Talk about an accent...

[Moose]

Dis works better verbally, but I tink I cn make it work. We midwesterners like to tink we don't got no accent, but sometimes it is so glaringly apparent dat we haf to admit dat okay, maybe we haf a slight accent. Here's da story:

I was teaching ESL classes and at the end of the year, I asked my seniors if they had any questions that hadn't been addressed in class. One of my seniors that had taken two of my classes raised his hand and asked me to translate the word "pucher". I asked him if he meant "butcher", but he told me no, he was sure it was "pucher". I had no idea what word he was asking about so I asked him to use it in a sentence. The student obliged by saying "Pucher IDs on!" Oh man! I almost fell down I was laughing so hard! I apologized and explained to the student that I was guilty of speaking Chicagoese and the misunderstanding was my fault. I promised to enunciate more clearly in the future when I instructed the students to "Put your IDs on!"

I know it's kinda corny, but all that talk of accents reminded me of the story and I thought I'd share.

[SilvrT]

That's not Chicagoese... that's "phonetics".... more appropriately spelled "fonetiks". LOL

 

Now, I coulda started this off by saying "That snot Chicagoese..."

 

OK ya'll ... chime in with various sayings in "Chicagoese"... I'll start...

 

"whutchoo talkinbout" (What are you talking about)

"giddoffadat" (Get off of that)

 

"jieetyet" (Did you eat yet)

 

...more to come as I think of them

[HeathersWheels]

those poor kids...they must be so confused..

 

now you need to teach them two languages English and Western

[Orrin]

I would like to ad a story about my step daughter, Sarah. After graduation from U. of Minn. see accepted a Fulbright fellowship to teach English in Germany. There were bright kids from all over the world involved in her orientation classes before going their assigned schools to teach English. Well there were a bunch of fellowship winners from Great Britain and they remarked that if their students started to speak with an American accent, could they correct them. Well, the revolutionary almost started all over again. The instructor, after having quelled a small riot, informed the Brits that American English was correct also.

[BOO]

I have a cute one.

My grandson, age 5 is in kindergarten. They are learning the alphabet a few letters at a time and learning to print them. One night he says "papa I can write a sentence", really I said. He proceeded to print the following,

D N

Jerry

True story.

[Marcarl]

We almost started a new language in our family when my 2 year old grandson, Hasten , was over one day and needed to have some 'kabuts' on his mac & cheese. We thought a first he was speaking Hebrew but soon figured out that 'ketchup' was the necessary item.

[Sailor]

I was recently on a tour through Utah and Nevada. The tour guide was from Utah, two of us from Canada (B.C.), one from Australia, one from Russia and two from Germany. Naturally the subject of accents came up. The guide asked the german girl what the difference was between his accent and mine. She said Americans speak much faster than Canadians (guess she has never been to Taranna..Toronto). She said "Canadians knit a sentance togeather, Americans gather up the wool and throw it at you."