Dialect

[ladyofastolat]

I didn't do that dialect meme that's been going around because it was too obviously American, and most British people seemed to be coming up with much the same answers, or else going, "What?" I feel like putting together a British version of it. I've got about a dozen questions so far, but am open to suggestions. So, British people: can you think of any examples of words where you have encountered regional variety?

It's been quite interesting thinking about it. I was brought up rather bilingual in dialect terms, with a Scottish father and a Derbyshire mother. I then picked up some Gloucestershire words at school. However, I seem to have stopped using quite a lot of the dialect words over the years. The Scottish ones, in particular, are ones I'm familiar with, but don't actually use myself. I'm always amused, though, by the fact my Dad's main contribution to my childhood dialect lexicon was in terms for different types of rain, such as "smirr" and "stotting" - concepts that he claimed had no exact equivalent in English English.

Comments

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I'm middle-middle class, Received Pronunciation English all the way, so the only differences I tend to encounter are, for example, that Judy will say 'serviette' and 'lounge' and 'settee' where I'll say 'napkin' and 'sitting room' and 'sofa'. Oh, and there is also some debate about what 'dinner' is. (It's the meal you have about 8.00 at night. Just for the record.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I was dithering on whether to include some U / non U dividing words in my list, or whether to limit it to regional dialect. By the way, for those three, I'd say "napkin", "living room" and "couch". Dinner's the main meal you have in the evening, but ideally at more like 6.30, not 8 - although I was brought up to have dinner on the dot on 5. A very posh-sounding and affected person once told me that my accent and vocabulary was more or less acceptable, except that I ruined it all with my "frightful" northern vowel sounds in words like "class". "You should change that," he told me. I didn't.