I’m almost done with the photos from our little trip to Oxford. In the meantime, I figured I would go over a few of the new words and phrases I have learned. As I mentioned in my first language post, it’s always fun and interesting to see how people in other countries and from different cultures use words. In England, dialects and slang are especially regional.
Since I lived in Sheffield, which is considered part of “the North,” I am privileged to experience a dialect that sounds perhaps less…refined…than that of other areas. For instance, the word “bath” is pronounced with the same short “a” sound we use in good ol’ North Carolina, not with the long “ah” sound that’s used more commonly in the southern part of the country. I was once told that in comparison to the east coast of the United States, Northern England is more like the South and Southern England is more like the North. So basically, Northern England is a little more “country” than Southern England.
One of the most noticeable characteristics of the Yorkshire (the region Sheffield is in) accent is that they tend to leave out the article “the.” It’s technically replaced with “t'” but as Jeremy Clarkson once stated on Top Gear, someone from Yorkshire would never say, “I’m goin’ to t’ pub,” they would say “I’m goin’ to pub”…there’s just a millisecond of a pause where the “the” should be. You really have to hear it to understand it I guess (maybe you’ll catch it in the video posted below). Bob slips back into it all the time when talking with his parents 🙂
—–Super cute girl, with an unmistakeble Yorkshire accent 🙂 —–
Another thing I like is that people, usually older men in my case, call you “love.” They often throw it in haphazardly at the end of a phrase, as in, “Awright, ‘ave a good day, love.” Bob tells me “duck” is another pet name people often use. People also use the words “bloke” and “mate,” which I find delightfully amusing; these are words that we Americans associate with the English, of course, but assume are just stereotypical terms. I had to confirm with Bob that people weren’t just “putting it on” (“it” being their English-ness) for me because they knew I was American 😀 Also, as in the phrase above, they leave the “h” (pronounced “hache”) off of the beginning of words, except words like “herb,” which is funny to me considering Americans don’t pronounce the “h” in “herb.”
For one last grammatical nuance, I have to bring up using the word “were” instead of “was” (again, you might catch it in the video above if you’re listening closely). If the next sentence sounds odd to you too, then I’m not completely crazy: “She were having her hair done at the salon.” Yes, I can understand saying “Moldolva were robbed,” because even though Moldolva is singular, it is a whole country of people, so I suppose saying “were” is acceptable. But “I were standing,” “He were walking,” or “She were eating?” I just don’t get it…
Once again, a few definitions for you:
- aubergine: eggplant; I do think “aubergine” sounds much nicer actually
- bap: bread roll; in the famous words of Mr. Jonathan Whitehouse, “I’ve lost me bap!”
- ta: thank you; “I’m doing alright, how are you?” “I’m good as well, ta“
- cheers: thank you; I thought this was more of a salutation, but I mostly hear it as a form of saying “thank you”
- chuffed: please or excited; “I was chuffedto bits when I won the lottery!”
- cuppa: “cup of” tea; “Do you fancy a cuppa?”
- naught: zero; “This car can go from naught to sixty in 3 seconds!”
- tea: evening meal; this was a little confusing the first time I heard it, as it was mid-afternoon (“tea-time”) but was referring to “dinner”
And perhaps this video will give you some idea of how dialects can be so different and cause much confusion… 🙂
Pond Skipping 