OT Pet Peeves

[geofflambert]

Here's a little one. I was just watching "Saving Private Ryan" for the umpteenth time, what a masterpiece. After the commercials we get a warning "This feature contains strong language yada yada yada. Viewer discretion is advised." What is everything else? Weak language?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert
Weak language?

I dunno. What do you think? Oooh....I don't have an opinion and certainly don't want to offend. I've also got diverticulitis!

How's that? [;)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I cringe when people say "warsh". My mother was a grammar nazi.

I have a friend who says as a teen he transported untaxed alcoholic beverages in Alabama. He had a 50s Chevy with the back seat replaced with a tank and an emergency dump valve. He could dump the entire load on the road at any time.

One time he got chased and the local sheriff ended up stranded in the middle of a corn field with the owner of the corn field standing over him with a shotgun. After that the local judge gave him the choice of jail or the military. He was sure his uncle owned that judge, and wondered what was going on. Later he learned his mother had a discussion with the uncle and convinced him to get out of the transport business.

This was the early 60s. He was still in the Air Force when Vietnam got going and ended up in theater. He was technically a non-combatant, but got three purple hearts in six weeks. After the third one, he took an opportunity to get out and do something more laid back.

Bill

+1...Oh yeah.....I cringe when I listen to sports figures being interviewed who cannot speak English. Supposed to have been to college and use the word "warsh"...."axe"(instead of ask)....the phrase "you know" as a sentence filler every 5th word.....etc..

Pet peeves...Oh...I think we are just getting started......[X(]

Many years ago at work someone in the sales dept got promoted. I heard a couple of the people who reported to him joking about who was going to tell him he had to stop saying 'yous guys'. [:D]

[geofflambert]

Yeah, I just looked up Argleton again. [:D] "NYC" I guess. Did his sales pitch go "I have an offer for you you can't refuse". I had a boss once from there who talked like that. He was a hothead. I think he was an in-law to the owner. He didn't last very long anyway, and I went back to answering to the president or sometimes the owner.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Yeah, I just looked up Argleton again. [:D] "NYC" I guess. Did his sales pitch go "I have an offer for you you can't refuse". I had a boss once from there who talked like that. He was a hothead. I think he was an in-law to the owner. He didn't last very long anyway, and I went back to answering to the president or sometimes the owner.

It was Boston.

Being an in-law to the owner might be why they were able to fire your boss. If he was an out-law to the owner they might not have risked it.

[geofflambert]

I remember cracking up the owner once. We were an electrical and plumbing wholesaler and I was in charge of the plumbing part and inventory control on all of it. He came into my office and asked me "What's the difference between a round front toilet and an elongated toilet?" I said "Well if your peter touches the edge of the seat it's a round front, if not it's elongated." He was laughing so hard everybody in the place wanted to know what happened.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Yeah, I just looked up Argleton again. [:D] "NYC" I guess. Did his sales pitch go "I have an offer for you you can't refuse". I had a boss once from there who talked like that. He was a hothead. I think he was an in-law to the owner. He didn't last very long anyway, and I went back to answering to the president or sometimes the owner.

It was Boston.

Being an in-law to the owner might be why they were able to fire your boss. If he was an out-law to the owner they might not have risked it.

That's Baaaston.

[geofflambert]

"We all breathe the same aayah..." JFK also "nucular". Also "Ich bin ein Berliner" which actually means "I am a jelly doughnut". [:D] They knew what he meant. He should've said "Ich bin von Berlin" or something like that. Good thing he wasn't in Wien. "Ich bin ein Wiener" wouldn't have gone over the same. [:D]

[wdolson]

He got points for trying to speak another language during a major speech.

Also a good thing he didn't make any reference to a Heishund. My German teacher in high school was a WW II vet. He said after the war an American was running around the shops asking for a Heishund and everyone was wondering what he wanted with a dog in heat.

Bill

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

He got points for trying to speak another language during a major speech.

Also a good thing he didn't make any reference to a Heishund. My German teacher in high school was a WW II vet. He said after the war an American was running around the shops asking for a Heishund and everyone was wondering what he wanted with a dog in heat.

Bill

My 2nd permanent party was in Frankfurt am Main...The sidewalk vendors (schnell Imbuss)had menus which said "Heisse HOT DOG" and "Heisse Hamburger"..It was printed as such for the GI's who refused to learn the language, (except for the words Bier, Schatz' etc..

In this case, the word Heisse meant "It is called"...(Heis means "Hot" as Bill sez..)

[bomccarthy]

"Warsh" is just how people raised in the Beltway speak. My dad (BME, Catholic Univ) still says "warsh" 60 years after he moved to SoCal. His brother (Georgetown - BS and MS Econ, LLB and LLM) says "warsh", as do my cousins (all UVA grads). My grandfather said "waash", but he grew up in "PEEbuhDEE".

[CaptBeefheart]

Speaking of strange pronunciations, I went to uni in Michigan, and noticed everyone there adds a "t" to the end of "across," and yet if you asked someone what a certain common religious symbol was, they'd get it right.

Cheers,
CC

[Chickenboy]

In veterinary school, we had two main instructors for our systemic pathology course. One from Australia and one from New Zealand. They were good friends with one another and were both good instructors.

The Kiwi provided some guidance on how to tell them apart based upon their accent. One simply needed to get them to pronounce the number after "five". The New Zealander would pronounce it like "sex". The Australian would not be able to count that high.

At a later point in time, the Aussie asked the class if they knew the difference between yogurt and New Zealand. It turns out, he told us, that yogurt has a living culture.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

In veterinary school, we had two main instructors for our systemic pathology course. One from Australia and one from New Zealand. They were good friends with one another and were both good instructors.

The Kiwi provided some guidance on how to tell them apart based upon their accent. One simply needed to get them to pronounce the number after "five". The New Zealander would pronounce it like "sex". The Australian would not be able to count that high.

At a later point in time, the Aussie asked the class if they knew the difference between yogurt and New Zealand. It turns out, he told us, that yogurt has a living culture.

LOL

[geofflambert]

This joke is way under the top! I have to say "under" since it's in the Southern hemisphere.

[JeffroK]

I love the need foe documentaries from the USA which seem to think there is a need for sub titles when foreigners talk, plus African Americans, Hispanics, Southerners, I suppose anyone not from New York!

[aspqrz02]

New Zealand. Where men are men ... and sheep are nervous.

Last I looked, there was somewhere around 200 sheep for every single Kiwi ... [X(]

Phil

[aspqrz02]

Some years ago you would occasionally see reports from Hicksville USA TV stations (in the Deep South) where local reporters were johnny on the spot, subtitled for Australian TV News [:D]

It's not just northerners who have trouble understanding them, evidently!

(Course, to be fair, never ran into anyone in the several weeks I spent driving all over the US south of the Mason-Dixon line who was impossible to understand ... TV has a major homogenising effect everywhere, it seems)

Phil

[HansBolter]

Nothing in this world less feminine or appealing to the a man than a Brooklyn or New Jersey accent.

Nothing quite like a Brooklyn or New Jersey accent for turning a ten into a two.

Just something seriously buzz killing about a woman who tauhks like a truck drivah.

[geofflambert]

A woman speaking cockney, however, is the opposite. Think Billie Piper pushing her best cockney in Dr. Who.