduces to "speaking plainly" though, and we only have plain English to go by because plain American (or any other) is not to be found.

For the listener though, well you can't really make (or do other than make?) allowance for the other because either you understand what is being said or you don't. This can be quite torturous in conversation, because I think language paints a way of being or of thinking, and if you cannot relate to it it becomes "the other" or foreign or unusual. Some brits have a straightforward way of dealing with this when speaking in foreign countries to people who don't speak English, they just speak louder and then louder again until the person they are speaking to complies or fetches help.

I wouldn't want to change local English (or American) dialects, even those I find difficult or even unpleasant to listen to.

A recent example. Here in Portugal, standing at a roundabout with family, waiting for a taxi. A car drives around the roundabout and a lad is shouting out the window as loud as possible "yer **** " for no apparent reason. The taxi arrives and the driver is a Portuguese who studies in UK . I ask her how it is there for her, and she says ok "..but they are soooo rude". I could only agree with her... but I know the british can also be very polite. So people take their pick I suppose, but finding a lot of that kind of slang ( a manner from the US?) mixed into every sentence "just isn't" (though for some reason Australians just about get away with it sounding ok) , it becomes tedious and meaningless and ruins a sense of hostility that is otherwise well enough understood.


I also still remember being teased in UK over using a hard English accent I had picked up, until I changed it, and that effectively placed a barrier to, or overode, a link to one side of my family. So to "tread lightly" is not a bad idea at all. The french erased various dialects last century by similar means... so they all speak french... and haven't too much to show for having done that... in my opinion. At national level the only real necessity is to make sure that people are able to speak a common language besides their own forms.

In EU the trend is the opposite, a divide and conquer strategy, which is heavily politicised and destabilising for countries, or what were once countries. For example, you might only allow local dialect the room to be, but to try to reintroduce those under outside political dimension is not very constructive.

In Spain Catalan language is a good example of this, and the effort to exclude Castellano from schools. No matter what seperatist ideas anyone has, it is still useful to speak the main language of one's/another's country

https://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2022/09 ... b4597.html


In other words people have to be stupid or dumbed down just to fit into a political category.


You are fortunate there Nano, I couldn't use the word "Yank" without it being taken as pejorative, which is a shame really because it is quite straightforward and its origin seems unknown. Scot, Brit, Yank etc. are easy, "An American" is long.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

GreenWood wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:45 am "An American" is long.
Not to mention a point of nomenclatural irritation for a number of Canadians, as I've found.

I like the word "Yank" mainly for its economy, as a point of differentiation from and therefore as a courtesy to Canadians, but I also like its grittiness.

Most US citizens don't use the word much on their home turf if at all, in my experience; like, almost never. I only came to really use it once I started hanging out here, where it definitely has utility. Of course I understand that some use the word pejoratively, but I embrace it for myself and my fellow Yanks; after all, we are most comfortable with informality even when we're being formal, and the word suits very well. Should a European call me a Yank and be baffled that the intended sting seems not to register, it's not that I'm thickheaded; it's just that I don't have to play that game. There are far worse things to call someone.

Do remember, though, that within the States "Yankee" and "Yank" are two (or actually three) very different things; don't let wayward dictionaries tell you otherwise, for that conflation is for other countries and their anti-US protest placards. At home, "Yankee" in its broadest sense denotes a Northerner in contrast to a Southerner - as such it is primarily a Southern term - and in its narrowest sense it denotes someone from New England, in which case it is often an autonym (then there's the pro baseball team, but let's put that aside for now). If there's any confusion here, just remember that should someone utter the formula "damned Yankee", at least you know it's a Southerner talking. Never assume that "Yankee" might be a more formal rendering of "Yank" - on US soil that's not how it works, for here they are not in the least interchangeable; but I'm speaking as a Northerner. In the South, "Yank" might not be as nuanced. Indeed, some Southern US Chiffers have in the past registered some discomfort in being called "Yank" instead of "American" - not because of any perceived foreign insult, but because it's too close to "Yankee" in the North/South US regional sense. It can matter. For that reason I also like the more droll word "Merkin", but tend these days not to use it so much. I would suggest that when Northerners (not New Englanders) self-refer as Yankees, it's either somewhat ironically, such as in a definite North-South context, or as a provocation in similar circumstances. As you might imagine, I have little occasion to use the word "Yankee" in any of its senses. On an interesting enough fine point, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to refer to the New York Yankees as "the Yanks". That would be about the only time I can think of where I'd count the terms equivalent.

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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by GreenWood »

Thanks!

I really didn't know how the word was used in the US. Apart from little online, my only direct experience of the word Yank has been pejorative, and that almost always from a British source. So one grandfather would go on about the yanks, for example, or in other settings at best it would be belittling somehow. I think the kindest would be along the lines of "let's see what the Yanks have to say about this" which would be pretty much neutral. Actually, if I said I had some "Yankee friends" it would seem kinder than if I said I had some "Yank friends".

In Spanish the phrase "los Yankees" is sort of friendly but mocking or testy at the same time. As for the placards I think that is a sort of stereotype image that is aimed at any argument within the US, i.e. to insult one, the other or both, in a sort of divisive way that says "you're all the same".

My navigation skills add up to avoiding using the word.

What is unusual though is that I just cannot think of a short word that would suit for American. I mean the whole continent is called America, it is like the US dissappears into that meaning...it doesn't set a good example for us this side of the pond either, we have quite a few people self labelling as "Europeans" nowadays also. I mean, I can imagine someone distancing themselves from an own country but "European" is just a forward escape to "completely undefined, whatever you like best of the continent, let's just imagine the whole place is ours".

There are various who are pro-EU etc. , and some will probably find the above disconcerting, but seriously EU is unaccountable, supra-legal, lacking own international status, was not a voluntary "creation" as far as many people of many countries are concerned, and

has no common language, nor is ever likely to


etc. etc. etc.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

GreenWood wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 2:27 pm Actually, if I said I had some "Yankee friends" it would seem kinder than if I said I had some "Yank friends".
In this case, one's audience would matter. If you said "Yankee friends" to me, as a Yank I would want to inquire further.
GreenWood wrote:In Spanish the phrase "los Yankees" is sort of friendly but mocking or testy at the same time.
TBH, I'll use "Yank" in much the same way; it's never out of reach. Personally, I think a bit of self-directed wryness can be a good thing; one owns it.

And of course my "placards" quip was a stereotype. I only hope my poor attempt at wit didn't fail entirely. :wink:
GreenWood wrote:What is unusual though is that I just cannot think of a short word that would suit for American. I mean the whole continent is called America ...
To the best of my knowledge, the poetic and highly dated "Columbia" is as close as we've come, but that can mean anything from the US, to North America, to the entire Western Hemisphere. Ultimately it's too awkward (and these days, fraught). In referring to North America, around here I'll fall back on "Left Pond" and its variants. That's about as brief as I can get so far.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by david_h »

I share Greenwood's caution over 'Yank'. In the singular I would take it simply as descriptive of origin. In the plural some putative common, non-geographic characteristic might be applied. In my father's generation (probably same as Greenwood's grandfather's) it was often something negative and if used with negative adjective often enough a term itself tends to get negative connotations. The same might apply to "Brit". My father was in the USA as a young man, liked it and thought of staying, so the term may have had cultural connotations for him.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Nanohedron »

Indeed, growing up I was cautioned that "Brit" was deemed pejorative by the British. Whether this was true at the time I have no way of knowing, but if so, on this Board at least it seems to have changed.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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Nanohedron wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 3:27 pm Indeed, growing up I was cautioned that "Brit" was deemed pejorative by the British. Whether this was true at the time I have no way of knowing, but if so, on this Board at least it seems to have changed.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by Mr.Gumby »

In Ireland I wouldn't take 'Yank' or 'Brit' as neutral, descriptive terms.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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MikeS wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:08 amI have friends in Cornwall who make very firm distinctions between “English” and “British.”
As do I. Of course the same cannot be said for all my fellow US citizens. Even though Cornwall is politically part of England, I just can't think of the Cornish as "English", any more than I can think of Okinawans as "Japanese".
Mr.Gumby wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:50 am In Ireland I wouldn't take 'Yank' or 'Brit' as neutral, descriptive terms.
And TBH, that's as I would expect.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by benhall.1 »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:50 am In Ireland I wouldn't take 'Yank' or 'Brit' as neutral, descriptive terms.
I'm happy with that, though I'm often told - by non-Brits, I might add - that I should be offended by the term. All I can say is that I'm not.
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by david_h »

benhall.1 wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 3:13 pm- that I should be offended by the term. All I can say is that I'm not.
I guess that's a way to 'reclaim' a term that has gained unwanted connotations
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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david_h wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 3:54 pm
benhall.1 wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 3:13 pm- that I should be offended by the term. All I can say is that I'm not.
I guess that's a way to 'reclaim' a term that has gained unwanted connotations
How else? Someone else's connotations are irrelevant to our inner states; only I, and no other, can have any say in mine. Ever. Check it out: It's true. It's only through observation that we begin to realize this, though. What should be glaringly obvious is that people are too ready to take offense when offense is meant, but the fact is that it's nothing more than reflexively buying into a game that is entirely optional. So I ask myself: Is my anger at a slight warranted? It certainly doesn't "validate" me, when I really look at it.

Now of course this is all very easy for me to say, because as I said earlier, there are far worse epithets than "Yank" or "Brit". And if I may be so bold, let me dispel any misgivings that Ben might not be telling the truth about his lack of offendedness; I know he's fully at ease with the term "Brit", because he's used it around me often enough, and without personal baggage; it's pretty much in the same placemarker way as I use "Yank". Speaking of which: I already know full well that being a US citizen is something of an existential liability abroad, and has been from the time the Republic was founded - we did our bit by jumping into that "Ugly American" gig with both feet, it seems - so should I really be surprised if a Right-Pond total stranger snarls "Yank" at me? (Hasn't happened yet, but work with me, here.) The game ends when I don't play it - and I don't mean the other's game, but the game I set up, or not, inside my head all by myself. Try as I might, it's the only game in town, and it's not how I play it that matters, but that I play it. If I don't play my own game, then the whole thing falls apart, showing there was no substance to it in the first place. Standing up for oneself is a good thing, but I see slights as a false foe in that department. But then, I have other fish to fry, and besides, thought experiments in aggression management keep one in a realm of aggression, so the thing is not to stay there longer than might be helpful. How did e. e. cummings put it? “... to eat flowers and not to be afraid.” Sounds nice, doesn't it.

If someone can't help but use (or at least hear) "Yank" in a negatively freighted way, I shoulder that too when referring to myself. It does no actual harm to me to acknowledge what bears acknowledging (unless of course it bruises my ego, but I see that as a different matter, and for me not proper Chiffboard fare, for I would necessarily veer into religion). Put succinctly, I can assure you I don't call myself a Yank as if I were living in an innocent, happy little bubble. But neither does it disparage. :)
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

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I was just drawn to a piece on msn about an incident with King Charles and a little blind kid at the memorial service yesterday. The trouble is, it was an American reporter, and I just had to switch it off. I just couldn't stand one more time (there were plenty) of listening to her mispronounce the word "monarch". What's so difficult about that word? Ugh!
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Re: More "divided by a common language" stuff

Post by kkrell »

benhall.1 wrote: Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:42 am I was just drawn to a piece on msn about an incident with King Charles and a little blind kid at the memorial service yesterday. The trouble is, it was an American reporter, and I just had to switch it off. I just couldn't stand one more time (there were plenty) of listening to her mispronounce the word "monarch". What's so difficult about that word? Ugh!
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