How do you say and spell ........ ?

"reckon" is pretty much Southern in the States. When I lived in Georgia decades ago I heard it there. My sister, who has lived in Australia for the last twenty years, seems to have picked it up in Adelaide, along with "carpark". "takeaway", and "mobile".

And "uh-oh" doesn't have a "t" in it as I hear it. Sometimes it CAN have somewhat of a glottal stop, and some New Yorkers (I think Brooklynites and east) tend to replace t's with glottal stops as "bo<glottalstop>le" and "me<glottal stop>al" for "bottle" and "metal". so some might read it if it occurs in "uh oh" as a "t"

I only dislike the thought of language changing if there is danger of it become too homogenized. Although it thought it was somewhat silly, i did understand the anti-"Franglais" movement of the late 1960s.

The commerce in languages can be interesting, though. There was an event in Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries known as the vowel shift. The pronounced value of vowels changed. This is why the French word for French (masc.) is français--but the name is François. At one time, the French word for French (masc.) was françois.

Well, before the Great Vowel Movement (as i like to think of it), there was a Greek-root word in French--franatique. From that, we got frantic. Then, after Europe had finally passed the Great Vowel Movement, that word in French became frénétique. It was borrowed once again, by middle class travelers who wanted to show their sophistication. I've had people try to tell me that there is a difference in the words frantic and frenetic--but i ain't buying it.

This can work between other languages, of course. German tourists staying in French hotels in the 19th century would see a transom over the door, something which apparently had not yet appeared in Germany. They would point to it, and then ask the chambermaid "Was ist das?" Well, the chambermaids were country girls, and neither had any German nor had ever seen a transom themselves, and they took the question for a statement. To this day, the commonly used french word for a transom is vasisdas, although there is an "official" word--which i don't remember.

Yes, it is bullshit. Had you said that it were one[/i] of the cradles of civilization, i'd have had no comment to make. Your remark makes it sound as though it were the first and unique cradle of civilization. That, of course, is bullshit. Furthermore, the people who live in Iraq now are but distantly related to the Sumerians, if at all.

I completely agree that it is churlish, and brutish, to bomb someone and then deride them as primitives.

Yes, okay.

Many of the Iraqi middle class are living out their lives in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, having watched the destruction of their country under Saddam (a western ally- CIA placement) and invasion by the west.

If I were one of these, I would not take kindly a lesson from the USA about civilisation.

Sorry to go off-topic, it's a sore point with me, that a government I voted for should get involved in that. My bad.

I feel that way, McT, and i didn't even vote for the sons-of-bitches.

Setanta:

Now I have to go look up Great Vowel Movement. (are you sure that's not a Terry Gilliam joke?) Vowels are the key to understanding language change, so I've learned in my barely begun study, there's a fellow named Saussure I need to read up on. The homogenization you lament has apparently been going on since the seventh century BCE. I'll go find the quote I read the other day from someone in the 1850's who found that the further back we go the more perfect the structures of Latin or Sanskrit or Akkadian are. Languages, all of them I'm afraid, become more and more naked as time passes. Especially as more people speak a particular tongue in amongst the speakers of another. It will fun to see what happens to American English in the next fifty years or so as it gets rubbed very throughly by Spanish. (Or as they really are now, the various dialects of Spanish.)
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The next time you're in Washington Heights, listen to the guy behind the deli counter as he moves from waiting on two ladies from the Dominican Republic to this white guy ( ) and then has the Russian uncle behind me ask him in a combination of Russian and Yiddish for a half a pound of whitefish. There's a lot of combining goin' on.

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I love the transom story. Isn't there a similar tale about the word "Kangaroo'? The early European asking the aborigines what they called the creature and they answered 'kangaroo' but what they were saying was "What's that you say?" I don't know if that true or not.
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more cutting:
Are you going to go? (1940)
You gonna go? (1950)
Gonna go?(1980)
Gon go? (2010 in conversation with a neighbor)

Joe(I'm gone)Nation

My understanding was the local dialect around Sydney Cove have the word for "there they go...get them"...for when they are on a hunt, are spotted by the prey and the prey take flight. The first time the europeans heard this they were on a hunt with the aboriginees who having been spotted lept out of cover, pointed at the animal and said 'kangaroo'...

You know I agree with you. We were idiots to follow the idiots, (criminals, in my mind.), and it will be generations before there is any semblance of restoration.
Joe(thus it be)Nation

I can say uh-oh or uh-uh with my mouth closed, like when a person hums. (Can't hum a T) Never knew how to spell it though. I'm thinking of the letter H so uh-oh is the nearest I can think to actually spell it. Then I just thought of 'ho hum'.
It surely is a conundrum. How do famous authors write it? I never took much notice before, but I will from now on.

It is possible to learn a little something from the minutia of life, if only the possibility of slowing down to just consider what we might be overlooking.

I mentioned this thread at dinner and one person there said he's been impressed that Homer Simpson's "Doh!" had become such a part of the everyday lexicon so quickly. Media certainly has had a huge effect on language in the past twenty years, though not as much as had been predicted.

(I had a speech coach in college in the mid-60's who predicted the end of regionalisms in the USA by the year 2000 because of tv and movies and most especially newsbroadcasting. That's what we were studying -- how to sound like we were from no-where in particular, turns out the easiest way to do that is to BE from no where in particular or as it is known today, Southern Illinois or whatever Canadian Province produced the wonderful, late, Peter Jennings. )

Next we should explore how to spell the expression of "How about that?" We say "Huh" but sometimes we are expressing surprise as well and there is a rising tone at the end of the word. "Huuunn!?"

Speaking of spelling words as they sound: I should also point out that during certain ALL-WORDS accepted Scrabble matchs (the only rule was that you had to be able to define the word and put it in a sentence, it didn't have to be a actual word) I played "aaieeye'' which of course is the sound a Native American attacker screams as he jumps into the covered wagon.

'eye' was already on the board, I had the a-a-i-e.

Another brilliant move, not that was mine was, was the word:
G-O-L-D-U-R-N. No, not what your ashes are going to end up in, as "what Gabby Hayes said to Roy"
Joe(Now, wait a goldurn minute!"Nation

Languages weren't any more complicated in the first place or the second place, Joe. What might seem complicated to you would have flowed from your mouth as effortlessly as what you use today, had you been born back in the first place or the second place.

Now here's one. There was an episode of the sci-fi tv series "Dark Angel" called "The Kids Are Aiight", probably in homage to theWho's classic rock song "The Kids are Alright". Read it several times before I realized it was NOT "All Right" in the "Dark Angel"title, and then I realized that a lot of times what people actually DO say when they say it is like that--the "ll r" part gets left out, and what we actually say is a lot like "ah ight"

"All right" is now changing to "alright" in certain contexts, in this country, officially but regrettably imho.

Awite?

Allright, alright, all right.

Changes in language are inevitable, despite every effort of officialdoms everywhere, words and syntaxes stretch, move, disappear, emerge from godknowswhere and become part of the fabric of speech. There can only be regret if meanings become less clear, but that never happens for the people speaking in the newer way, just for the ones who haven't caught up yet with the changes.

I read about the dreadful row there was two hundred years ago when people began to say "all the time" instead of "always".

Joe(Well!!(huff,huff) I never! )Nation