Language is a funny thing and can cause more havoc than one would think. I have stated many times in my blog I was stationed in Germany for almost 7 years and that I had traveled through Europe after graduating High School. I never thought about how language can separate us until I was faced with trying to maneuver my way through Europe and make sure I was on the right train heading in the right direction or trying to order food at a restaurant. Most of the time this language barrier could be worked out but often it took a lot of playing a game of charades or drawing stick figure people on a napkin. I have to say in most of Europe people speak a bit of English and most speak or understand a bit of a few different languages.
I think back to my teen years in the 80's and how we as teens made up our own words often bastardized words that already existed or words we took and added or subtracted from and often just made up words. Spazz,Gross,Totally,tubular,gnarly to name a few. Those words could be dropped randomly in to a sentence to make it our own. The words sprang into phrases many borrowed from the California surf culture and the Valley Girls. Gag me with a spoon.Barf me out!, Not Even! and one of my favorites Whats your damage man?. I know this is nothing new and teens had been doing this for years but the 80's stands out more for me because it was the time I grew up in.
As a kid we would visit our cousins and family in West Virginia only a few states away and if you were not used to the way they speak could be something a culture shock. In West Virginia they drop letters off the ends of words or take them out completely You all meaning a group of people becomes Y'all white is pronounced wite, night is nite, light is lite emphasis on the letter I. Now this will also depend on what part of the state you live in the more north you go the less of a country twang will be heard the farther south you go the more of the twang will be heard. It is called dialect and dialect can change from state to state depending on if it is northern state or southern western or eastern. When I was about 13 I was taken to Nebraska to visit my sisters husbands family. I did not notice a lot of differences in dialect or language but one thing they said stuck out and at first confused me. If someone was going to the store they would say (you wanna go with? or you want to come with?) a shortened down version of do you want to go with me to the store.
Most of the time I could hear and comprehend and just go with it but there were times dialect got me into trouble. The more a person travels the less the differences becomes a cultural shock. On such instance was when I was around the age of 10 and my father who was from West Virgina born and raised had always said things with a W.Va accent or dialect and for the most part I was used to it. He would say things like winder for window and piller for the word pillow. There was however one day he came up with something I had never heard before and almost got me a good old fashioned ass whoopin drop the (G) as he pronounced it. He had told me to go out and do trim work around trees after the mowing was done. We had a gas powered push mower so it was not back breaking work but it was hot work and time consuming. We lived on ten acres and our house sat about in the middle of that ten acres and we had a lot of trees and flower beds etc that needed trimmed around so it was not a job that could be done quickly. We as a family often joked that it seemed we no sooner got the lawn mowed and trimmed and it was time to start all over again. I digress so now back to my little story. I had been out trimming around trees one day and came in the house to get something cold to drink. My father asked me.....get ready here comes the saying I did not understand and caused my father to want to beat my butt for what he though was me being disrespectful. He asked me (So how much do you like mowing the lawn?) Now I took that as do you like mowing the lawn? so I said I do not like it but you said I had to do it. His eyes got big and I could see he was angry but I could not for the life of me understand why. He asked again (How much do you like mowing the lawn?) and I came back with the same answer. This went on for a while and my Mom hearing this from the other room came in laughing her ass off. My father seemed to become even more angry that she found what he thought was my disrespect funny his face turned red and I just knew he was going to give me a whoopin drop the (G).
So that you are in on the funny part of this to my father the sentence (How much do you like mowing the lawn?) Meant how much more mowing do you have left to do?) and as I said I heard it as (Do you like mowing?) I had never heard the term before and it had thrown me for a loop. My father calmed down after my Mother explained to him the miss interpretation on my part and we would laugh about it later when we spoke of it.
While stationed in Germany I picked up some of the German language and was able to order a drink, find directions and converse with people in a slip shot manner of mixed English and German. About four or five months after my arriving in Germany and thinking I had mastered the basics of the German language I went out on my own and stopped in a small local bar and ordered a drink. After I ordered the people in the bar within ear shot brook out in laughter making my face turn red as a beat. You see many words if not said right can mean something very different and what I chose from my dictionary was totally the wrong word . The funny part of this story is I wanted a rum and soda water the word I used from my English to German dictionary was I wanted a Rum and urinate in my glass. The bar got such a kick out of my screw up that I did not buy a drink the rest of the night so it turned out to be a good screw up.
Even in countries were English is not the native language they have different dialects and different words that mean the same thing. In most cities in Germany they speak what is called high German or what we call proper English but each city still has its own dialect. The differences were not so noticeable to me because my German speech was very limited but to a German speaking person it is much like a person from Michigan going to Texas the language is still English but there is a certain difference in pronunciation that is noticeable to a person who is not used to it.
I remember many of the new soldiers would speak loud and very slowly English to a German person who did not understand English like that would help them understand better. It is like giving hand gestures to a blind person or screaming at a deaf person to get a point across. The funniest thing I ever heard was a guy from the southern states learn German but he kept his southern English Drawl even the German people got a kick out of hearing him speak.
I know this whole slang, dialect, language thing has been written about before many times before and probably much better than I have but it was just something that popped into my head and I wanted to share. I think what made me think about it was a post on a friends wall on Facebook. They had mentioned that many people add an s to things like stores that do not need to be there. For instance Walmart if a person says they are going shopping at Walmart they say Lets go to Walmarts as if they were going to more than one Walmart store. I was guilty of this for many years saying I am going to Krogers the proper way of saying it is I am going to Kroger. I do not know how or why this (S) adding was started but many (peoples) are guilty of this one.
The differences can make you laugh like knockers in England means something on a door to announce you are at the door like a door bell. Knockers in much of the United States means a woman's breast. Knocked up in the US means pregnant in England it means you went calling on a person and knocked on their door. I remember the first time I heard an English accent and heard them say knockers I as a young kid of 9 or so laughed and laughed.
The internet has brought forth a whole new group of words and phrases used in chat rooms, texting, and tweeting. I do not even want to go there LOL TTFN
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