In English please?

[Clockwork John]

JUst be glad none of us are posting in Gaelic... That would be really confusing!

[The Wizard of BC]

Hey consider yourself lucky. I have found myself in a country that although one of its official languages is English they say things like "Please queue at the wicket opposite."
That's Canadian Postal Dude talk for "Yo, dummy, you're in the wrong line. Go stand over there!"

I also have trouble with Pour1Malts posts. So I just look at the pictures, nod, and jump to the next thread. It was two years before I knew who this Robertson guy everyone talks about was.

He does have a good collection of Scotch though, so I guess I'll keep trying to figure it all out.

[Peter C.]

Hey consider yourself lucky. I have found myself in a country that although one of its official languages is English they say things like "Please queue at the wicket opposite."
That's Canadian Postal Dude talk for "Yo, dummy, you're in the wrong line. Go stand over there!"

I also have trouble with Pour1Malts posts. So I just look at the pictures, nod, and jump to the next thread. It was two years before I knew who this Robertson guy everyone talks about was.

He does have a good collection of Scotch though, so I guess I'll keep trying to figure it all out.

I have wondered what the language is like in Canada. In England we say queue rather than line, but wicket is new to me unless it is a post like a wicket in cricket.

When I first came to the US to visit my wife-to-be we found ourselves in the KFC opposite Gracelands in Memphis. We went to order and the woman behind the counter recited the menu to us. When she finished I said to my fiancee, I will have the same as you, as I did not understand one single word the woman had said.

Peter

[ronstew]

I have wondered what the language is like in Canada. In England we say queue rather than line, but wicket is new to me unless it is a post like a wicket in cricket.

When I first came to the US to visit my wife-to-be we found ourselves in the KFC opposite Gracelands in Memphis. We went to order and the woman behind the counter recited the menu to us. When she finished I said to my fiancee, I will have the same as you, as I did not understand one single word the woman had said.

Peter

Actually, Peter, Steve was exaggerating. It was funny, but apparently misleading. Given that 90% of Canadians live withing 100 miles of the USA border and we have been exposed to US mass-media for our whole lives, our linguistic idiosyncrasies have mostly vanished - merged into a sort of Los Angeles/New York universal American English. Part of the issue is that kids always think "the other" is better, so they imitate US spelling and pronunciation.

By the way, you will find that the cricket definition for wicket is the third in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. The usage Steve refers to once was common in England. In the case of a post office or bank, the wicket is the little window through which you make your transactions. This just proves that language evolves.

If you took 50 people born and raised in Canada in the last 40 years, I doubt that more than twenty would know any definition for wicket, and of those twenty, I'd guess that seventeen would have the cricket definition.

[Peter C.]

Actually, Peter, Steve was exaggerating. It was funny, but apparently misleading. Given that 90% of Canadians live withing 100 miles of the USA border and we have been exposed to US mass-media for our whole lives, our linguistic idiosyncrasies have mostly vanished - merged into a sort of Los Angeles/New York universal American English. Part of the issue is that kids always think "the other" is better, so they imitate US spelling and pronunciation.

By the way, you will find that the cricket definition for wicket is the third in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. The usage Steve refers to once was common in England. In the case of a post office or bank, the wicket is the little window through which you make your transactions. This just proves that language evolves.

If you took 50 people born and raised in Canada in the last 40 years, I doubt that more than twenty would know any definition for wicket, and of those twenty, I'd guess that seventeen would have the cricket definition.

Thank you for the clarification Ron. You made me reach for my dictionary. I have an Oxford English dictionary from Britain and a US Oxford dictionary which is still packed from our move.

The British one puts the cricket definition first.
The second is a small door in a large door (like a hanger sliding door) so that people can enter without opening the large door.
The third says a meaning in the USA is a small opening in a door or wall, usually closed with a sliding door, so I guess that covers the post office window.

So our languages are quite different.

I probably have more relatives in Canada than I have in the UK but the last person in my family to meet our Canadian relatives was my aunty about thirty years ago. I don't even have any addresses.

Peter

[beloitpiper]

I, for one, am thankful for P1M's (and whoever else) use of Scots. I like learning it, and I think the boards have been the best tool to do so.

JUst be glad none of us are posting in Gaelic... That would be really confusing!

An labhraíonn éinne anseo Gaeilge? Níl agam ach beagáinín Gaeilge. Tá beagán cúthaileachta orm fós faoi bheith á labhairt. Tá sé teanga scéimhiúil!

[highlander_Daz]

I admit was critic of people writing in "scots" as it came across as being disrespectful to the way that we speak and I did criticise Robertson in particular, the reason being that I hate it when people mimic how we speak, however I understand that Robertson Resides in Scotland and is Sincere in his belief that its a language all of its own and its quite commen to see the language written that way in his part of Scotland. my own feelings are that its very Regional how most people post in a kind of South west/Glasgow way of speaking, across the country words and accents vary so much thast not including the island folk, so to call it "Scots" is Nae rerally accurate, how Robertson posts is a fairly accurate phonetic representation of a southern Scots accent, however Its like music it sounds better than it looks written down

[Peter C.]

I admit was critic of people writing in "scots" as it came across as being disrespectful to the way that we speak and I did criticise Robertson in particular, the reason being that I hate it when people mimic how we speak, however I understand that Robertson Resides in Scotland and is Sincere in his belief that its a language all of its own and its quite commen to see the language written that way in his part of Scotland. my own feelings are that its very Regional how most people post in a kind of South west/Glasgow way of speaking, across the country words and accents vary so much thast not including the island folk, so to call it "Scots" is Nae rerally accurate, how Robertson posts is a fairly accurate phonetic representation of a southern Scots accent, however Its like music it sounds better than it looks written down

I wrote that Robertson's posts were a Scottish accent written phonetically, but reading the other posts I began to think I may be misleading people. So thank you for posting that.

One good that could come from P1M's posts, if people read them aloud as they are written, and understand them, they just may have a little less trouble understanding the broad Scottish accents they may come across should they visit Scotland.

Peter

[Mike1]

IOne good that could come from P1M's posts, if people read them aloud as they are written, and understand them, they just may have a little less trouble understanding the broad Scottish accents they may come across should they visit Scotland.

No hope, believe me.

As Daz has pointed out, there are enough differences in dialect that you might be able to adjust to a Glaswegian's speaking, but an Aberdonian will have you scratching your head.

P1M's use of 'ya' can easily turn into 'ye', 'yi' and even 'youse'. And I notice he uses 'frae' in place of 'from', but I've several pals from Glasgow and the surrounding areas that would say 'fae', rather than 'frae'.

I, for one, find the varied dialects one of the treasures of Scotland.

[porrick]

my own feelings are that its very Regional how most people post in a kind of South west/Glasgow way of speaking, across the country words and accents vary so much thast not including the island folk, so to call it "Scots" is Nae rerally accurate, how Robertson posts is a fairly accurate phonetic representation of a southern Scots accent, however Its like music it sounds better than it looks written down

This is not just an issue within this forum; many countries and languages have this diversity. Norway is a country of many regional dialects and variations (we even have to official varities of Norwegian we are all expected to be able to speak and write), and many of the local papers print readers' letters and commentary/debate written-as-spoken.
This causes little disturbance in communication once one gets used to it. I honestly can't see that the written variety of English discussed here is such an issue/problem.
For many, such discussions are about the willingness to adapt and/or accept change.

I guess that for many it is a matter of principle. If you only knew how often I need to adapt my use of language to avoid misunderstandings: 1) typically when conversing with Swedes in Norwegian, Norwegians ae the ones to substitute "strange" Norwegian words with the (for the Swedes) understandable Swedish words, 2) typically I have to make sure American friends/colleagues understand by having to adapt (no, we don't have moose in Europe, but if we use the correct term elk, Americans automatically think of " their" elk; why should I as an English teacher use first floor for ground floor - just to make an Englishspeaking colleague understand?)

One gets tired after awhile with "do you speak English? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Snakker du norsk? Why can't we pay with American dollars?"

Communication consists of two parties - why is it always the one who has something to say that has to adapt to everybody else?

One who is Irish-English-Norwegian-Swedish-having-studied-and-worked-in-the-US is just wondering...


PS
Just a question: how do people who have problems accepting a quasi phonemical approach to writing deal with short-form messaging such as synchronous on-line chatting, sms-ing etc. (A serious question, as this is part of my job)