regionalisms
Kerie Nickel
What about Canadian English, eh? We got plenty of regionalisms. If you
live in Ontario, you pronounce the provincial capitol "Tronna". Or even
"T.O." Everyone else calls it by its full syllabic content, "Toronto". In
the late 70s, I think it was, Bob and Doug MacKenzie of SCTV made popular
many terms which were already in limited use, hoser. Where I grew up, a
winter hat was called a "toque" (pronounced "took" to rhyme with "gook")
regardless of the style of the hat. My grandmother, who was a Russian
Mennonite refugee, spoke of someone's wealth as "They were so rich they
could have papered their house with rubles." You have to imagine the long
rolled "r"s.
How many other librarians out there completely hate and detest their
workplace being called a "liberry"?
For some authentic Canadian dialect, try these authors:
Alison Gordon, Paul Grescoe, Suzanne North, Gail Bowen, L.R. Wright,
Charlotte MacLeod (Grub-and-Stakers, and Janet and Madoc Rhys series),
Eric Wright, Suzanne Fairstein, Margaret Atwood (not a mystery author, but
does write a fictionalized true-crime in "Alien Grace") and many others.
This is a representative sampling that ranges from the Sunshine Coast of
BC to the back woods of New Brunswick.
Even here in California, where there is little or no regional accent,
people pick up on my Canadian speech patterns within one or two minutes.
And I don't even use the all-purpose "eh".Eh?
Kerie Nickel, CanRefLib
California State University, Fresno
Madden Library
5200 N. Barton
Fresno CA 93740-8014
Jeanne McWhorter, MSW
When I moved from Louisiana to Houston my immediate boss was a pixie-like
woman from East Texas. I learned some very neat regionalisms from her.
Go on back to your rat killing (said after you had interrupted someone who
was doing something, didn't matter what, and you were finished)
Don't get your tail over the dashboard - don't get upset
I think it's hard to tell our own regionalisms until we get out of our own
milieu. I have heard "I reckon" and "fixing to" and that Fox fellow's
"usedta could" all my life so I was amazed to be called on them when I was
out of La. "Y'all", of course is a common regionalism but must be used
correctly. It's stictly plural down here.
There's always
X won't amount to a hill of beans
a bubble off of plumb (same as elevator doesn't make to the top floor)
My mother, who was from Alabama but lived mostly in La., used to say "Stir
your stumps" a lot. Meaning to get moving.
We tell people to "put up" things here in la. too. Heard it all my life.
One of those things I wouldn't have even thought was one.
A W.V. friend on our MOO just gave me this one:
This food is so good it'll make your tongue slap your brains out
Jeanne
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Jeanne McWhorter, MSW All Social Work
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