Re: Dialects in communication

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_eUrEz5Cqkd79V2tPNby-bGz2KWUsB01XpL2CwRYE4YyJC1NAoOnGxOO_0aR4XqDRsfuyX>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:32:48 -0800

>> I suppose 'Totally believe' is MachoAmerican English! :-)
>
> No, dude (pronounced dooo' d), it's California Valley/Surfer dialect.
> Think Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or Bill and Ted's
> Bogus Adventure.
>
> Seriously, using "totally" is so "totally" Californian that it is a
> stereotype, exceeded only by using "tubular" as a very good thing, rather
> than a synonym for a torus.

Dude, that's like so totally bogus!

"California" is a big place. How they speak down in the San Fernando valley has little effect above, say, the Grapevine. (California is as big as the Island of Britain...). Of course, how they misuse it in Kansas (or in the movies)...

> My only "local" equivalents that I can think of is using "yunz" (the
> Pittsburghese version of Southerners' "Y'all") or giving directions on the
> basis of landmarks that aren't there any more (and expecting the other
> person to know precisely where that would be).

Giving direction based on no-longer extant landmarks is a "small town" thing - *everyone* knows where the Miller place used to be before it burned down in '65, or that the Watson house is now owned (for the last 50 years) by the Joneses, but it's still called the Watson house. We had directions given to us in England that we had to ask for modern translations. (of course, parts of England still haven't replaced signposts they took down when they feared that the Germans would invade. Don't want Jerry to find London!)

RR
He was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad R. Sabatini, Scaramouche