What's wrong with using possessives and contractios?

[dr_mabeuse]

Don’t get me wrong. I love my spellchecker. I even think it has a personality: the same as the sixth grade teacher who mercilessly pounded grammar and the parts of speech into my head. She’s a pain in the ass but someone you just have to respect, and I’m always shocked at the words she lets me get away with, like “fuck”. I can’t recall ever telling her to allow that word so I guess she must have already known it, though you’d never guess it to look at her. It’s fun to give her words like “fucktoy” and see her have to deal with them, insisting that they’re two words. I imagine that she blushes when she says this.

Even so, there’s something perversely satisfying about taking her aside and telling her that where I come from “there’ll” is acceptable, so she’d better get used to it.

---dr.M.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm always impressed with how sensitive the British are to language: accent, dialect, pronunciation. I guess you can tell a lot about a person from the way they speak. I would have thought regional accent and dialect would have kind of died out by now. It's not happening though, is it?

---dr.M.

Since the 1960s when the BBC started to lighten up its approach to regional dialects and pronunciation the attitude in the UK has changed.

It is now acceptable to have a regional accent unless you have aspirations to join the "upper classes". Their accent takes a generation and the right school to achieve. But even they can do RP if they want to.

The interesting developments are the growth of other accents developed as part of "Youff Culture" - Hip Hop, Garage etc. becoming mainstream as part of commercial pop music and the rich infusion from immigrant cultures. In many schools the influence of Muslims is interesting because they are exposed to the language of the Koran. They tend to carry the formality of the Koran's language over into their English and that can enrich the spoken culture of the whole school. Personally I regret the decline in use of the King James' Bible not just for religious reasons but because of the English of that version.

I had a cultural shock when I lived in Australia in the early 1960s. England in the 1950s was still very class conscious and your accent would place you very precisely in a social scale. The Australian accent was universal and I could not tell a person's social status or influence by their accent. It took nearly two years even to tell the subtle variations between the different Australian states. An Aussie accent could be strong or weak. Whichever it was, it gave no information about status.

The one thing I hated was middle-aged Aussie women's "screech". That was like running fingernails over a blackboard. I am pleased that it is less common now.

My wife went to a minor public school and still has "the" accent whenever she wants to use it. She doesn't because where we live that accent might offend. She learned French at school and spent a year in Paris helping look after an elderly retired Professor from the Sorbonne. He was blind and she used to read the French classics to him. He insisted that she spoke what he called "correct" French - the language of the educated and literate Parisienne. She became a French teacher.

Whenever we visit France I use my French which has a "Strine" (Australian) accent. My wife uses the local Nord Pas De Calais accent unless she gets annoyed. Then she reverts to her Parisian French in distinct loud tones. The last time was in a local Hypermarket. We were in a hurry because we had to catch a particular ferry back to England. A lady with a full trolley cut in front of the queue of six people. We were third in the queue. The lady announced (in French) that she couldn't wait. My wife let rip her best French and told her and the whole store that she was being selfish, rude and inconsiderate. The queue jumper crept away to another checkout. My wife was cheered by the customers - and the staff. When we were served she spoke to me in English. The checkout girl was surprised. "You speak English?" she asked. "Of course," replied my wife "I am English". The queue didn't believe her. One lady said "You must be French". I assured her that my wife was as English as I am. "I can believe that of you," was the reply "You murder our language but your wife's French is impeccable. Even the professors at our University do not speak as well."

Og

 

[snooper]

... It is now acceptable to have a regional accent unless you have aspirations to join the "upper classes". Their accent takes a generation and the right school to achieve. But even they can do RP if they want to...

I find my accent shifts according to the company I am in, as does the vocabulary.

... The one thing I hated was middle-aged Aussie women's "screech". That was like running fingernails over a blackboard. I am pleased that it is less common now...

Even that is not as horrible as the habitual whining tone of East Coast USA women.

 

[whispering_surrender]

Even that is not as horrible as the habitual whining tone of East Coast USA women.

*clears throat* Not ALL East Coast USA women.....

Whisp

 

[Guest]

I find my accent shifts according to the company I am in, as does the vocabulary.

In another way that was true of my sons when they were teenagers. When they spoke to each other or their friends I could barely understand them, and it wasn't merely due to their vocabulary; but when speaking to their grandmother or on the phone with my friends their English was perfect and enunciated clearly. Interesting to hear that you do that with your accent.

Perdita

 

[SlickTony]

the guy who makes the signs for the supermarket. You know the one, he is the person who makes the 12 Items or Less signs.

Even more infuriating: When he writes it "12 item's or less."