LL-L "Grammar" 2000.10.29 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 29.OCT.2001 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Criostoir O Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2000.10.28 (01) [E/S]

Dear all,

I was hoping some of the Scots-speakers could help me
with a facet of my language (that is, a
Midlands-Northern England variant of English) that is
quite startling once it is pointed out but which
otherwise seems rather ordinary to anyone from the
north of England or Scotland.

Australians seem to find my use of the word "like" to
be exceptionally quaint and hilarious, and the true
mark of a "pom" [i.e., an English English speaker
[sic]]. It's a grammatical issue, more than anything.

Here are a few examples of how I use "like", and I
would appreciate some help in discovering its origin.
Does it have an Old English precedent? Is it
duplicated in any other Lowland languages?

"Aa wuh wokkin daan thuh strit, lai'ik, en then..."
"I was [lit. were] walking down the street, like, and
then..."

"Kun yuh no' mai'ind aat, lai'ik?"
"Can you not mind out, like? [i.e., Can't you watch
where you're going?]"

"It wuh rabaat this big, lai'ik, en..."
"It was [lit. were] about this big, like, and..."

"Like" in these cases seems to act as a hinge or an
emphatic... but it has no independent meaning at all.
I hope someone can help, before I'm mercilessly mocked
into oblivion!

Dank u,

Criostoir.

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From: "Szelog, Mike" <Mike.Szelog at CITIZENSBANK.com>
Subject:

Hello Lowlanders,

Ron and Sandy (and others) wrote:


>Talking about the kind of grammatical leveling discussed in this thread,
and
>bearing in mind what Sandy Fleming wrote in his initial inquiry ...

> There's one exception, which is that the verb concord for the
> verb "to be" may go either way, eg:
>
> "The flouers are springin"
>
> and
>
> "The flouers is springin"

>.... I am wondering about Australian English dialects.  In casual speech
you
>will hear things like "There's no clean plates left in the cupboard,"
"There's
>swarms of flies," "There's tons of money," "There's about five dollars
left,"
>and "There's lots of drunken drivers on the roads on Sat'dy nights."

>Come to think of it, it seems to be rather limited, probably always to 'to
be'
>and to "there's ..."  Or is it?  I do not think you would hear anything
like
>*"The flowers is blooming," definitely nothing like *"The flows grows
slowly."

>This is mostly based on pre-1983 observations in Australia, mostly in
>southwest-coastal Western Australia.

>Questions:

>Is it still used a lot?

>Might it be of Scottish in origin, or can it also be observed in the
dialects
>of England?

>What is its extent/spread?  (What about English dialects elsewhere?)

>Another observation, this time in (substandard) American English: "says I"
>instead of "I say," "said I" or "I said."


Also following others in this thread - living in New England, there's
typically, at least in "everyday" speech, no other way you'd ever hear
this
- it's always "There's about five bucks left in the account" Rarely
would
one hear "There are five dollars left in the account" or "There are a
lot of
drunk drivers on the road tonight, so be careful" - I don't think it
would
raise any eyebrows, but certainly would sound odd, at least in my neck
of
the woods. Since the New England accent, I say accent as I'm really not
overly convinced it's actually a true dialect (a few certain words
certainly
are), has been shaped over time from the English, Scots and Irish
settlers
(what one would think of as "typical New England stock"), it is entirely
possible this is a carry over from these variations of English. There is
another odd verbal concord heard usually in Maine, not so much in other
parts of New England that I'm aware of - where one will hear something
like
"I wahn't shu'ah I'd get thaht caah stahted this mornin', was some
wicked
cold!"  = "I wasn't sure I'd  get that car started this morning, it was
very
cold.", where "wahn't" is used in the sense of "weren't", not
"wasn't",as
one would expect. I have never heard this outside of Maine unless spoken
by
someone from Maine and it actually sounds a bit strange to most speakers
from NH - usually a give away that the person you're speaking with is
from
Maine! . Just thought this would be interesting.

Mike Szelog
Manchester, NH - USA

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