inverness

[Catharps]

Port Fourchon Louisiana is the central hub of logistics for the domestic offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico. There are routinely around 250 vessels working the port and no VTS (vessel traffic service- so no pilots or check in points or centralized control- and thank god for that!) All vessels communicate on VHF 13, as do most of the docks.

The local Creole-French accent and sentence structure, combined with industry slang and idioms, made my life interesting for a while! 8 years later I occasionally still have to take a moment to process what I hear to Yankee.

[Jack Daw]

My wife is from Bellefontaine, Ohio - and it's pronounced "Bell-Fountin" there. I'm curious about the local foods up there, heavily German influenced, of course, with the Amish about, and how her people say things. The overall accent is mid-western, I suppose, but, she pronounces "always" as "alwiz", and she tends to precede nouns with the definite article more than the average Americsn; such as, "You have THE cough today, I see".

I have lived in Texas since 1967 and have traveled its highways and by-ways. You will find a small town named Tivoli in this here state, but don't pronounce it like the Italians. It's pronounced "Ty-VO-Lee". Within Houston is the San Jacinto Battle Ground, but we don't pronounce San Jacinto like in the Spanish - San "Ha-SEEN-to". It was "anglicized" long ago.

[Ian.MacAllan]

And another thing in this area, Solder has become So-der. . . .

Anyone who has ever worked with copper plumbing knows that solder is pronounced "sah' der".


Frank McCourt's memoirs (Angela's Ashes, 'Tis) have given me the impression that frequent use of the definite article ("the hunger", "the thirst") is common in Ireland or at least was so in the 1930's and 1940's.

That was the era in which the Disney studios produced the movie "Fantasia", which was rightly acclaimed for its ingenious innovations (including elephants dancing in tutus). My favorite example of how Yanks and Brits are divided by an uncommon language concerns an American tourist who, repeatedly wounded by "motor car" "windscreens" and "boots", "Cholmondeley", "Leistershire" and "Worcestershire", finally succumbed to a "cinema" theater's marquee which read "Fantasia: Pronounced Success".

.

[The Q]

Anyone who has ever worked with copper plumbing knows that solder is pronounced "sah' der"

.

Not round here , here it be " soul der""

And I think he succumbed to a cinema theatre!!

[RectaPete]

I have lived in Texas since 1967 and have traveled its highways and by-ways. You will find a small town named Tivoli in this here state, but don't pronounce it like the Italians. It's pronounced "Ty-VO-Lee". Within Houston is the San Jacinto Battle Ground, but we don't pronounce San Jacinto like in the Spanish - San "Ha-SEEN-to". It was "anglicized" long ago.

I know of many placenames in Scotland and Ireland that bear little resemblance phonetically to their original Gaelic. Much of this has to do with phonetic changes since the anglicisation, but faulty transcription is often also at fault.

[The Q]

I know of many placenames in Scotland and Ireland that bear little resemblance phonetically to their original Gaelic. Much of this has to do with phonetic changes since the anglicisation, but faulty transcription is often also at fault.

Many English placenames suffer from this as they were originally Norse/Saxon/jute/Angle/Welsh-British.

[MacKenzie]

... tends to precede nouns with the definite article more than the average American; such as, "You have THE cough today, I see".

In all my travels I'd never heard that until I moved to my current location.

"I have the headache."

My first thought: "There's only one headache, and you have it!"

[Tarheel]

In all my travels I'd never heard that until I moved to my current location.
"I have the headache."
My first thought: "There's only one headache, and you have it!"

As a native, that translates, "date night" is postponed.

[OC Richard]

About putting "the" in front of things, there are a number of situations here in Southern California where this distinguishes the speech of Los Angeles County from my own Orange County.

LA has "the valley" and one can tell somebody's not an Orange County local if they say "the Brea Canyon" or "the South Coast Plaza". Here in Orange County it's simply "Brea Canyon" and "South Coast Plaza".

Southern Californians in general can be distinguished from their Northern counterparts by the former saying "super" where the latter say "hella".

SoCal: "It was super late and I was super hungry so I went to McDonalds and they were super busy."

NorCal: "It was hella late and I was hella hungry so I went to McDonalds and they were hella busy."

[figheadair]

I know of many placenames in Scotland and Ireland that bear little resemblance phonetically to their original Gaelic. Much of this has to do with phonetic changes since the anglicisation, but faulty transcription is often also at fault.

And then those places that have been completely renamed and now have no resemblance to the original Gaelic: Newtonmore and Dingwall being two obvious examples.