Language

Some French speakers struggle with the English language 

Aside Markosun Language

Many people who do not have English as their first language struggle to speak the language.  But most newfangled speakers of English seem to master the language over a few years.  Except for one group. 

The French seem to have a hard time with certain pronunciation nuances of English.  A university professor from Montreal who rarely speaks English can sound like a back bush billy when trying to speak the language.  Third turns into turd, over there turns into hover dare, hockey becomes auckey and cows can become cowses.  I’m not quite sure why this is. 

Actually, I think it is because hard-core French people never think in anything but French.  Even though they understand and can speak English, they never think in English.  Even when they do speak English they are thinking in French and interpreting their thoughts into English words.  It gets very complicated.  

Gilles Duceppe provides a brief yet concise illustration of this phenomenon.

Stop fighting heach odder.

And this joke also clarifies this occurrence.

 In Quebec , the French do not pronounce the letter ‘H’. For example Hot Dog is pronounced Ot Dog and Hudson Hardware is pronounced Udson Ardware.  They also insert an ‘H’ where there is none, by saying Hany (instead Of Any) and Hall (instead of All). This explanation is for non-Canadians.  

One day in a French Immersion Class for 1st graders, the teacher was asking her class to describe the use of Ozonol. Little Mary got up and explained that she had fallen while roller skating and scratched her knee. She went home and her Mother cleaned the cut and  put a bandage with Ozonol on her knee and it was all better. The teacher was so proud and then asked other children if they had any explanation of the word. Little Pierre raised his hand and started to explain. ‘Well Teacher, da udder nite, me an my fodder are watching da Montreal and Tampa Ockey Game.  An den my mudder start to do da vaccum.  Den, my fodder, yell at my mudder, ai, ai, ai, ai, Tabarnack Louise, put dat dam ting haway now or I’ll stick it up your hass …..Ose an all’.

NHL Hockey Games Broadcast in Cree

Aside Markosun Language, Sports

In 2020, Clarence Iron, Earl Wood, and John Chabot debuted calling for the NHL in Nêhiyawêwin (ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ; the Plains Cree language) during a Montreal Canadiens versus Carolina Hurricanes game. Building on their coverage beginning in 2019 of Rogers Hometown Hockey in Cree, APTN now hosts HNIC in Cree every Saturday night with announcer Clarence Iron calling alongside host Earl Wood and analysts John Chabot and Jason Chamakese. Although broadcasts in Nêhiyawêwin were postponed during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, a large push for them to return ensured the return of consistent, weekly Plains Cree hockey coverage. The team behind Cree broadcasting is also working to translate hockey terms into the language, such as “slapshot” (ᓱᐦᑭᐸᑲᒥᐍᐸᐦᐍᐤ sohki-pakamiwepahwew), “faceoff” (ᓇᐸᑭᐘᓂᐢ napakiwanis), and “rink” (ᓱᓂᐢᑿᑕᐦᐃᑫᐏᑲᒥᐠ soniskwatahikewikamik).

“Know what I’m saying?”

Aside Markosun Language

(yoo no hwut im sa’in), pron., v., pron., n., v.

  1. To let the person your addressing understand what you mean.
  2. Is used frequently through an educating conversation.
  3. A mating call
    1., 2. The carbon-14 atoms that cosmic rays produce, coalesce with oxygen to structure carbon dioxide, which plants take in naturally and integrate into plant fibers by photosynthesis. You know what i’m sayin?
  4. Hey girl, why don’t we go to my place and connect our genitalia, you know what i’m sayin?

How to Cuss Politely

Aside Markosun Language

I grew up in a rural area where the vocabulary of most people was about 2-300 real words. But those same people had at least 50-100 swear words under their belt ready to be spit out in a milliseconds notice. And what was better, where I grew up was a tri-lingual community, three languages, English, French and Flemish (Belgian Dutch). So we had the chance to be worldly swearers. We could be completely fluent in cuss words from three languages! It was fantastic. If you stubbed your toe you could swear for 10 minutes straight using Anglo-Franco-Flemingo cusses.

Ned shows the way:

ned-flanders-art

But he used Jesus’ name in vain. Some time in Purgatory Ned.

A few examples of alternative cussing:

Fudge Nuggets that woman has a nice Fish Pastel!

If that Shuzzbutt doesn’t shut his mouth, I’m going to make a mercrob out of his Shikaka!

Why doesn’t this NFL team trade that saffron Hobknocker!

Oh, snap, Son of a motherless goat!

How in the snookerdoodle am I going to get out of this Mothersmucker?

Son of a motherless goat! How the fudge berries did I fall for those cornnuts!

curse2

That is the ugliest fart knocker I have ever come across.

Yuck Fou!

Take those kittywhiskers and shove them up your Shnookerdookies!

I’m going to rotate and tilt your jaw, then unscrew your Jehoshaphat!

**Please use with moderation.

Australian Accent Is All Down To Early Settlers ‘Getting DRUNK Every Day’

Aside Markosun Language, Offbeat

Aussies slur their words and use only two-thirds of their mouth to speak because early settlers spent most of their days DRUNK, academic says

  • The Australian language developed because early settlers were often drunk
  • Academic claims the constant slurring of words distorted the accent
  • The average Australian speaks to just two thirds capacity
  • The drunken speech has been passed down from generation to generation

The Australian accent developed because so many early settlers were drunk and slurring, an Australian academic has claimed.

The first British arrivals to the country were such big drinkers that the distortion to their speech caused a verbal hangover that persists to this day, according to Dean Frenkel, a communications expert at Victoria University in Melbourne.

Proud Australians may be offended by the claim, which comes on top of the unavoidable truth that Australia began its modern life as a penal colony for our criminals.

 

drunk_kangaroo1

 

But academic Mr Frenkel unashamedly wrote in Australian newspaper The Age: ‘Let’s get things straight about the origins of the Australian accent.

‘The Australian alphabet cocktail was spiked by alcohol.

‘Our forefathers regularly got drunk together and through their frequent interactions unknowingly added an alcoholic slur to our national speech patterns.

‘For the past two centuries, from generation to generation, drunken Aussie-speak continues to be taught by sober parents to their children.’

Bemoaning the still ‘slurred’ Australian accent, Mr Frenkel continued: ‘The average Australian speaks to just two thirds capacity – with one third of our articulator muscles always sedentary as if lying on the couch; and that’s just concerning articulation.

‘Missing consonants can include missing “t”s (Impordant), “l”s (Austraya) and “s”s (yesh), while many of our vowels are lazily transformed into other vowels, especially “a”s to “e”s (stending) and “i”s (New South Wyles) and “i”s to “oi”s (noight).’

Concluding with a call for Australians to improve their diction, the academic added: ‘It is time to take our beer goggles off.

‘Australia, it is no longer acceptable to be smarter than we sound.’

drunk1

The Australian alphabet that ‘was spiked by alcohol’ and that the distortion to their speech caused a verbal hangover that persists to this day

HISTORY OF THE AUSSIE ACCENT

1788 – Colonial settlement established. A new dialect of English begins to take shape

1830 – By the end of the early Colonial settlement era major features of the accent, called ‘General Australian’, had developed, wi the country’s love of abbreviated words became part of everyday language

1850 – The Gold Rush leads to internal migration, spreading the general dialect around the continent

1880 – Extensive migration from England led to an emphasis on elocution and British vowels, which formed the Broad Australian dialect

1914 to 1918 – Australia’s national identity was galvanized during WWI with the creation of terms like Anzac and digger. Australians start to become proud of their accent.

1950 – In the second half of the 20th century, any emphasis on Broad Australian dwindled because of weakening ties with Britain and the General Australian accent became widely accepted as the national norm

1964 – The term Strine was coined to describe the country’s accent, which the majority of people continue to speak today   

  • Information from Macquarie University and Oxford English Dictionary

 

australia-day-funny-25

 

Previous accent theories have included suggestions that the Australian accent is a true reflection of the 18th and 19th century accents of British arrivals, while the American accent reflects the way 17th century early settlers from Britain spoke.

The suggestion has been that it is native English accents which have changed, while former colonies have clung to old ways of speaking.

Winston Churchill described the Australian accent as ‘the most brutal maltreatment ever inflicted upon the mother tongue.’

Aussie Drinking Slang

Words for “beer”:

  • grog (can mean any alcohol)
  • piss

Words for “drunk”:

  • legless
  • off one’s face
  • maggot (really drunk)
  • pissed

Different sized drinks:

  • schooner – 425ml glass of beer, except in SA where it is a 285ml glass
  • middy – half-pint of beer / same as a pot
  • pot – 285ml glass of beer in QLD or VIC
  • pint – 570ml glass of beer
  • long-neck – 750ml bottle of beer
  • tinnie – can of beer
  • stubby – bottle of beer
  • slab – 24 pack of beer

More drinking terms:

  • esky – a cooler
  • goon – cask or box wine
  • shout – to buy someone a drink
  • bottle shop / bottle-o – a liquor store
  • chunder – vomit
  • drink with the flies – drink alone
  • rage – party
  • skull/skol a beer – drink a whole beer without stopping

Variations of English

Aside Markosun Language

flag

 

english

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Australian English — American English

Ad or advertisement (ad break), TV — Commercial (commercial break)

Autumn — fall

Bag — sack

Barrack (for your team) — root (this one does give Australians a laugh. A warning for visiting Americans.)

Bathroom – restroom

Bedside cabinet, cupboard or table — nightstand

Beetle — bug

Biffo (aggro, fisticuffs, punch-up, argy-bargy, etc) – a bit of a fight

Biro (a brand) — ballpoint

Blackboard — chalkboard or blackboard

Blackboard duster — chalkboard or blackboard eraser

Bloke (or fella [fellow]) — guy

Bogan – trailer trash (closest translation; but bogan can also be used self-depractingly; usually less of an insult than ‘trailer trash’).

Booking — reservation

Bum (backside or bottom) — butt

Bushfire — forest fire, wildfire

Bushwalk/bushwalking — hike/hiking (NZ — tramping)

Bucket — pail

Caretaker — janitor

Carrybag — tote

CBD (Central Business District) — downtown. Australians will also say they are ‘going into town’ — meaning going into the centre of the town (the CBD).

Chemist shop — drug store

Chook shed or yard — chicken coop

Clever — neat (‘neat’ in Australia is only used to mean ‘tidy/well organised’)

Conference — congress

Curtains — drapes

Cyclone — hurricane

Dad — pop (‘pop’ in Australia means grandfather, but more commonly referred to as ‘grandad’)

Deb (debutante) ball (formal coming-of-age dance for girls [and boys] of a certain age; run by community organisations, such as a Masonic Lodge or Rotary — not specifically related to schools — with proceeds going to charity) — school prom (closest equivalent)

Diary or journal (for recording appointment times and/or the day’s details) — date book or (daily) planner

Dinner suit or ‘black tie’ or tails (coat with ‘tails’) — tux (tuxedo)

Dobber (to ‘dob in’) – snitch (school age term, meaning to tell on someone’s misbehaviour)

Doona — duvet

Door frame — door jam

Drawing pins — thumb tacks

Dummy — pacifier

Film (film star, film producer etc) — movie (movie star, movie producer etc)

Finish — quit

Flat or unit — apartment

Footpath, pavement — sidewalk

Footy — football (In Australia, what sort of football it is depends on where you are. In Tasmania, Victoria, southern NSW, SA, WA, & the NT it’ll probably be Aussie Rules [AFL]; in Qld and central & northern NSW it’ll be rugby (‘union’ or ‘league’), however soccer is also referred to as footy, and it’s increasingly played in primary schools, as well as professionally. Rugby has also sneaked into Victoria, but it only has a toe-hold.)

Fortnightly – biweekly

Freight (or postage) — shipping (in Australia, ‘shipping’ is only used when an actual ship is involved; postage is via the postal system, freight is via other carriers)

Friends or mates (usually a bloke’s friends) — buddies

Fringe — bangs

Gaol (usually also “jail” in Australia now) – jail

Greeting card — note card

Grid iron — American football

Ground floor (floor level with the ground) — first floor

Guillotine — paper cutter

Guinea pigs — hamsters

Handbag (bag large enough to carry a woman’s purse, hairbrush, phone, car keys etc while shopping) – pocketbook (less common term in some parts of USA)

Holiday — vacation

Hang around together — hang out together

Jokes — gags

Jug – pitcher

Lawyer/solicitor — attorney

Lift — elevator

Lucerne – alfalfa

Medicine — drugs (in Australia, when the general public talk about ‘drugs’ they’re referring to illegal drugs — only members of the medical profession refer to medicine as ‘drugs’)

Mozzy — mosquito

Newsagency — newsstand (In Australia, the person running the newsagency — the owner and/or manager — is called a newsagent. An Australian newsagency business primarily sells newspapers & magazines; and usually basic stationery, greeting cards, and often lottery tickets.)

Noticeboard — bulletin board

Pay tv — cable tv

Pegs — clothes pins

Pissed (considered slang) – drunk

Portaloo — portajohn (brands, but used as nouns)

Primary school — elementary school

Prime mover (semi-trailer) – tractor

Postcode — zipcode

Powerpoint — wall plug

Purse (women, only; just large enough to contain banknotes, coins and credit cards) – pocket book

Queue — line

Real estate agent — realtor

Reception (motel/hotel) — lobby

Resign — quit

Ride-on mower – ride-on tractor

Roadtrain — ‘trailer truck’ or ‘big rig’ etc

Rubber (for pencils) — eraser

Rubbish bin (& rubbish tip) — trash can or garbage can (& garbage dump)

Sacked — fired

Sandpit — sandbox

Semi-trailer (truck) – semi-trailer but also tractor-trailer

Sent — shipped

Shop — store

Shopping centre — shopping mall

Shopping trolley — shopping cart

Skip — dumpster

Star jumps – jumping jacks

Sunbake — sunbathe (U.S. & U.K.) (The difference is very appropriate if you think about it. Australia has the highest incidence of skincancer in the world — so ‘bake’ instead of ‘bathe’ is very appropriate.)

Survey — poll

Tap – spigot

Teatowel – dish towel

The pictures (as in let’s go to the pictures) — the movies

Tick (the box) — check (the box)

Toilet (also sometimes bathroom) – restroom

Track (eg Kokoda track is the Australian term) — trail (eg trail riding is a U.S. term)

Trolley (as in shopping trolley) — cart

Turf (turf farm) — sod (sod farm)

Send (sent) — ship (shipped)

Spa — jacuzzi

Tap — faucet

Torch — flashlight

Verandah (groundfloor; if it’s raised up, it’s a balcony) — porch

Wallet (usually DL sized, to fit banknotes & credit cards) – billfold (rare term in Aus)

Wardrobe — closet

Weatherboard (timber clad housing) — clap board

Whinge — complain

Whiteboard — dry erase board

For emergency services in Australia, you dial 000 (triple zero), whereas it is 911 in the U.S.

That sounds funny — the science behind why certain words make us laugh

Markosun Language, Offbeat

The meaning of a word and the form a word takes are key to getting a giggle

Psychologist Dr. Chris Westbury figured out what makes words like wriggly, squiffy and boobs so funny. (John Ulan, University of Alberta, Faculty of Science)

Science has determined through rigorous statistical analysis of 45,000 total words what the funniest words in the English language are, and some insights into why they make us giggle.

In fact, the word giggle, along with wriggly, squiffy and boobs are among the funniest words we know according to a new study by Chris Westbury, a psychologist at the University of Alberta. And there’s a big goofy list below of the funniest 200 words in English.  Some will make you slaphappy, others will make you upchuck, and one we can’t mention because you may get your knickers in a knot.

Slobbering, puking, blockhead

No, not you. We just wanted to get your attention so we could talk about the purpose of this study.

Westbury, who has an interest in the psychology of humour, wants to understand what it is about certain words that makes us laugh. The capacity to laugh is unique to us and higher primates, but only we have words.

The study is based on three theories of humour. One, called superiority humour, suggests we find humour from making fun of people. “You blockhead Charlie Brown” is an example.

A second theory of humour is incongruity theory, which suggests that less likely things are funnier than likely things. You are not expected to slobber, but when you do, people laugh.

The third theory is juxtaposition theory, and it suggests that people’s actions sometimes make us laugh. Who doesn’t find puking funny?

All three of these theories are reflected in a master list of 200 individual words that make us laugh the most. Don’t worry, we’re getting to them.

Of all the words in the English language, upchuck and slobbering are among the funniest. (David Singleton, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)

Semantic predictors of funny words

One of the conclusions of the study is that there are two ways to predict whether a word will be funny or not: its meaning and its form.

Semantic predictors depend on the meaning of a word and the emotions evoked by that word. This measures how closely a word is — either in meaning or emotion — to the particular category is represents. The study found there were six categories of words that typically make us laugh: sex, bodily functions, insults, swear words, partying and animals.

From the sex category, boob and penis are classics. Bodily functions includes burp and snot; insults are words like ninny and buffoon; swear words are bullocks and jackass (among those we care to list); funny partying related words are booze and shindig; and humour in the animal list comes from pooch and critter.

Did we mention there are more in the list of the 200 funniest words at the end of this article? Keep scrolling …

Many of comedian George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on TV have characteristics similar to those on the funniest words list. But we can’t tell you what they are. (Gary C. Caskey/Reuters)

Information predictors of funny words

Dr. Westbury’s second predictor of funny words he calls “information predictors.” These have do do with the structure of a word or its form.

Words with fewer letters that occur less frequently in English were found to be funnier than words with more common letters. Similarly, less common words are funnier than common ones.

Also a few specific letters or sounds sometimes occur more frequently in funny words. For example the letter ‘k’ appears quite often in funny words: puke, fink, oink; as does the ‘oo’ sound, as in boob and poop. The letters ‘le’ at the end of a word is also often worth a giggle — or a wriggle or even a nibble.

The top 200 funny words (yes, finally!)

(Warning: some of these words could be considered mildly offensive)

slobbering
upchuck
puking
humping
fuzz
bawl
giggle
cooch
bunghole
floozy
boff
cackling
chucky
guffaw
slobber
pukes
giggling
bubby
titty
titties
poop
pooping
wank
mangy
fellate
puss
puke
burp
boobs
pubes
simp
boob
prancing
licker
poops
hussies
booby
jiggling
meany
bucko
hussy
flappy
schmuck
giggly
humph
booger
foxy
fellating
farted
blowjob
waddle
chubby
buxom
goddamn
ninny
buzz
strumpet
fanny
yaps
huffy
cluck
pudgy
barfed
weiner
nymphomaniacs
cootie
wiggling
groupies
wiggly
farting
twerp
yack
poppa
fellated
dumpy
foolery
chortle
pecker
heinie
snogging
wriggly
goofy
whoop
cackle
belcher
crapping
boobies
jiggle
yuks
whoopee
prance
frisky
lummox
gulp
squawk
squawking
weeny
clinger
squiffy
jiggly
snots
muzzy
nincompoop
drool
cooky
wiggle
nilly
blurt
mumbo
lubber
yobbo
farts
squealing
guff
bogart
minx
bozo
groupie
chomp
quip
ponces
giggles
honkey
boner
diddle
willy
f–ker
hijinks
snickering
waggling
ponce
guppy
chortles
momma
biff
conniption
kiddies
wags
twirly
widdle
tipsy
guffaws
puffball
dippy
cuddle
honky
effing
goos
cavort
squirming
dingle
frigging
porky
oink
shagging
tubby
wham
mamma
smarty
cheerios
boozy
catcall
huffs
fornicated
blurts
douches
biddies
tiddly
rotter
crumby
punkin
scamp
hubby
prats
shimmy
scarry
chick
huck
floozie
gabbing
dicks
chump
cavorting
hirsute
titter
hoot
wienie
grump
coxcomb
gabby
jock
bray
snicker
letch
braw
holler
skulk
how’d
yelp

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