Irish Speak

[chas]

I remember hearing classmates being corrected by teachers that you don't "warsh" your dishes or write with a "pin" or drink "melk."

Of course you don't write with a "pin." You write with an "inkpin."

I'm a born-and-bred New Englander, but my mother's sisters moved to California, where they raised their families. One cousin moved back East and took a job around Boston, which is about 50 miles east of Worcester. At work, she once said something about having to go to "Wor-ches-ter", and was thoroughly chided that it's "Wusstah." Then she noticed that there's also a town Dorchester, and was having to artfully avoid saying it, because she had no idea how to pronounce it. It's phonetic.

I think of Chicago when I think of a midwest accent. My favorite exaggerated Chicago accent is Plankton's computer wife in Spongebob. Every so often I do come across someone with a rural Minnesota accent, which I only recognize because of Garrison Keillor.

[oleorezinator]

Philly was full of Sicilian words, which were not italian words. A lot of them were insults or referred to food; a lot involved dropping endings, like "proszute" for prosciutto or "gabagole" for capicola or capocollo

“prozhoot” is closer to the mark.

[Nanohedron]

... I'm not going near pure Gaelic place names.

They're actually not too hard to get close enough for horseshoes - if you know the general rules, which are dependably consistent. Unlike a certain language we could mention ...

I think of Chicago when I think of a midwest accent.

Yep. But even Midwest accents can be varied and even distinctive if you have an ear: For me, the Chicago accent is Midwestern, but manspreading.

Every so often I do come across someone with a rural Minnesota accent, which I only recognize because of Garrison Keillor.

It's easy to stereotype the Minnesota accent because certain of its elements are so pervasive. The rural areas are where it can be at its thickest, and it has a lot in common with the accent of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which might at least partly be explained by similarly high Nordic populations, particularly Finns.

Ole-and-Lena jokes are pretty common in the upper Midwest, but Minnesota and the U.P. are probably the only places where you're going to hear Eino-and-Toivo jokes.

One of the most outstandingly thick Minnesota accents I've heard was so utterly different from anything I'd ever heard before that out of context, I might never have thought it was Minnesotan at all. It was from an elderly gentleman whose vowels were predictably toward the far end of the Minnesota-standard spectrum, but it was his diction that stole the limelight: rather than the usual easy lilt, his speech was rapid-fire and very choppy, chewed with the front of his mouth. You don't have an accent like that without getting it from a similarly-speaking community. He was of Finnish extraction himself, and I happened upon him in a diner not far from a town named - what are the odds? - Finland.

Naturally, the bigger the city, the less "Minnesotan" we sound. Or at least that's by Minnesota standards, anyway.

[Peter Duggan]

The only one of those I knew was Kirkcaldy. I think I've just heard it more often that the others.

But have you ever been dancing in the streets of Raith?

[benhall.1]

The only one of those I knew was Kirkcaldy. I think I've just heard it more often that the others.

But have you ever been dancing in the streets of Raith?

Er ... no. And neither was anybody else.

[Nanohedron]

So while we're at it, how many non-Scots can pronounce [...] 'Milngavie' correctly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpnUQU2baSg

It's on the Intarwebs, so it must be right.

[an seanduine]

At one time, the old non-motorized fishing fleet in Bristol Bay, AK was referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as the Russo-Finnish Navy.

Bob

[an seanduine]

In the Pacific NW we have many Native Coastal Salish place names. They really throw some people for a loop. Sequim. Puyallup. Pysht. Knowing a little Chinook Wawa goes a long way toward ´getting them´.

Bob

edit to add: Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Skokomish, and Skykomish. They mutilated Chief S´ealth´s name with Seattle.

[an seanduine]

I´m kind of surprised we´ve had no one log-in from the Eastern Shore. Specifically Tangiers Island. This one is for Ben Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVOIj7mvWI

Not too ´Yank' for ya´ Ben?

Bob

[Michael w6]

I lived in Worchester, MA for three years. My favorite Christmas story was had there.

[Peter Duggan]

So while we're at it, how many non-Scots can pronounce [...] 'Milngavie' correctly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpnUQU2baSg

It's on the Intarwebs, so it must be right.

Didn't Abraham Lincoln tell you 'tis not so?

[Nanohedron]

So while we're at it, how many non-Scots can pronounce [...] 'Milngavie' correctly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpnUQU2baSg

It's on the Intarwebs, so it must be right.

Didn't Abraham Lincoln tell you 'tis not so?

That was Hamlet's uncle, silly - although it is from Lincoln's favorite soliloquy. Besides, Lincoln hasn't the time of day to text li'l ol' me; everyone knows he's too busy hunting vampires. Important stuff, you know.

But yes, I do know how to pronounce Milngavie. I just keep forgetting.

Mill-GUY. Mill-GUY. It's my mantra for the day. God help us if someone ever names an American town Milngavie; we'll throw up our hands and end up pronouncing it just like in the link above. Forever. Trust me: we already pronounce Elgin as "Eljin", and there's no going back. Same with Birmingham. Even the well-traveled and supposedly urbane Rick Steves can't say "Cornwall" properly. What more proof do you need? So if you hold your place names dear, Right Ponders, it's time to put a stop to this farce once and for all; save yourselves, and forbid us Yanks ever to appropriate your place names again. Even the native names are officially mangled beyond recognition. O tempora. O mores.

Well, okay, in a small way we've recently revived actual, authentic native place names in the Twin Cities; now there's Bde Maká Ska - what used to be called Lake Calhoun, and that's a nest of bees that led to the change - and Bdote, an area of land (part of which includes Fort Snelling) traditionally held to be the place of origin for the Dakota people. These new (albeit original) place names have been given public currency, so we must learn to pronounce them, and some are dead-set against it. I think it's a breath of fresh air. Besides, they're not hard to pronounce at all, so I haven't much time for the whiners. I haven't looked into it, but I have a very strong suspicion that "Mendota" is derived from Bdote (did I say mangled, earlier?); everything with that name is on or close by that same spot of land, after all. So, yeah. A glimmer of light so small as to not change anything at the post office. But I support it. It's not as if it's a slippery slope or anything; the old names have always been there, alive and well, whether the public uses them or not. I think it's safe to say that we won't be using Bdeóta Otúŋwe in place of Minneapolis any time soon.

[oleorezinator]

I live 12 miles north of Scranton Pa. which is
the county seat of Lackawanna County. When
the coal mines were cranking along up until the
end of WW2, 1/4 of the last names in the county
were Irish, from north Mayo, mostly from
Ballina and Crossmolina but stretching over to
Belmullet as well. Here’s a little blurb that confirms this.
“It seems that Gaelic was frequently spoken among
the Irish in Scranton. In “Mo Thuras go hAmerice”
Douglas Hyde, one of the founders of the Gaelic League
and future president of Ireland, mentioned that during
a 1906 visit to Scranton, a Father Patrick Hurst told him
“That there is more Irish being spoken in Scranton than
in any other city in the world.”
That said there are people mostly over the age of 50
that still speak with a semblance of a brogue, some more
than others. In my father’s town it was hard to escape
having one. People with Polish, Slovak, Italian, German
and Ukrainian names sounded like their parents might
have been from Ireland. One of the reasons for this was
Irish nuns teaching English in the parochial schools.
One guy in particular who would be in his 90’s now
sounded like someone who came over from Mayo
in his teens with the accent firmly set.
I was always amused when a bar owner with a German
last name would scold a patron with “Ya goddamn amadan ya!”
In the normal course of conversation, Three was “tree”. Thing was “ting”.
This was “dis”. All of these (dees) with the H dropped
which was of course pronounced “haych”, and plenty of other
Irishisms too plentiful to mention.

[Nanohedron]

That's interesting, for sure. I don't know to what degree any semblance of everyday Irish pronunciation is left among native St. Paulites - I'm guessing it's probably gone, by now - but it's still remembered by some. For example, there's this one guy who gets a kick out of hearing when someone lives on 43rd Street: "Ah, so you live on Farty-Turd, do you."

[benhall.1]

I lived in Worchester, MA for three years. My favorite Christmas story was had there.

And you never noticed that there's no 'h' in the name Worcester? Even in MA ...