Questions tagged [dialects]
This tag is for questions related to mutually intelligible variations within a language.
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Does “You all” sound too southern?
Multiple people made me dinner tonight. How do I say the following without sounding too country?
Thank y’all for dinner.
(I got made fun of in San Diego for saying y’all and now I'm sensitive). I ...
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Is there any implication of drunkenness in "high lonesome" as used in the term "high lonesome sound"?
Wiktionary has the following entry for "high lonesome sound":
high lonesome sound (music) An expressively emotional, powerful and earthy style of musical expression associated mainly with ...
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Is there a word for using purposefully incorrect grammar to suit a particular vernacular?
I am thinking of an educated person who knows better purposefully using "me" incorrectly in the subject of a sentence where "I" would be grammatically correct. In doing so they are ...
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"Different than" followed by nominative case?
I'm going to try to explain my question as clearly as I can:
"Different" usually takes a preposition, either "from" (standard English regardless of region), "to" (British ...
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Tour or Tore Pronunciation
In the past few years newsmen and sportscasters have changed the pronunciation of tour (rhymes with lure) to tore (rhymes with wore).
Why is this?
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Is "go through the effort" a new variant of "go to the effort" or is it a long-standing, maybe regional, variant?
I'm 99% sure I've always used and read and heard "go to the effort" but I've started noticing in the past year or so that people younger than me, at least on YouTube are saying "go ...
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Where does "off'n" come from?
The preposition "off'n" is seen/heard in Southern and other dialects of American English.
He drank so much he fell off'n the bar stool.
There's nothing about it in Etymonline, and Merriam-...
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Grammatical, stylistic and vocabulary features that distinguish written dialects?
Apart from pronunciation differences in the spoken language, I'm curious what common language features are found in the prestige dialects of English in different countries.
Prestige language is ...
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Are there any other out-loud-slashers here?
Native speaker (American English): I say "slash" out loud sometimes in place of "and" or "or," and an example sentence that is natural in my idiolect is "When slash ...
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think "it" silly vs. think (that) "it's/it is/it was" silly [duplicate]
As a native American English speaker, I would only ever use the second one. The first one, though, is something that I have seen (not so much heard) a lot from native speakers in both formal and ...
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dialect/idiolect quirk? "for whom" instead of "whose"
I'm a native (American English) speaker and I've noticed that this is a weird feature of my idiolect. Here is a direct quote:
To the person for whom I spilled apple cider, if you're watching this, I'...
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Why would someone use their native regional accent instead of BBC English at an international conference? [closed]
Anecdote. A friend of mine works at the Chemistry department of a university in the Netherlands. My friend went to a scientific conference in continental Europe. The participants from continental ...
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Current prevalence of idiom "pulling for you"
A prior question asks about the origin of the phrase "pulling for you," a phrase that conveys well-wishes and support (Merriam-Webster):
US, informal
: to say or show that one hopes (...
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Does the part of speech of "said" differ between dialects?
Note: This is similar to, but not a duplicate of, an old question on Linguistics SE.
Consider these two sentences:
One employee accused him of serious crimes, but said employee did not provide any ...
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Who uses "uni" for "university"?
I think much has been clarified by the many interesting comments this post has received. In Edit 5 below, I've tried to summarize what I think I've learned and what questions are still outstanding.
I'...
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