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

I heard kids at school saying 'chimbley', I think it's easier to say than 'chimney' so kids who aren't so good at talking yet say 'chimbley'.

try say schoorsteen

..if suceeed try say it fast 10 times!

Dutch for chimny

From a Geordie neighbour at Uni (vintage c. 1970)

"Ye gannin' dooon the wain ferra ween?"

At the fourth or fifth attempt, I discovered that the question being put to me was:

"Would you like to come with me down the road and I will buy you a pint?"

When I was a kid, I thought the word was pronounced chimley, because that's what I'd thought I was hearing people say. Then when I learned to read I noticed it had an N. "Da, why is it pronounced 'chimley' when it has an N in it?" "Because it's *not* pronounced chimley!"

Understand chimney is *not* pronounced chimley. But almost all the hillfolk and I knew a lot of well educated hillbillies, that I hung around witjh said chimley when they meant chimney. I just never understood why. If they had been backwoods, married your sister type I might not have given it a thought. But the people I hung around with were everything under the sun from truck drivers to structural engineers. Now I am hearing that many people from other countries also pronounced them chimleys as well. Is it a type of laziness or a difficulty with dialect? I guess it really doesn't matter. Originally I was thinking it was an isolation of my little part of the world. Now I see that there is more world out there than I suspected.

Some one offering to buy a pint?

...no...all I have is a quart of oil...

We have chimney, chimbly and chimbley in this thread. Why not chimbney or chimny, possibly chimley or chimly ? What kind of a word is it anyway.
We have climb and climate, why not climbate or should that be climnate. Of course limb is something else.
mn and mb go along with ou to combine in confusion. What is a comb ? See what I mean.

What ever!!!!

I just know I will never tuckpoint another bick proturberance found on the roof. Come to think of it, I hate tuckpointing almost as much as figuring out what is meant by anything written in the English language. I just eight lunch and you no what that means? Yep time to go back, (actually restart as I didn't leave work), to work.

I think a comb is what is on the male chicken's head. He uses it to pull the seeds out of flax. I think.


<blacksheep)

Mo
Could it be that it was the Americans who made a start at trying to functionalise traditional English ?

Heeey! you might have something there. I can dig it.

The more I think about it the more I realize why ain't will not be an official word. But I do think it needs to be included in the dictionary. Ain't is not just the functionally illiterate word of choice. It is used by many for a humerous effect. But one thing I truly believe, ain't is never going to go away, along with f*ck and swearing.

We have more ways to describe something. We can describe a situation in 50 ways and still have trouble understanding what was said. Could it be we are overly carried away with functional English. Do other languages run into the same problem?

"Ye gannin' dooon the wain ferra ween?"

Actually he's asking if you are going down the road for a drink - at no point is he offering to buy you one.

Chimbley I thought to be West Country (Glarstersheer) certainly I think thats where I picked it up as a child.

>>"Would you like to come with me down the road and I will buy you a pint?"<<

Appears to be an offer for a pint to me. Okay so maybe it was taken a little of of context of the conversation. But gee, politicians and news do that all the time.

"The more I think about it the more I realize why ain't will not be an official word. But I do think it needs to be included in the dictionary."

Is a dictionary a list of official words or a book to tell you what words mean?

I'd say it's mainly the first but is becomeing more and more the second as publishers like to brag about having modern words...

Isn't 'ain't' already in most dictionaries - marked as nonstandard or slang or something like that?

This is an interesting discussion about the word chimney -- but I grew up about 20 miles from Ann Arbor MI and have never heard anyone but small children use the word, "chimley." Usually with a lisp.


A couple of scurrilous observations I've heard on the evolution of the English language:

"English is the result of Norman soldiers attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon bar maids."

And, my favorite, from an editor-friend's bumper sticker:

"English does not borrow from other Languages. English follows other Languages down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets looking for loose grammar."



SC

I see where in Oakland, CA that they wish to recognize "Ebonics" as a second language. Is this functional? So if my son went to school there and spoke and wrote in Black English he could possibly get the same grade as the kid writing answers to his quizes in Standard English. And the teachers will be coming from where? The ghettos?


As for Ann Arbor - Most of them probably don't. But there appears to be a pocket of people that have the hillbilly nasel sound but not the southern or south eastern dialect. The family I knew consisted of two brothers and two sisters, the siblings' spouses, and about six cousins. There were others, but I don't know if they were friends or family. One brother-in-law had hardly any accent and I don't recall his using the word.

http://www.languagetips.com/index.cfm?pageid=3815

The Ebonics matter sparked a huge debate, about whether it should be recognised or not. I have a file on it somewhere... but it's probably at the bottom of a folder, in a large box, in a dark locked toilet with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".

I'm sure it was around here somewhere...