AR and dialects; was Re: English (was Bad Spelling)


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Posted by Ed Kiser on August 12, 2008 at 15:49:31 user Kisered.

In Reply to: Re: English (was Bad Spelling) posted by Owen Roberts on August 12, 2008 at 12:04:06:

One of the interesting aspects of reading the Ransome books is that there are those occasions when he writes in dialect, giving a very personal flavor to that person's speech. We hear Jackie, a local, just down the road from Beckfoot, yet his speech is shown to be quite different from the Amazons' mode of speech. We have examples of Cook's mode, especially in PM, that also seems quite unlike the Amazons'. The twins in CC imitate Mrs. McGinty's dialect.

Perhaps what we are hearing here is a dialect related to a social class, rather than just a geographical area. Not sure how those concepts work, not being a "local" to that set of rules.

One of the many delights I get in listening to Woolf's readings of the S&A series, is that I hear these stories pronounced in a definitely ENGLISH (make that the "British" flavor) mode of speech, so unlike what I hear if I try to read them aloud myself in my "good ol' boy," North Carolina Southern Gentleman mode of speech. He also does so splendidly the various sayings of the characters, with quite distinct dialect giving such personality to those character speakers.

As for Ransome himself, nowhere is there a usage of "whilst" in these twelve - unless perhaps, in my typing, I unconsciously "corrected" that to "while", so if there are any "whilst" usages there, please point out my error to me.

And while I have the floor...

When in S. Florida, I encountered many tourists from all over the world. One oddity of language I noticed was that I quite easily confused tourists from Canada as being from Virginia, as there was a definite similarity in certain sounds, as for example: "There's a mouse loose in the house." Here, all three sets of vowels "mouse", "loose", and "house" sound alike, where "loose" almost is "louse", and "mouse" and "moose" are pronounced essentially the same.

So when so informed something is in the house, one is not sure if it is four inches long, or larger than a cow with antlers.

Knowing the Virginian love of heritage, perhaps what is being heard here is that vestige of colonial Elizabethan English still in use in Canada and Virginia that causes this similarity. This is just speculation on my part.

As for the proliferation of English in some wide spread places around the world, let us be glad that if there is to be a world-wide language, that it is English, with all its oddities, the variants of meanings and spellings and pronunciations, the various rules of grammar and their many exceptions, reflecting the diversity of the heritage of this enriched language that we call our Primary Language.

Let us be thankful it is not LATIN. We are not all Rogers...

Ed Kiser, Kentucky (where "Ah'm tarred" really means "I am tired.")



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