Can you tell where someone is from from how they write on MN?

[Theystoleourrecipe]

I've noticed that when going through posts, I'll read something and think, 'oh this person is from x, just by the words and phrases they use. I'll sometimes be able to localise this to a more specific region. I never look at usernames when I'm reading unless something really stands out to me, so I generally don't have any prior knowledge of the poster influencing me. Of course I can't be 100% sure but I would put a bet on being right, most of the time.

Do you ever recognise a particular region through how a poster writes? Are you conscious of how you write, making sure not to use colloquialisms unique to your area or do you not think about it, or do it anyway?

Outside of. I think more in abstract contexts like 'I can't help you with this, it's outwith my specialism'. Maybe a Scot can tell us whether you'd also say something like 'She lives in a house outwith the city centre'?

I love it and frequently curse its obscurity outwith Scotland because I would love to use it more.

I don't think it's a Yorkshire thing - or at least it wasn't when I was growing up there! The first time I came across that was here, in Sarf Lunnen.

But brought the kids to the beach is totally correct. It's not brought being used incorrectly, such as wankery like "I brought a house."

Use it! Spread it far and wide.

I'm Irish, living in se England, husband grew up in the Midlands and in-laws are Indian.

My DS has a very interesting mix of words. The funniest is he called the TV a Tweewee.

I did actually sneak it into something I was writing yesterday (I fully expect the person I'm sending it to, who is an international English speaker, to send me a puzzled comment back).

You’re a wonderful mother! Parenting done right just there

It's appalling English. Remember it's not something many English people would dream of saying, so don't tar them all with the same brush.

It isn't 'appalling' at all! There's absolutely nothing wrong with regional dialects.

For me (not Irish), 'I brought the kids to the beach' would make sense if they were telling me while at the beach.
Once no longer at the beach I'd expect someone to say 'I took the kids to the beach' because the beach is somewhere else.

I remember being baffled by being told to "uplift"my grant cheque at a Scottish university. Of course now the puzzling thing there is the concept of a "grant cheque".......

Agree. It should be 'I was standing'

The other word that's always a giveaway is 'daps' or 'pumps', meaning 'plimsolls'.

We used the latter, in the North, which always confused me when I read all my Jane Austens and she talked about them wearing 'pumps'. I couldn't get the image of black or white gym shoes in combination with beautiful ball gowns, out of my head!

Ditto to Mom = Midlands, if not US

Outwith - Scotland. Rare on MN though.

For me "I brought the kids to school" would imply that I was still at the school.

This type of shit is how the war of the roses started!

In Derbyshire a cob is a cob, we don’t need two different words for one glorious piece of bakery goodness!

I've started hearing people say "here's me" to narrate what they said. Eg. He told me he wanted to end the relationship, and here's me, I want to end it too. No idea if it's a regional thing that has migrated or just a chester draws situation?
I had no idea "what age are you" is an Irish thing,I always use it. I did a TEFL course years back and couldn't understand why people didn't understand it.

The person who mentioned 'I was stood' described it as English. It isn't Standard English although it could be described as a regional dialect..

I've only encountered this on MN - also Irish: Whenever, meaning when.

To me, whenever means:
~ every time: whenever I clean the windows, it rains
~ an almost impossible time: whenever did you do that?
~ a vaguely unspecified time: whenever you like (don't care)

Some Irish people say things like Whenever my father died, and it freaks me out slightly!

Given the close historical links and travel between Northern Ireland & Scotland, the people in that region of the UK share many, many common things.

"Aye" & "wee" are two examples. We even have the baps with burnt tops in common which originated in Belfast in the 1840s!

Likewise, "lush" is south Wales and England's West Country.

I saw a bit of the argument about "brought" v "took". Its used similarly across the British Isles as in "I brought the kids to.....". England has far more language variation than anywhere else in these islands given its size. So it makes no sense to single out one particular region.

Personally, I use "I took the kids to..." and I'm not English. My schooling was in eastern Northern Ireland.

The point of the thread ISN'T whether language usage is correct or not. Its about asking if you can identify where a poster is from. 🤦‍♂️

I definitely hear Yorkshire when I read
“I went shop” because we reduce “to t’” to a glottal stop.
But mostly I read MN in a Victoria Wood voice.

Which was my point! It was described as 'appalling' - which is definitely isn't.

Regional language is not "wrong". Any more than RP is "right".

I live in a county verging on the South West, and people often say ‘somewhen’ instead of ‘sometime’, and ‘where’s it to?’ or ‘where’s that to?’ for ‘where is it?’, of a misplaced object, or an enquiry about where a place is.

Gutties here, which is still strange to me twenty years after first hearing it.