To ask if you've ever had a dialect fail

[DizzyZebra]

I think dialect is the right word?

Anyway, I once really offended a girl who was new to my school. I had made friends with her and she invited me to her house, She got changed and i said 'Omg that suits you dead bad!'. Now, As an adult, I agree with her and can see the stupidity in saying something like that, BUT it was something EVERYONE where i lived said when really what they meant was 'That really suits you'.

She imediately looked hurt and i could tell by the look on her face she thought i was back pedaling as i sort of choked and tried to explain, and stuttered through it. I think she realised within a few weeks when she made more friends though.

My Mum also, after moving to the north, became increasingly frustrated one night. Her partners son came downstairs and asked her (As she was folding laundry) if there were any of his pants in there.

She said 'Yeah there are some over in the other pile'

He went over to look and said he couldn't find any, My mum said there were definitely some in there. He searches again and still can't find any. My mum said 'I just this minute put some red pants of yours in there, i know i did! They must be there'

He says 'I don't have any red pants'

My mum marches over, Grabs a pair of red boxers and says 'Look! red pants! See!'

Only for him to fall about laughing as he had actually meant trousers, and everyone here calls them pants, she just didn't know.

[hurricanewyn]

Another Irish- English one here, with spelling. I pronounce the letter r like 'or' instead of 'argh' as it is locally. Caused lots of confusion when I moved over.
As did giving out, which people assumed was an equivilant to putting out.
My use of hot press caused much hilarity - people falling about laughing & asking if my fridge was the cold press
And using lemonade for every type of soft drink.

There's loads - I too was surprised by the difference in dialect

[hurricanewyn]

I would say pan for bread, or I might buy a sliced pan too

[Annunziata]

Pan bread and plain bread are different, but they're both sliced!

Love this thread. You all should hear my mum speak, she learned English by working in Glaswegian chippies, but she never lost her Italian accent

The back of five is up to half five! Preferably before twenty past.

My contribution is that cunt in MIL's dialect sounds like daughter in mine. The shame

[stargirl1701]

I'm Scottish (from the east) and have had trouble since I met DH (from the west)

Are you by with it? Apparently that means 'Are you finished with it?'

Let's get kennelled up. Apparently that means 'Let's get ready to go.'

He's a farmer so I also have had to learn the difference between hay and straw, what silage is and how meals must be with bread and at 12pm and 5pm.

[AltinkumATEalltheTurkey]

Juice in Scotland means diluted juice or fresh juice.
Fizzy, is called ginger.

Cosmohat, stereotyping a nation is pathetic, maybe in your inner circle, but in my circle, we are a lot more sensible when it comes to drinking alcohol!!!

[curiousuze]

Yes tatty bogle is scarecrow! A bogle is a kind of ghost thing, so it means literally 'potato ghost'

[curiousuze]

Another one I use is 'through the house' as in 'where are my shoes?' 'They're through the house'

Through the house means the room you're not in, which isn't upstairs. So if I'm in the living room and my DH is through the house, he's in the kitchen. It makes sense to me!

[Whatdoiknowanyway]

Through the house or 'Ben the hoose' is used with us.

'Loon' for boy, 'Quine' for girl, 'chiel' for man soon became normal speech. Took a bit longer to adjust to 'wifey' for woman, I admit.

I had little problem in understanding DH's family and friends but some of them still struggle with the idea that I can follow what they're saying. 'Does she ken fit we're speerin'?' (Does she understand what we're asking) is standard even now, more than 20 years after I joined the family. Real 'does she take sugar?' territory.

What I don't do is use most of the words myself as they sound plain silly in my English accent. So everyone will be enthusing about a pair of 'bonny breeks' and I'll have to join in saying 'yes, they are lovely trousers aren't they?'

[yellowsnownoteatwillyou]

Ben the bunker-- in the kitchen on the work top WTF!

what's he cried-- what is his name

are you whinching yet-- are you in a relationship (asked from age 14 on wards)

pie paste-- puff pastry

fa is it-- where is it

fit like is it -- what's it like

I love this phrase "git tae, yer daying ma box in"

"please go away, you are giving me a headache and annoying me"

[gymboywalton]

what about skitting? when i went to uni and said 'oh i am only skitting' my new housemates didn't have a clue what i was talking about.

likewise, when some workmen came to replace the windows in the flat and told me they would be 'having their snap 12 while 1' i literally hadn't a clue what they were going on about

[Whatdoiknowanyway]

Oh - and 'fly cup'
Which is what you get when you drop into someone's house for a cup of tea late morning.'I'm just ha'in my fly cup'.

[WaitingForMe]

I used to work in the Forest of Dean and was a bit bewildered to be called "Old butt" by an older bloke I worked with. It means friend.

He was really sweet and confessed he struggled with my strong accent - I'm from Harrogate and have the mildest of Yorkshire accents

[thebitchdoctor]

I was at a residential week in uni for 6th formers. Most of us there were from the NW and there was one girl from Somerset. At the end of it I asked if she was 'made up' (happy) to be going home and she was like 'do you mean have I packed my suitcase?'

We call soft bread rolls Baps and crusty bread rolls Cobs. My in laws call them batches, it grates on my nerves!!!!

[LilBlondePessimist]

My now dh, when we were working together, not even dating, announced that he'd be back in a few minutes, he was 'just off to clean ma bits'. I was appalled! Firstly that they were so dirty he was going to have to go clean them, secondly that he had the audacity to actually announce it to me! When he came back five minutes later with shiny polished boots, the penny dropped.

I also had to get used to his family calling:

Work top - bunker
Called Jane - cried Jane
Cupboard - press
Airing cupboard - hot press

Now I live in Aus, it's a whole new ball game!

[sashh]

Just remembered the Canadian teacher I met ona course. She had been stunned when her Yorkshire inlaws asked if she wanted to nurse the baby, her new born niece.

[mrsjay]

Im scottish so lots of hows when I mean why but we all ask how instead of why here, ie how is that then , where it should be why is that then . we are asking how did that happen not why,

[mrsjay]

I have a few friends from yorkshire and I love that the seem to miss out the's and to in sentences

[sashh]

Mrsjay

It is called a glottal stop

[mrsjay]

we also say where to you stay , not where do you live

[tabulahrasa]

We moved to Scotland from Yorkshire when I was 6...

In Scotland a piece is a sandwich, a playpiece is a snack that schoolchildren have at playtime.

Which is why me and my sister were sent to school for the first six months with sandwiches while all the other children had a biscuit or bar of chocolate lol

[Gracelo]

It took me ages to get used to being asked "where do you stay" instead of "where do you live" when I moved to the West coast of Scotland. I always wondered if people thought I was a tourist.

[catinthesnow]

"ay no?" (ay as in hay). "Ah no um urnae gonnae dae it" Translation -
I am absolutely not going to do that.

My uncle worked in South Africa on a building site. He needed some clarification and asked to speak to the gaffer. He was shocked when he almost got thrown off the site as he did not know that the word he used was misinterpreted as an extremely racist term.

[WhatchuTalkinBoutPhyllis]

I thought everyone said bobowlers for those massive moth things but apparently not. It's taken me a while to get used to writing mum instead of mom.

[quirrelquarrel]

I was volunteering in a sort of SN school in Bavaria a couple of years ago (ahh feels like this summer, times goes fast!). Most of them made an effort to use Hochdeutsch with me but when I was reading outside the classroom with a very young boy began reading the text such very heavy Plattdeutsch that I corrected the first line he was entirely right! It was just me...I got better as the week went on.....

[quirrelquarrel]

Oh and the first few times I was talking to a friend of mine who comes from London, I was flummoxed because he always ends his sentences with "is it". So, "what do you think of the course, is it?". Is what? I'm sorry?