h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK Freddy , on my way!

slainte

Ah I had lost the thread... there you are!

If you grow another six legs, you'll be quite at home on a website.

mark...


...what backlog?! I didn't see any...

Speaking of extending words (fillum as an example) I have always thought that the Southern United States dialect was a shining example of the phenomenon.

turvy

>> ..extending words.. <<

The southern US is marked by a drawl that does indeed extend words and all the sounds there-in, as well as any sentence which they might compose. It is part of that sense of posh, in this case the imaginary world of plantation nobility which modelled itself on the fictional works of Sir Walter Scott. (The Confederate Flag is the Cross of Saint Andrew).

That particular drawl comes from Scottish immigrant dialects and the need to speak slowly and clearly when directing slave labourers who had no undertsanding of English, especially as spoken by Scots.

Strother Martins in 'Cool Hand Luke' said it best, 'What we have is failure to cummunicate'. If you listen carefully he says 'fay-ill-yure'.

'Fay-ill-yure' is a good example of wallowing in vowels other than the standard 'uh'. The 'i' sound appears often in words like exactly which get expanded to 'ex-acki-tally' or 'exackitally'.


~jwf~

Yeaaah, ma ki-eds go to schoo-ol.

>> ..'ex-acki-tally' or 'exackitally'. <<

Whenever two consonants come together, someone, somewhere will always try to stick a vowel-sound in betwixt 'em, somehow.

In many cases, as we've seen above, it the explosive sound of the consonant that has a resonant 'uh' sound, such as the letter T before R in words like trap, triumph and trophy which come out as sounding like TuhRap, TuhRiumph and TuhRophy.

But most other combinations of consonants seem to encourage other vowel sounds like the 'i' in 'exackitally'. SP for example, in words like sports, spectator or special, sometimes has a way of expanding - perhaps modelled on words like suspicious, support or soporiphic. If you listen you will hear 'sisports', 'soppectators' and 'suspecial'.


~jwf~

Hm, don't think it's quite right, perceive it differently. Although I need to say that, of course, the area we are is a though Southern very specificly Southern, differently to Georgia or Alamabama.

Though it's not uniquely American (and may be regional even in the US) there does seem to be a blurring and shortening that happens in some words
terrorist -> ter-ist/tourist
error -> errr

In the UK, 'library' often gets shortened to 'lie-bry', and one phrase from environmental movements - 'future generations' often to end up as 'fyute-gen-ray-shuns'

The common thread seems to be that word fragments containing 'r' are skipped or merged with their neighbours.

On a simmler note, people from the capital city of Scotland will insist they live in Embra.

In Victoria, Australia (Strylyer, even), you can live in Melbn.

And you can also visit that outpost of the UK, Norn Irn.

and only this morning the train conductor (sorry, 'manager' !) announced we would shortly arriving at wolvrampton station (Wolverhampton). I also find the pronunciation differences between the USA city of Birmingham and the English city of Birmingham interesting. As far as I can recall, they are bir-MING'am and BIRminam respectively.

p.s. found this link elsewhere on t'web http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994685
report saying half of all languiages face extinction this century.

Presumably they don't mean a 50% reduction in the vocabulary of each individual language

The train announcement that always used to cheer me up was the one for people who were feeling a bit down, ignored by society, in need of a bit of TLC. "This train is for Gatwick Careport."

You'll find it in any language, we are a bit lazy, and talking uses soooo much efforts.

your little corector again, but I'm not sure about this one, Canicula:"...and talking uses sooo much efforts" I would say it is:and talking takes such an effort. but really not sure...

'effort' singular would be correct. Presumably since it is a singular instance of effort. However the efforts of people to talk would be plural.

"your little corector"

Dare I mention this phrase?

mark

Very little seems to have been quoted from Strine - another condensed word which I think is really great.

"dare I mention this phrase..."
hope I haven't said something that in reality has another meaning or anything...
I'm just following Canicula around and trying to corect her with my humble knowledge of English...but I think I should rather contribute something again than just being the anoying little whatever that I usually am.
so, a few days ago, I couldn't find an apropriate opposite of homesick, just some strange "wanderlust"? any ideas?

I think Ictoan was pointing out the irony of mis-spelling "corrector".