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

Hey Count Zero
If you've got the time, please take a look at the last section of A30501695 and please tell me know much I got wrong

"One note: In Texas, it's Y'all - a contraction of 'you all' and it should never be used in the singular. I'm not saying it doesn't, but those that do use it when speaking to one person are either 'furriners' pretending to be Texans or really "igner'nt" Texans."

I think that using y'all in singular is a mark of igner'nts everywhere. That's just poor form.

In Oklahoma, y'all is singular and all y'all is plural.

Really? Hm.

And people say 'mash' the button, not 'press' the button.

If anyone wants to rewrite/write the dialect entry of their personal accent in the project, please let me know.

I'm a transplant so I don't know that I qualify. Just adding some local colloquialisms. It's a well-written entry.

Looks fair'nuff. Although, most folks don't consider East Texas the realm of oil money. Dallas doesn't really count as East Texas even though it's in it. East Texas is predominately a woody rural culture. While there are plenty of oil fields in East Texas, the money doesn't stay there as a rule. It tends to go West to sprawling ranches. (One famous ranch is named XIT, which stands for Ten In Texas, the number of counties that comprised it).

In South East/Gulf Coastal Texas you have a very strong Louisiana Cajun influence. Just ask Boudreaux and Thibideaux (BOO-DRO 'n TIBid-DO).

The mixture of Texas Twang and Cajun is hard to understand by the majority of folks not from there.

Deep Swamp Cajun is inherently indecipherable to ANYONE not from the Bayou.

Well I buzzed all the US researcher groups (now i feel like a dirty rotten spammer, but hopefully no one will mind ), and have been roaming around the site looking for Texans (thanks for popping by Count Zero ).

Also, I now have most of my outline maps of the 48 continental US states drawn, and a map of the US as a whole to stick them on. This means I can start animating the regions mentioned in the entries, and once we have an idea which specific states/cities? are going to feature, I can begin the visuals for the linking clips.

Should Ohio look like its beating Jodan?

I saw a tv interview once with a Texan who was talking about being 'dragged' to a party and it sounded (both to my English ears and to the American interview) like 'drugged'.

He probably said "drug", past tense of "drag".


Here's a nice colloquialism, "Drug up". It has nothing to do with narcotics. It means "quit a job without notice." I think it implies uprooting oneself.

I'm gonna need to bother Rich about the Southern entry again. That information about Texas oil money is especially enlightening. The colloquialisms are interesting too, but it's difficult to fit them all in an entry (unless you use a table, which I'd like to avoid).

This is a busy week for me, but I should have time this weekend. Or maybe I'll feel inspired to ignore my RL obligations one quiet evening this week.

"Should Ohio look like its beating Jodan?"

And just after I posted that I had a minor epiphany Ohio, though obviously the greatest state, and well known as the 'heart' of it all (according to older license plates) should probably not draw any undue attention to itself as it is linguistically very boring.

Well, the oil money actually goes to the large multinationals who, for the most part, have headquarters in Dallas and Houston (although some are now moving overseas).

The XIT ranch had little or nothing to do with oil, it was just the largest cattle ranch in the world.

But mainly, I don't want the impression that Texas is anything like what you saw on Dallas. There are plenty of oil workers in Texas, oil millionaires are few.

Ohioans do seem to have no discernible accent to most people's ears.

Kinda like Burbank.

I'll see that the entry is amended This thread is turning into something of a Pre-Peer Review.

The more I hear about your "non accent" the more intrigued I become to hear it.

I guess you'll just have to wait. In one chapter of "The Salmon of Doubt" Douglas Adams compares countries to people. America is a teenage boy, Canada is a 35 year old woman, etc. In my mind, the Midwestern "non-accent" is a quiet wallflower who gets lost in the crowd easily. No personality to it at all!

Compared to the Appalachian hillbilly accents just South and East of Ohio, the lack of accent is quite pronounced, indeed.

I have a feeling I took on the Subbing a tad too soon, J

P'raps. But no one had responded to my requests for local info then. Of course, as fate would have it, as soon as you took the editing rights on, people began to respond That's alright though, there's some valuable info. I'll work on the entire Southern Drawl entry and make it no more than a simple copy-paste job for you, if that's alright.