Southern Standard English

For the benefit of my overseas truckbuddies:  the South is more a state of mind than mere geography, and as such its boundaries are hotly debated in some quarters; but this map tells you all you really need to know.

What do you mean, slang?  It's all just pure-T English to me.




N. B. -- I'm sorry to have to inform you all, but despite its name and its long history as a repository of Southern culture, Southern Living is nowadays - like every other venerable institution, it seems - run by up-to-date but woefully uninformed children, quite a few of whom aren't even Southerners at all!  Hence, the magazine is no longer an infallible guide to things Southern, if it ever was.

Most terms are correctly defined and used here; some are a little off; and many were never peculiar to the South, but were (and are) widespread Americanisms. And a couple or three descend in unbroken line from the English of colonial times: e.g., reckon, meaning suppose or estimate, is still very much in daily use at all levels of British society. Isn't that right, Tim?   I stand corrected. 

I confess, I love to throw out reckon when I'm around hoity-toity oh-so-modern types, full of all the latest slang, just to fuck with their heads make them show their petty snobbery and ignorance.  And then I chuckle inside.

Awesomesauce!

Kate Arnell reports on the new words admitted to the Oxford English Dictionary last year:

Would You Call That Grape or Aubergine?

Kate Arnell reveals the differences between American and British vegetables:

American Accents

Young people around the world attempt American accents - some of them do surprisingly well:




And some Irish folks find it all very amusing:




The interesting thing is, all these folks may not sound like us, but they sure look like us, don't they?

The Latest British Slang

I don't understand a bleedin' word of it, meself. What language is this in?

Marylebone to Mousehole via Gloucester

Siobhan Thompson helps an American learn to say British place names in an amusing episode of Anglophenia.




Bonus: Canadian drama professor David Ley gives a 3-minute course on how to speak with a proper British accent.

Jelly Babies and Chocolate Flakes

Siobhan Thompson gives us the skinny on British candies:




Bonus: Americans try to guess the meaning of British words:

Savoury Spelling

You Spell Tomato . . .

Away with the Fairies: How to Speak British

This episode of Anglophenia will having you talking Britspeak in no time:

How Many British Accents?

Episode 5 of Anglophenia:




Bonus: From BBC America, five ways to improve your British accent, if you're not British.

Southern Language

Unfortunately, ever since they won the War, our friends at the frozen Nawth have looked down upon our lovely, euphonious Southern speech as something déclassé.  But the late humorist and author Lewis Grizzard from Georgia sets the record straight in this clip that makes your Head Trucker howl with laughter.  Maybe you will too:




Update: My truckbuddy Frank has posted a reply of sorts over at Reluctant Rebel, go check it out. I reckon it's a reply - hard to tell since it's in some weird furrin language.

Cock Talk and Fowl Language

Watch your mouth:  even you big city boys aren't so far away from the farm.  Peter Lennox, science professor and chicken raiser, via Andrew Sullivan:

Watching chickens is a very old human pastime, and the forerunner of psychology, sociology and management theory. Sometimes understanding yourself can be made easier by projection on to others. Watching chickens helps us understand human motivations and interactions, which is doubtless why so many words and phrases in common parlance are redolent of the hen yard: "pecking order", "cockiness", "ruffling somebody's feathers", "taking somebody under your wing", "fussing like a mother hen", "strutting", a "bantamweight fighter", "clipping someone's wings", "beady eyes", "chicks", "to crow", "to flock", "get in a flap", "coming home to roost", "don't count your chickens before they're hatched", "nest eggs" and "preening".

The rest of his essay is quite amusing, and quite philosophical too.  A good read.

Orwell was so right

Go read blogger Michael Leddy's very timely application of George Orwell's famous essay, "Politics and the English Language" to the Palin spectacle at Orange Crate Art: "Couric and Palin and Orwell."

I also love the comment that Anonymous posted over there:

My theory is that they've implanted a microchip into Palin's brain intended to prompt her answers from all the crammed together talking points. The chip, developed for Bush and now inserted into McCain, works OK but is misfiring in her female brain thus accounting for all the utterly nonsensical utterances.

Don't laugh. It just might be true.