Monday 13 April 2009

disaffechted

2 comments:

  1. "fecht" = fight.

    "disaffechted" - Scots, English hybrid.


    For most of us, true Scots has been almost entirely swallowed up by English and various regional dialects. It exists as nothing more than an eary echo, a particle of dust on the tongue, a faint childhood memory of a great-grandmother's flour sprinkled apron.

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  2. "For most of us, true Scots has been almost entirely swallowed up by English and various regional dialects. It exists as nothing more than an eary echo, a particle of dust on the tongue, a faint childhood memory of a great-grandmother's flour sprinkled apron."

    love those images Stephen, "dust on the tongue", "flour sprikled apron" -- i know whatyer sayin'. o'er here as well most folk watchin' tellies w/ what they call "Mid American Dialect", almost a non-dialect & massive media kinda rubs off on tongue. i remember when i was an angry young man, i used to detest my Southern twang because i thot it made me sound stupid, the Southern twang has often been ridiculed in such caricatures, barefoo't hillbillys drinkin' moonshine & feudin' families etc, but i eventually grew to embrace & celebrate my talkin'. the odd thing izza linguistic feature they call "code switching", where, for example, iffin i'm w/ other folk who speaka the twang, i tend to exaggerate my twang, but iffin i'm w/ say, an intellectual from Pittsburgh, i tend to "correct" my twang, it's all very subtle & unconscious -- i enjoy it when we have family reunions 'cause most my relative gotter thick accents, we is hills folk & theresa certain demeanor that comes along w/ that as well.

    but as you say about Scottish dialects, how diverse they are for very particular small regions, the same is true for Southern dialect, f'instance, West Virginny got one 'o my favorites, the way they talk is specifically theirs, how different northern North Carolina is from coastal N. Carolina when they talk, it's all very interestin' stuff.

    1815, Humphreys Yankey's
    " How fare you?" - "Cleverly,pretty stiddy & quite chirk again."

    1885, 'Craddock'
    "I don't want ter stay in jail, an' be tried...an' mebbe hev them buzzardy lawyers fix suthin' on me ennyways."

    1937, w. N. Carolina & e. Tennesee,
    "fotch me my bonnet"

    1942, Georgia
    " I got me a misery in my stomach."

    = )

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