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.

[VitoCorleone]

Travelin - we say oven mits, like scratch mits.

[Deux]

I grew up in an area with a very particular dialect and managed to spell very well. It's not like we speak a phonetic language anyway.

Interestingly, since watching Borgen and The Killing, I am amazed at how many of our dialect words sound and mean the same in Danish.

[aurorastargazer]

i love this thread! i'm originally from the midlands and have been living in the sw for 10years and even now some of the things i say will cause my dp to look at me in confusion - we have been together for 2 and half years, he has lived all over the country and he still has trouble understandig some things!!

[Deux]

We call them sand shoes! Plimsolls, that is.

[Catchingmockingbirds]

DD wanted to call her hamster twirl but she changed her mind because she said she didn't want it called twirrrull by me

However else would you say it?

[Catchingmockingbirds]

The little shoes are sand shoes, and trainers are gutties

[ClutchingMyPearls]

South african (SA) girl talking to my boss in our office one day says "I want to talk to you about my disc" My boss (B) looks confused and says "I'm sorry what disc?"
SA "my disc, you know...?
B "disc...? what disc?
SA "DISC"
B "Did I the IT team give you a disc?"
SA bangs on my bosses DESK "no my DESK"

We were rolling up. He was bright red !

[ClutchingMyPearls]

..although that's more of an accent that a regional dialect! funny though....

[ConferencePear]

I was working on an archaeological dig when an American colleague turned up one morning and announced that she wanted to take a photograph of all of our fannies so that she could make a collage when she got home.
When all the English had managed to stop laughing we worked out that what she saw most of was our trousers backsides sticking out of a muddy trench it would be a good way of remembering us.

[sarahlundssweater]

In South Yorkshire we have mardy, poorly, monk on (similar to mardy). Your snap goes in a snap-box, if you're lucky your mam might have put some spice in't snap-box... If you're looking through the window when you're eating your snap you might see a spuggy in't garden.

I was once training a group a group of native English speakers from various countries to be Tefl teachers. At the beginning of the course we were doing a getting to know you exercise, and one lad told me his name was Dane. "Different" I thought, "well, he is from SA." I then called him "Dane" for the next few days until the penny finally dropped that his name was actually, Dean.

[Portofino]

As a new student in Newcastle, I was most shocked to be asked by a young lad if I had any tabs. I thought he was asking me for drugs.....

Whilst there, I flat shared with one girl from Bradford, one from Worcs, and had a bf from Hull. I moved back down south with a very strange accent and people would regularly ask me where I was from.

An email as just reminded me that here it is perfectly acceptable to address an email (in French) to Cher, or Chers. But the translations to "Dears" does not work well......

[AndABigBirdInaPearTree]

Oh I remember a more recent one that gave me raised eyebrows. Here in the U.S. if you do athletics ("track and field") and throw something (discus, shot-put etc) and go retrieve them it is called shagging. First time I heard someone say "go shag the XYZs" I thought they were joking and did a double take, the second time I thought they were pulling my leg.

[Seabird72]

I say Cobs and no-one seems to know what I meant - either down South or up North! When I was in the South I was aksed if I wanted to get a sausage roll - I thought they meant the pastry but when we went to the shop it was sausages in a bread roll! And it has taken me a long time to switch from cobs to rolls.

[AndABigBirdInaPearTree]

Sarahlund, where I live they pronounce Don and Dawn the same way (like Don to my ears) and you can't tell them apart. When I first moved here my friend would talk about her sister "Don" and it took me a year or two (she wrote it for some reason) before I twigged that it was "Dawn" and changed what I called her. I kept wondering if it was short for something

:doh!:

[Thewhingingdefective]

Years ago at university, one of the course leaders asked a girl (from the US) how she found the city we were living and studying in. Meaning, did she like it. The girl looked puzzled and said something about looking up British universities and then looking at a map and speaking to the UK Tourist Information Board.

My DH finds it strange that where I am from in Yorkshire we say 'working while 8 o'clock' not 'until 8 o'clock'.

[sarahlundssweater]

Embarrassing, isn't it, BigBird? I always wondered if he knew I was saying it wrong because it didn't sound like that in my accent.

[sarahlundssweater]

My friends at uni (southerners) would always laugh at me for saying "working 9 while 3." And for calling lunch "dinner" and dinner "tea," but that's a north/south thing.

[SummerRainIsADistantMemory]

I was born in Holland. My mother is from the west of Ireland. We moved to cork when I was 7. It took me years to understand the locals.

Yoke - thing eg 'pass me that blue yoke'

Bjore - girl

Togs -swim suit

Evening - afternoon

Tipped - git by a car (my mother learned that one in the worst possible way: 'your daughter is on the road, she's been tipped' )

Press - cupboard

Hot press - airing cupboard

Langer - wanker

Knacker - chav

Go away with - snog


There are millions more, all said with a thick cork accent!

Now we live in the west... More familiar but still indecipherable at times

[PurplePidjin]

I find myself saying " I went up down the High Street". Is that Hampshire or am I just a bit odd? probably the latter

[Chopchopbusybusy]

Catchingmockingbirds, sorry, I don't understand. Scottish people tend to pronounce a U where there isn't one. So twirrrull, fillum (film) etc. DD would say twill ( with a very faint R sound) or film as it is spelt.
Didn't think my post deserved the sarcastic face

[mrsjay]

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


I love an italian glaswegian

[Thewhingingdefective]

Bread rolls are bread cakes where I am from in West Yorkshire. Or scufflers.

When I first moved to Cornwall I requested a chip butty at the local fish and chip shop and got a bank look. When I explained that it was chips in a bread cake, that didn't help.

[worldgonecrazy]

When I was much younger I thought I'd pulled a good looking man when he called over as I was leaving "Phone me later".

Luckily, before I made any embarassing calls, my friend translated the thick Geordie accent for me, and he was actually telling me that he'd found the cigarette lighter we'd been looking for, and was telling me he'd "Found me lighter".

[Thewhingingdefective]

Blank. Not bank.