[Poll:] Dialects, word patterns and lingusitic shift

[matgb]

There's a dialect meme (what do I call things) doing the rounds that I'm finding quite interesting, I've seen answers in Aussie, New Orleans, Yorksher, London and Real Places (ie Devon). So I thought I'd compile the common answers into a poll (linguistic shifts interest me). As always, if you don't have a Livejournal account you can login and vote with any OpenID, which everyone's got these days. So, without further ado...
[Poll #1169647]Huge bunch of sources for some of those questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), and some of the differences and similarities are strange. Yorkshire is, from what I can tell, more "different" than most of the other places, Londoners and Devonshire folk speak more similarly to USians and Aussies thanthey do to, supposedly, fellow English peeps. Well, God's Own Country and all that. I still cause confusion calling cakes cakes and dinner dinner (seriously, the word for lunch is dinner ? How does that work?). Ah well, have fun voting y'all.

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[*] Two different people who I'm sure don't read each other did the same joke for that one, just for different countries.

Off out now, discovering the joys of Bradford nightlife. Wish me luck.

Comments

[ihavecake.livejournal.com]

Ouch! I hurt myself on the prickles of your satire in questions #16 and #18, you scamp :P

Also, I went for "settee" because I think that's the one I say most often, but I will also use "sofa" and if it's particularly snuggly or made of leather, "couch".

As you were.

[matgb]

Aye, blame drjon and halcyon_shift for them, it was part of what inspired me to do the poll.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Off out now, discovering the joys of Bradford nightlife

Are you going to the Gasworks?

[matgb]

Yup. Running out of door (late) now, just had to look up directions.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

The Gasworks is okay. Relatively free of idiots, bearable enough music, not overly expensive and Max has some decent bottled beer on. And Dave the sound engineer is a top bloke who helped me move in thanks to that Army surplus beast parked outside. You two must let me know when you're next in Bradford.

[matgb]

It was indeed a nice place, a proper rock dive, didn't feel like it was trying too hard or full of students. Will be back I suspect.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Basement = furnished. Cellar = unfurnished.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I fear it's more a class thing in my case. I talk posh, I do. (I have not yet got to the point where I start correcting the book of etiquette, though - according to my father it's writing paper, not note paper.) In terms of region, I spent the ten most formative years of my life in the Welsh borders, but you'd never know to hear me speak...

[matgb]

I'm told that 'settee' is lower class, which might explain why I can remember calling it settee when I was a kid but it's now more universally known as sofa. Upward mobility has a lot to answer for...

[strangefrontier.livejournal.com]

"The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening" is confusing to me, because most of the answers seem to be different things which I would refer to by the words listed here. I chose conservatory because there is one in my grandparents' house. No one sits in there in the evenings, though, because it's bloody cold. Apart from my mum, who is exiled there to smoke.

[matgb]

Aye, the whole thing was written by a USian trying to be inclusive but failing—see also breakfast item with syrup. Most of my poll options came from SB whose answer was what mine would've been.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Now, you do realise that the answers I wrote were entirely intended for humourous effect (http://drjon.livejournal.com/1142053.html) (and in some cases a very locally-based effect, at that), yes?

[matgb]

ORLY? Never would've guessed that. Pretty sure all of Hannah's were entirely serious as well...

(The inspiration for the poll was the silliness)

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Lunchbox is a really funny word. I use it, no doubt, but once on a really long road trip (home from Florida, about 1400 miles/2253 kilometers/23 hours), my brother and I were making ourselves sick with laughter coming up with funny sounding words. Even now, one of us just has to make a weird hand gesture and say, "Pants. Lunchbox," and the other will crack up completely.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
I call it a porch, if it's attached to the house, a patio if it's not. (So my parents have a porch made out of wood that you step off the back door right onto it, and the patio is the cement thing off the side of the patio that is adjacent to it.) My apartment is on the second floor, and I have a small wood area without an awning (but directly below another similar area). I alternate between calling it a porch and a balcony.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

So my parents have a porch made out of wood that you step off the back door right onto it,

That we call a deck.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

We use "deck", too, although in terms of an uncovered wooden porch-type thing that's in a pool area.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

That's how it started, but now it seems to mean any wooden porch-type thing whether or not there's a pool.

[matgb]

See, porch is the coveread area over the front door, doesn't need to be big enough to sit in, just be covered. Patio is always at the rear of the house, my parents is right next to the "patio doors" which go out the back of the living room.

Hadn't considered balcony and similar, never personally lived somewhere with one (although lived in a flat for several years).

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I think that the key with balcony is that it's like a porch, just off the ground on an upper level.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

#6 Gravity's a device?

#7 Aside from location (which snapesbabe so thoroughly described), the only option that I would have chosen that has to have a roof is the gazebo.

#15 Cockroaches can curl up?

#18 Car boot sales are usually for items that don't necessarily have a clear and straight-forward path from the factory, if you know what I mean.

[matgb]

Not all of the options were meant entirely seriously, and I just took answers as given without seeing if they could curl or whatever.

But yeah, know what you mean—they used to be almost exclusively for normal people to get rid of stuff, but more and more dodgy dealers started to make a living through them.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

Not all of the options were meant entirely seriously....

I know, the idea of a cockroach curling up is amusing and frightening. I imagine a cockroach being attacked by something that makes it curl up like a blubbering little boy. But, what would be able to make a cockroach do that? I don't think I want to know.

And, I can just see the packaging for New and Improved Gravity! Now with 2 Gs for the price of 1!