Austrian. Like American.
Apr 7th, 2009 by Micah Tillman | 3 Comments |
If Austrians speak Austrian now, can we Americans start speaking American?
It would make those, “Welcome to America. Now Speak English” bumperstickers make a little more sense. (Except they’d have to change it to, “Now Speak American.”)
And that’s why we should do everything we do. To make bumperstickers make more sense.
As a bi-coastal dude, I’ve often been amused by how thoroughly everybody is convinced that they are the only ones who don’t speak with an accent.
I have this image that once the red neck knuckleheads get everybody to speak English they then move in to slightly larger bumper stickers, that say things like “Welcome to Massachusetts. Now speaking North Eastern English, where the ‘r’ at the end of the word sounds like an H”
Or “Welcome to California,Now speaking West Coast American, where we’re too lazy to prounce “i” and “e” differently: You’ll never know if we’re asking for a ‘pen’ or a ‘pin’ “
Jeffs, so true! I think the i/e thing spans across various areas, though; my family is from the south and I always said “pen” and “pin” the same way until my Northern friends pointed out the error of my ways.
Sillier than the i/e pronunciation, I think, is the “ay”=”ee” thing. For example, Sunday = “Sundee”.
Mcah, haha…hear, hear.
And then you have to throw in the fact that not only does everybody pronounce English differently, but there are actually regional quasi-dialects/word quirks too.
Like the annoying Pennsylvania dialect where one leaves out the verb “to be”: “This floor needs swept” (rather than, “This floor needs to be swept” or “This floor needs sweeping.”).
Or the use of the term “wicked” in the Boston area. (“That show was wicked cool.”)
Or the use of the term “reckon” in the South. (“I reckon we oughta go home now.”)
Not to mention the fact that some people say Pepsi and Britney Spears are the same thing, while the rest of us recognize that Pepsi is soda.