Cripes, a bumbershoot | Hacker News Reader

Cripes, a bumbershoot

the-tls.co.uk

39 pointssamclemens17 comments

I remember first hearing the word "bumbershoot" in an episode of Frasier, used as an example of a ridiculous Britishism, and being very confused, as I'd never encountered it, despite living in Britain all my life. After some research revealed it was actually American slang that had become incorrectly thought to be British, I felt oddly offended.

To be honest though, as the British and American entertainment worlds have merged over the past couple of decades, I've found myself using more and more Americanisms, and I've kind of made my peace with that. The English used in TV and film represents the language in its most modern form, and, increasingly, opposing "Americanism" also means opposing the progress of culture, and the influence of minorities and immigrant groups, and I don't want to be that kind of stuck-in-the-mud, so I'm trying to just relax and accept linguistic progress in whatever form it takes.

> I don't want to be that kind of stuck-in-the-mud, so I'm trying to just relax and accept linguistic progress in whatever form it takes.

Does this mean you will be dropping the 'u' from colour?

> so I'm trying to just relax and accept linguistic progress in whatever form it takes.

How about "ath-leeshure"?

https://youtu.be/1YBP8v6fi2w?t=06s

"Athleisure"? Ugh.

> I don't want to be that kind of stuck-in-the-mud

I believe this particular Britishism is pronounced "stick in the mud".

https://www.etymonline.com/word/stick-in-the-mud

> Murphy’s online search for “an ugly Americanism” turned up 7,780 hits; “a lovely Americanism”, 227.

I've always hated seeing non-technical people attempt to use this as a measurement of anything. It demonstrates a misunderstanding of how search engines and the internet in general works, not to mention how human search behaviour and popular works (such as an article, book, or film title) can massively skew results.

Not to mention the sample size was in the hundreds...

I'd guess that "ugly Americanism" gets a lot of extra mileage just for being a play on the well-known pejorative "ugly American" (which also happens to be the title of a novel and a movie):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_(pejorative)

I love this British take on the American accent (and also culture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QJvc_SxFQ&t=9s

Linguistics has always fascinated me. It's almost like a living, breathing, evolving entity that uses the need to exchange information as its "body" rather than taking on some physical form. I'm sure there are other things that take esoteric forms like this, but language is a very visible one.

I’ve always thought of languages as living organisms as well, just operating on a very different substrate than we do—a collection of memes, essentially. They evolve, breed (usually through invasion and colonisation), grow, shrink, die, go dormant, and get resurrected.

What’s curious is that the various pronunciations of “mom” and “mum” only differ very slightly in closeness and roundedness:

    mom: /mɑm/ - open       back      unrounded
    mom: /mɒm/ - open       back        rounded
    mom: /mɔm/ - open-mid   back        rounded
    mum: /mʌm/ - open-mid   back      unrounded

Well, the odd one out is bits of Northern England:

    mum: /mʊm/ - near-close near-back   rounded

Still, those subtle phonetic distinctions, and their associated variations in spelling, matter quite a lot to people—if you (or a word you use) lack those slight markers, you’re “not from around here, are you?”

But maybe not—as the article describes, often a word or pronunciation is just finding its way back to where it was originally from. People love to defend their language, but rarely know the subject deeply enough to go more than one level deep—an English teacher told me so, so it must be true!

Lynne Murphy was recently a guest on the Allusionist podcast.

https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/across-the-pond

If you enjoy this article you may enjoy Russ Roberts interview of John McWhorter [0] where they discuss the evolution of language and Johns book "Words on the move" . give it a listen... approx 1 hour (the transcript is there which is also probably faster but I enjoyed the charisma and enthusiasm.)

[0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/08/john_mcwhorter.html

Oh and let's not even get into the fact that the modern English accent would sound completely foreign to the English of the 1700's than the does the modern American accent (regional variances excluded).

Language is weird. I always find it strange when people get upset even though meaning is clear but syntax/structure defies what they expect. Then again, I did get in to a bit of a row with YC staff about posting style.

TL;dr- Language preference is typically just a way of enforcing classist beliefs.

the modern English accent would sound completely foreign to the English of the 1700's

The accent on Tangier Island in Virginia[1] is said to be the closest living pronunciation to Elizabethan English, and based on that I think some mutual understanding could be wrangled.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZgw09CG9E

I heard it was Geordie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordie

Here is an example:- https://youtu.be/yX8qgW8rGbw

I believe the situation is that Geordie has the pedigree, that there's a continuous line back to the olden times, but it has evolved to a greater degree, and through forks in coal miner culture (see: Pitmatic[1]) and other professions of the area.

Tangiers seems special because, as the story goes, it was essentially a transplantation of the 17th century accent, a hard fork, which evolved to whatever degrees in isolation. I don't know if I should soft-pedal this as much as it is in Wikipedia, but I've had an ear bent for both of these regions for 10-15 years and this is my sense of both.

Naturally the truth is likely somewhere in between.

(IANA Dialectician, just a part-time sound and language aficionado)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitmatic

There’s a classist element, but so much of language is just a testament to the brevity of human life. Each new generation invents some new language, new out-groups do as well, and some in-groups struggle against both. In the end the language most people use changes rapidly, with few remembering why or how. English is a great example full of ancient and new creations, from “gadzooks”1 to “naff”2 and each word tells a story about people who are mostly long gone.

Accents, and the content of languages really are livin things, highly adaptable and prone to seemingly random mutations. Language is awesome.

1. From “God’s Hooks” i.e. the crucifixition.

2. From British gay slang language Polari, meaning unfashionable.

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