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Do you find Americanisms irritating?

Started by St Truth, September 25, 2017, 11:04:33 PM

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aitm

I find most of american irritating let alone american"isms"....whatever the hell that is
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Hydra009

Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2017, 07:41:10 PMYears ago, SNL made a whole series of skits centered around a bunch of Chicago males drinking beer in a bar and praising "duh Shikago Barres and dare coach Joe Dit-ka  Let's have a drink fir duh Berres.  Now one fir Dit-ka."  It just sounds like people who speak poorly to me.  But in Chicago, it's accepted and expected as normal I guess.
The Boston accent is like that for me.  I had a substitute teacher with a really thick Boston accent.  His pronunciation of "cawfee" was hilarious.  Bear in mind that as a young kid, everything's hilarious.

SGOS

#32
Quote from: Hydra009 on October 01, 2017, 09:44:59 PM
The Boston accent is like that for me. 
Closely related but a step down on the unnerving scale is the Down East accent of Northern Maine, where I lived for three years.  You, "Pock ya caa at Baa Habba."  Then combine the accent with some especially vulgar colloquialisms like, "Son of hoawha," and it's like entering a small pocket of primitive society that is somehow isolated from the surrounding ocean of the civilized world.

Another one of their perplexing phrases was "the doa yhad."  Little Jimmy left is tricycle in the doa yhad, and Rufus run over it with the caa."  I even had to ask what that was.  I knew there was always a doa to the house, and I knew houses have yhads, but which one of the yhads was the doa yhad?  I asked my wife from northern Maine, "Whats a door yard?"  And she replied, "You know.  It's the doa yhad, cause it's outside the doa," and I figured with that, I'd only look stupid if I enquired further.

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on October 02, 2017, 07:11:17 AM
Closely related but a step down on the unnerving scale is the Down East accent of Northern Maine, where I lived for three years.  You, "Pock ya caa at Baa Habba."  Then combine the accent with some especially vulgar colloquialisms like, "Son of a wohwa," and it's like entering a small pocket of primitive society that is somehow isolated from the surrounding ocean of the civilized world.

Another one of their perplexing phrases was "the doa yhad."  Little Jimmy left is tricycle in the doa yhad, and Rufus run over it with the caa."  I even had to ask what that was.  I knew there was always a doa to the house, and I knew houses have yhads, but which one of the yhads was the doa yhad?  I asked my wife from northern Maine, "Whats a door yard?"  And she replied, "You know.  It's the doa yhad, cause it's outside the doa," and I figured with that, I'd only look stupid if I enquired further.

Is your wife a lobster ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Baruch on October 02, 2017, 07:21:02 AM
Is your wife a lobster ;-)
No, but we both loved lobsters.  We attended a family get together in Portland, Maine, which appeared to be composed of half of South Portland and some relatives from Rhode Island and Connecticut.  My wife's brother sponsored the event and bought lobsters from local fisherman, which was against the law, because fisherman are not allowed to sell to anyone but licensed lobster buyers.  But how else can you buy 70 lobsters at an affordable price?

In my brother-in-law's yard a fire was built about 3 feet wide by 20 feet along.  When the fire was roaring it was covered with a mountain of seaweed on which was thrown a bushel of corn still on the cob, and then then several tubs of fresh clams still in the shell.  All this was topped off with a row of lobsters laid side by side down the entire length of the fire pit, and then more seaweed was piled on top of the whole thing.

I'd had lobster in restaurants before, but none of those dinners ever included three lobsters (or more if you wanted them).  So after I finished my first lobster, some family member happily instructed me to have another, which I did but in a state of shock.  Little kids that were 5 or 6 years old were eating more than one, but no one was as dazzled as me.  It seemed like to everyone else it was just lobster, so you could eat as many of them as you wanted.

St Truth

Quote from: aitm on October 01, 2017, 07:52:45 PM
I find most of american irritating let alone american"isms"....whatever the hell that is

I know what you mean about Americans being irritating. It's their loudness. They have a different idea of what politeness is. The impression most Brits get is they are loud, self-centred and they think too highly of themselves. But I think it's a different culture that they have. You can tell them apart in restaurants because they speak so loudly that most people think they want the whole world to listen to them. I used to have that impression too. But once, I heard an American woman talking about some illness she had and her voice was loud too. It couldn't be that she wanted everyone to hear what illness she had. I find their loudness irritating but that's just their different culture. Last year, I was dining at a restaurant in Northern Italy with my parents. Everyone was polite and spoke softly. My mum said that she was glad there were no Americans in that restaurant. And she is right. If there were Americans, they would have made sure the whole restaurant knew they were there. They were sure to exclaim loudly to attract attention.

AllPurposeAtheist

Funny. I'm from Dayton Ohio where you might think everyone has the televisionized accent, but where I grew up nearly all of my friends were from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia so that the televisionized English sounded odd.
Fast forward a few years to my teen years I began traveling around the US. At 17 I was in a Job Corps center in the mountains of Montana surrounded by guys from NYC and Boston. That was an eye opener!  You want a POP? You either get told that your father doesn't live here or got hit..
They drank tonic, not pop and pronounced it tarnic.
Now I live in South Carolina and rarely do I hear the southern accent I grew up with.
The automobile in the US has changed everything. Society is much more mobile and forget television..I don't even need captioning to watch British TV shows..I can pick up the accents, but I can get the gist of nearly everything being said. 
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

aitm

Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on October 02, 2017, 09:39:32 AM
You want a POP?

When I moved to west Texas the first foreman i worked for asked me," wanna coke?" I said okay, then he says, "what flavor?"
Uh...wat?

There every thing is a coke, so you would ordered a coke and specify, orange please......oy.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Mike Cl

When I moved to Alabama, I remember sodee pop.  'Ya'lllll wana sodee pop?'
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

trdsf

Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on October 02, 2017, 09:39:32 AM
Fast forward a few years to my teen years I began traveling around the US. At 17 I was in a Job Corps center in the mountains of Montana surrounded by guys from NYC and Boston. That was an eye opener!  You want a POP? You either get told that your father doesn't live here or got hit..
Oy, the pop/soda divide.  That was a running skirmish between my mom (pop-drinking Ohioan) and her sister (soda-state New Jerseyite).  The first time I brought my (soda-state Iowan) partner up to town for Thanksgiving, he quite innocently asked if he could get a 'can of soda' and my aunt let out a whoop and nearly leaped over the kitchen table to get at him, going "I HAVE AN ALLY!"  Damn near scared him back out of the house.  :D


Ooo, that reminds me, I need to order CO2 cartridges for my soda syphon...
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

SGOS

Quote from: trdsf on October 02, 2017, 12:40:17 PM
Oy, the pop/soda divide.  That was a running skirmish between my mom (pop-drinking Ohioan) and her sister (soda-state New Jerseyite).  The first time I brought my (soda-state Iowan) partner up to town for Thanksgiving, he quite innocently asked if he could get a 'can of soda' and my aunt let out a whoop and nearly leaped over the kitchen table to get at him, going "I HAVE AN ALLY!"  Damn near scared him back out of the house.  :D


Ooo, that reminds me, I need to order CO2 cartridges for my soda syphon...
I remember commonly using the term "soda pop", but it would often be shortened to one or the other.  I remember people in Montana laughing at me for using one of those parts, but I can't remember which one it was.  Anyway, I just disregarded their delight, and continued to use one or the other whenever I felt like it.  I couldn't tell you which one was appropriate in the PNW, even after living there for 45 years.  I guess it wasn't that big a deal.

trdsf

With regard to the pop/soda/coke divide, here's a handy guide from Pop vs. Soda:

"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

St Truth

Quote from: trdsf on October 02, 2017, 12:59:16 PM
With regard to the pop/soda/coke divide, here's a handy guide from Pop vs. Soda:



I didn't know pop and soda meant the same thing as Coke.

trdsf

Quote from: St Truth on October 02, 2017, 01:02:18 PM
I didn't know pop and soda meant the same thing as Coke.
That's a mainly Southern thing where all soft drinks are called a 'coke', because of Coca-Cola's massive presence in Georgia.  You seriously can be asked in a fast food place, "You want a coke with that?"  "Sure."  "What'll you have?"  "Root beer."
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mike Cl

Quote from: St Truth on October 02, 2017, 01:02:18 PM
I didn't know pop and soda meant the same thing as Coke.
When I moved to Alabama from Oregon, I soon learned that pop (never heard of that until then), soda, and coke (Not Coke, which was a Coca Cola--but you can't see a spoken capital C), were the same.  And soft drink was in the mix as well.  My dad was addicted to Coke, so when he said Coke, he meant it. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?