General Discussion Thread

[Eich]

Y'all as in "y'all need jesus in yo' lives"? Only on TV.

Also sleep deprivation is a health hazard. Sleep lost is not easily regained.

Yep, that's the one.  Hearing anything else down here kinda weirds me out.  You can immediately spot a traveler when you hear, "you guys."

Yeah, apparently it takes three hours of sleep to recover from every one hour that you lose.  I'm going to go to bed earlier tonight (tells self but probably won't follow through).

[Fimbulvarg]

People seem to have it in for Southern American English (New York, New England and African American English too for that matter) but I personally think those accents are way cooler than the bland old everyman's American accent. Then again I'm a linguist so it's sort of given that I have that attitude.

I remember reading a thread on reddit about it being extremely hard to catch up on sleep. It managed to scare me into a better schedule for a while but the old "just ten more minutes" habit always comes back.

[Miss Honeyham]

Incidentally, seeing how we have so many people not from the southeastern States (almost everyone but me), has anyone never seen the word "y'all" before?  I've already used the word a good bit on here, but I'm a little curious about the etymology of the term on the interblag.

Although I currently live in California, I've lived all over the Southeast (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana... definitely some other states I'm forgetting). Y'all is an everyday staple in my speech. It's so much more precise than just plain old "you". For that matter, have you noticed the trend of people online saying Southerners use "y'all" as the singular and "y'all all" as the plural? Have you encountered that in actual use? I certainly haven't, but I've always wondered... eh, anyways.

And I would be interested in a dream thread. I love hearing about wacky dreams.

[Eich]

People seem to have it in for Southern American English (New York, New England and African American English too for that matter) but I personally think those accents are way cooler than the bland old everyman's American accent. Then again I'm a linguist so it's sort of given that I have that attitude.

I remember reading a thread on reddit about it being extremely hard to catch up on sleep. It managed to scare me into a better schedule for a while but the old "just ten more minutes" habit always comes back.

I have a pretty neutral accent, but every now and then my drawl will show up mid-sentence. 

Yeah, the ten more minutes problem is my downfall.  There's just so much I want to do every day, and sleep has to come along and put a stop to it.

Although I currently live in California, I've lived all over the Southeast (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana... definitely some other states I'm forgetting). Y'all is an everyday staple in my speech. It's so much more precise than just plain old "you". For that matter, have you noticed the trend of people online saying Southerners use "y'all" as the singular and "y'all all" as the plural? Have you encountered that in actual use? I certainly haven't, but I've always wondered... eh, anyways.

And I would be interested in a dream thread. I love hearing about wacky dreams.

I think in old English, "you" was naturally plural on it's own, and "thee" was the singular.  I've used "all of y'all" (all uh y'all) before.  It's redundant, but it's enjoyable to say and nobody gripes about it here.  Conversely, if someone actually said "y'all all," I'd have to demonstrate their failings and show them the right path.

[mithrysc]

Yeah, apparently it takes three hours of sleep to recover from every one hour that you lose.  I'm going to go to bed earlier tonight (tells self but probably won't follow through).

Well. That's...actually kind of scary. You know what, I should probably try to sleep earlier too. Not that I actually will in the end...

And I would be interested in a dream thread. I love hearing about wacky dreams.

Ditto that.

[OrigamiOwl]

Incidentally, seeing how we have so many people not from the southeastern States (almost everyone but me), has anyone never seen the word "y'all" before?  I've already used the word a good bit on here, but I'm a little curious about the etymology of the term on the interblag.

As I'm not in America we rarely hear it used in our conversations, instead we end up saying "You" or "You guys" or "All 'o you" ooooor, if you're of a certain...um..."accent"? (*cough*ew bogan*cough*) then they would definitely use "Youse" and "All o' youse/ofyuz/all'a ya" but never "Youse guys"

I have a pretty neutral accent, but every now and then my drawl will show up mid-sentence. 

Know those feels, Eich. Know those feels. I too have a fairly neutral (if not slightly posh....ok its more than slightly ;___;) Australian accent, BUT, sometimes on certain words/phrases or if my mind is somewhere else, or I'm a tad grumpy or really excited my accent will slip into rural mode...and the LOOKS I get. Oh my god. u__u

Me: W'bedder'ryu' or we'll miss 'e bus!
Person: What?
Me: We had better hurry up or we will misseth the bus, Sire >:I
Person: Oh. ...Hey where do live again?
Me: ...South.
Person: Ah.

[JoB]

I could've sworn I just heard some girls having a conversation in the living room of my apartment, but I'm the only one here.  I need sleep...

"Hallucinations", often hearing sounds and noises that aren't there (it was telephones ringing in colleagues' offices in the middle of night for me back at the U), are the last temporary symptom of sleep deprivation before the one called "permanent mental damage". Go. Now.

[Eich]

As I'm not in America we rarely hear it used in our conversations, instead we end up saying "You" or "You guys" or "All 'o you" ooooor, if you're of a certain...um..."accent"? (*cough*ew bogan*cough*) then they would definitely use "Youse" and "All o' youse/ofyuz/all'a ya" but never "Youse guys"

Know those feels, Eich. Know those feels. I too have a fairly neutral (if not slightly posh....ok its more than slightly ;___;) Australian accent, BUT, sometimes on certain words/phrases or if my mind is somewhere else, or I'm a tad grumpy or really excited my accent will slip into rural mode...and the LOOKS I get. Oh my god. u__u

Me: W'bedder'ryu' or we'll miss 'e bus!
Person: What?
Me: We had better hurry up or we will misseth the bus, Sire >:I
Person: Oh. ...Hey where do live again?
Me: ...South.
Person: Ah.

"Youse guys."  *shudders*
Can't deal with that. 

For me, in the same scenario, it's more like: 
Me:  "Behr catch 'at dog 'afur idt'leeves yah."
Person:  "What?"
Me:  "Better get on that bus before it leaves you."
("Catching a dog" is a colloquialism for getting a bus over here, because of the Greyhound Bus line and creative residents.)
It seems our rural accents are similar in that they both slur words together pretty horribly.  I pretty much forget about the letters that have hard sounds in them like t and k, and h's vanish after words that end in n's.  So "haven't had it happen," would be "Havin' ad idappen."

"Hallucinations", often hearing sounds and noises that aren't there (it was telephones ringing in colleagues' offices in the middle of night for me back at the U), are the last temporary symptom of sleep deprivation before the one called "permanent mental damage". Go. Now.

I've only lost five hours of sleep in two days?     Perhaps I should add that I was resting my eyes at my desk when it happened and was partially dozing off.  Hypnopompic is the right descriptor, I think?

[Lenny]

Accent problems. Ah, the joy. Mine's a mishmash of Afrikaans, Dutch, UK English, and Australian English. The amount of times I've been asked whether I'm from England, or what part of England I'm from is crazy. It makes it worse that I've picked up the majority of my vocabulary from old books rather than actual people, so every now and then I come out with this old word or way of speech that really hasn't been used in normal speech like that for years. Funny looks all around, and I've become pretty good at rewording things fast >.>

What's even weirder is that my Dutch has an Afrikaans accent, making it more like Belgian Dutch than any other dialect of Dutch (I'm from Ermelo, in the Veluwe, not Belgium), and my Afrikaans has Dutch and English influences, so South Africans sometimes mistake me for an English South African (which I'm not, in any way - I'm Dutch South African, from the Orange Free State).

I think most people here can relate to sleep depravity, haha... I keep on meaning to go to sleep early, but there's that book I want to finish... that new page that just came out... that new chapter that's just been translated... oh! and I need to check on my dragons in Flight Rising, too... ah, and I should probably do some training on Memrise before I go to sleep... oh, there's a new post in the forums... ack, 1 am already? Help, I've got some homework due tomorrow!

I have bad time management.

[OrigamiOwl]

("Catching a dog" is a colloquialism for getting a bus over here, because of the Greyhound Bus line and creative residents.)
It seems our rural accents are similar in that they both slur words together pretty horribly.  I pretty much forget about the letters that have hard sounds in them like t and k, and h's vanish after words that end in n's.  So "haven't had it happen," would be "Havin' ad idappen."

I can see how 'dog' makes sense, our busses don't have cool names like that ;__; Just Metro (for the city) and Tassielink (for rural) buses, and they're always referred to as a "(Brandname) Bus" so boring...

haha I just spent about seven whole minutes saying "Haven't/Never had that happen here, have we?" over and over, and realising just how mangled yet still perfectly understandable it is in a drawl (to me). Nuuuuuuu. It sounded like "N'r'ad thadappen'eere ravwee?" and only took less than 2 seconds to blurt out X'C

"Hallucinations", often hearing sounds and noises that aren't there (it was telephones ringing in colleagues' offices in the middle of night for me back at the U), are the last temporary symptom of sleep deprivation before the one called "permanent mental damage". Go. Now.

I usually think that someone is printing or a fax is arriving in the office next to my room, or that the tv in the living room is on, or the phone is ringing, or the iron is beeping, or someone's shouting in the kitchen...but when I go and check....there's nothing. ;__; Oh no I'm sleep deprived aren't I!!? Oh poop! But it's not like I can fit more into my routine either (5.45am wake up, arrive in city at 8.30am, arrive home at 7/7.30pm, dinner at 8/8.30pm, then homework and the internet until whenever....usually past midnight...for eight years. Wah) actually maybe I could try. I hope it's not too late! Agh!

[StellersJayC]

I think most people here can relate to sleep depravity, haha... I keep on meaning to go to sleep early, but there's that book I want to finish... that new page that just came out... that new chapter that's just been translated... oh! and I need to check on my dragons in Flight Rising, too... ah, and I should probably do some training on Memrise before I go to sleep... oh, there's a new post in the forums... ack, 1 am already? Help, I've got some homework due tomorrow!

I have bad time management.

Well, that's not, uh, familiar at all. (It's the story of my life.)

And accents... I've been told here in western Washington we speak English as close to how it was intended to be spoken as possible, though I'm not sure how true that is. I should mention that everyone in the area liberally sprinkles their day-to-day speech with verbal irony - every other sentence sometimes. I tend to use a lot of words that people talking to me don't understand and my attempts to learn German don't help. Did I miss anything?

[Eich]

I can see how 'dog' makes sense, our busses don't have cool names like that ;__; Just Metro (for the city) and Tassielink (for rural) buses, and they're always referred to as a "(Brandname) Bus" so boring...

haha I just spent about seven whole minutes saying "Haven't/Never had that happen here, have we?" over and over, and realising just how mangled yet still perfectly understandable it is in a drawl (to me). Nuuuuuuu. It sounded like "N'r'ad thadappen'eere ravwee?" and only took less than 2 seconds to blurt out X'C

I usually think that someone is printing or a fax is arriving in the office next to my room, or that the tv in the living room is on, or the phone is ringing, or the iron is beeping, or someone's shouting in the kitchen...but when I go and check....there's nothing. ;__; Oh no I'm sleep deprived aren't I!!? Oh poop! But it's not like I can fit more into my routine either (5.45am wake up, arrive in city at 8.30am, arrive home at 7/7.30pm, dinner at 8/8.30pm, then homework and the internet until whenever....usually past midnight...for eight years. Wah) actually maybe I could try. I hope it's not too late! Agh!

I think I may have come up with the perfect word slur test by accident.  And yeah, even without my drawl kicking in, I still leave out t's and k's all the time, and I don't pronounce o's as "oh."  For instance: "for" = "fur."

Well, that's not, uh, familiar at all. (It's the story of my life.)

And accents... I've been told here in western Washington we speak English as close to how it was intended to be spoken as possible, though I'm not sure how true that is. I should mention that everyone in the area liberally sprinkles their day-to-day speech with verbal irony - every other sentence sometimes. I tend to use a lot of words that people talking to me don't understand and my attempts to learn German don't help. Did I miss anything?

Think that covered everything.  I'm pretty sure the English accent from before the revolutionary war were closer to either modern southern US or modern neutral US.  The current English English accent developed some time in the last couple of centuries.  Irish people, however, have always sounded the same, even before the English language that they speak actually existed (Total science-fact).

[Crestlinger]

Found a neat link from mental floss about cats for those interested:
http://acidsquirrel.com/post/56774
or directly from their site:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/58853/36-things-you-might-not-know-about-cats
 

[Miss Honeyham]

I'm actually some kind of accent freak-- I've lived lots of different places, but always in the southeast. (Except Missouri, but I only lived there like a year anyways.) Despite this, I don't have any sort of southeastern accent at all (with the notable exceptions of "y'all" and apparently "whamodyne"... I've always heard everybody use "whamodyne", but nobody up in CA knows it). Most people assume I'm from Oregon. Eh. Um. Well.

Possibly due to this, I've always been super interested in regional dialects and have spent ridiculous amounts of time listening to people talking. Finding out where you people are from and what accents you all have is super exciting to me!

[ThisCat]

My english teacher in high school once told me I had a "funny norwegian accent" in english. I didn't know how to react to that.