Surprising Things about American English
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- Here's a collection of things I find surprising about American English as a British linguist living in Southern California. I look at vowel mergers in US English, vocabulary and grammar features, surprising pronunciations and hypercorrections.
This is the first time I have shot on location and I have had fun filming in Yosemite and LA as well as playing with some visual effects, including the CRT Screen effect thanks to @BenMarriott
00:00 Intro Yosemite
01:13 Rs running riot Hollywood - vowel mergers after /r/
03:03 Fur babies - words for pets. Newport Beach, CA
03:48 Greek plurals. Downtown LA
04:51 A couple (of) - Angel's Flight
05:32 Forward without the first /r/. Grand Avenue LA
05:59 Swim as a noun. In the pool
07:32 Outtro Newport Beach, CA
Also Sprach Zarathustra Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
This one took a while… I got full vaxxed and celebrated with a trip to Yosemite National Park and started making this video on location. I’ve learned a lot but a couple times the sound recorder wasn’t on and I had to ADR in post. I hope you enjoy this, let me know what you think and add any features of US English that surprise you.
I bet speaking in reverse then dubbing it was a bit tricky!
@@maasaigeordie Practice makes perfect.
I Hope you regret your choice
Guy gets "full vaxxed", accuses others of being dumb 🤦🏻♀️ Celebrated it even. 😖
I think it went swimmingly. Or should that be swimly?
'Get off of me' instead of 'get off me' is one Americanism that gets me.
But some English dialects use that too
As an American, I wouldn't necessarily use words like "swim" and "run" as nouns in the sense of referring to the activity as a whole, i.e. "I like swim and run," but I do see them as nouns when referring to a specific instance of the activity.
"I'm going for a run" is, to me, a common way to announce that one is about to go jogging for exercise, and while I'd personally be more likely to use the phrasing "going swimming," if someone asked me "Do you want to go for a swim?" it wouldn't strike me as odd at all.
You’re absolutely right - and not just about American usage.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages and now we have “cheer” as in “my daughter is going out for the cheer squad”, whereas, when I was a child, the word was “cheerleading.”
I've heard in old British movies "Go for a swim", so it's been used as a noun at least since the invention of talkies.
You're correct. It is a noun in British English (and probably was well before cinema) - the difference is, in the phrase "swim goggles", it's not, as he says, a noun, it's an adjective. The adjective in British English is "swimming".
@@phil2854 A box seat, a road trip, etc. Noun modifiers.
"Go for a swim" is standard English as far as I'm aware. It's the use of swim in "swim goggles" that sounds a bit odd. It should be "swimming goggles".
@@phil2854 You stopped reading there, I guess. I mention noun modifiers elsewhere. That's a noun that is adjectival in usage.
I agree entirely with the fact that ‘swimming’ isn’t an adjective in those situations. I’d say that ‘swimming’ in ‘swimming goggles’ is a participle and in ‘going swimming’ it’s a gerund, while in ‘road trip’ the word ‘road’ is an attributive noun. I’m not sure how you’d define or use the phrase ‘noun modifier’ though.
The one that surprised me is in the mid west they sometimes stick an r in wash making it "warsh".
Loved the video! As somebody who grew up in the east coast US and was on a swim team, in my experience using "swim" as a noun when listing hobbies implies that it's of the competitive nature, as in relating to a swim team or swim meet, rather than "swimming" as a hobby that's just for exercise or fun or whatever.
I would say "I used to do swim" to say I used to swim competitively, although "I used to swim" would also work but sound less specific and a bit confusing (like "what, have you forgotten how?"). This puts use puts the word "swim" in the same category as "I used to do track" or "I did crew in high school" and whatnot.
That’s fascinating. Thank you so much for letting me know.
thats exactly what i came to the comments to say! i grew up in the southwest, and never did swim but that distinction exists in my mind too.
"doing track" sounds, to a Brit, like you were doing drugs and made a typo
Or if not that, it sounds like you were humping the circuit
Doing crew? No idea what that means.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I enjoy your videos and learn a lot. Would British people say ‘I went for a swim”?
Ah, "processeees". Drove me nuts during my information technology career.
That sounds very Scottish! I’ve never noticed Americans saying it like that though, I’ll have to listen out for it.
Do you also film / edit the videos? Not only is what you're saying extremely interesting, so is the way you present it! Love all the silly green screen scenes haha, and the 3D / infographic stuff, every video of yours is really varied. Keep it coming! 🙂
Thank you. I’m so glad you appreciate that. Yes, I do everything myself and have a lot of fun with the fx.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages Bravo! This is a fun and educational channel.
"Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, but it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age" - Blazing Saddles
My five year old daughter called them swim pools. I liked that so much I changed to saying it myself. Now it's been some 15 years and it's part of how I speak.
Maybe I'm wrong but I get the impression Americans like to say things in a shorter way if it's possible, in order to save time. Another example is the way Americans say "I'm going out Tuesday", which you would never say here in England, you would always say "I'm going out on Tuesday". But missing the "on" out saves time.
@@ajs41 I've noticed that too. They've started to drop the word 'of' in the phrase 'a couple of' so now 'a couple of apples' for example has become 'a couple apples.' It confuses me because to me 'a couple' = two people in a romantic relationship.
What a thoroughly lovely and lively chap. Subscribed 😊
I was having so much fun that the end took me a little by surprise! Really interesting content - I would have happily watched for a lot longer. Love the change in presentation style and real locations. I may see them one day...
I may have to do a part 2, then! I got a gimbal for my birthday, so on-location filming will be easier. Hope to see you soon.
This deserves much much much more veiws. The editing is so good, and everything else with it. Very interesting and entertaining
This is great. And the whole swimming talk makes me want to go for a swim.
The one that gets me is using fit as the past tense; ie "the dress fit her perfectly" instead of "the dress fitted her perfectly". As Americans would say "it grinds my gears".
"Swim" can be a noun, though, as in "Going for a swim".
Things I've noted as being particularly American neologisms are "partake in" as a synonym for "take part" and "bear witness" as a synonym for "witnessing".
Swim is like other activities. The gerund is the general activity. But the non-gerund form of the word is the specific instance. He went for a swim. I am going to have a swim this afternoon. Same thing with dance/dancing, ride/riding, run/running.
Indeed, and in the same way, we can’t say *ride hat or *run shoes.
As a Brit who moved to the US at age 10 and both retained my southeastern English accent and gained a Californian one depending on who I talk to, this video was great! Some of these things I would absolutely say while talking to another American in my American accent, but not while talking to an Englishman--and I don't even think about it.
I do still say privacy with a short i, though. I've never been able to remember that one.
It’s interesting how we can switch between language varieties like that.
Speaking as an American who has lived in California, we would say "a California accent". Someone with a California accent is a "Californian".
@@torrance409 I feel like that’s an LA thing. You guys are real proud of being californians lol
I am not a Californian...I have lived there. I was born in New Orleans, live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and have worked in 12 states, visited most of the 50 states. A Mississippian is a resident; a Mississippi recipe for gumbo is another thing. A New Yorker is a resident, while New York pizza differs from Chicago pizza. The usage seems universal to me.@@billofbong
@@torrance409 Yeah, I see no difference between Californian and Canadian, for instance. You can be a New Englander, but you can't be a Bay Arean (even though I am one).
Do people call themselves New Mexicans? I'm wondering now. I doubt it. "Hi, I'm New Mexican." -- no, I don't think that's right. People wouldn't know what you mean.
Do they say, 'Arizonans?' 'Arizonians?'
'Alaskan' is right for sure, so is 'Texan', but you can't call yourself a 'Marylandian'.
That is an astonishing amount of editting work, for a video with interesting enough content that it could have passed with just a monologue Infront of a white screen. Great work. 👍
Wow, thank you!
Another fun video! Here in Maine, though, I've never heard a local rhyme "mirror" with "mere".
The word "mirror" is a funny example. Obviously if all the Rs were pronounced, it would sound absolutely ridiculous, so us Brits decided to do away with the second set."mirrah", The Americans on the other hand decided that the first set should go- "meeeerrrrr" 😂😂😂
I think the way we say it in Britain doesn't really have anything to do with this particular word, it's the fact that we don't usually pronounce the r at the end of a word in general, (unless you live in a particular region like the south-west).
About "swimsuit", "swimtrunks" etc. could this be a Scandinavian (possibly German and other languages too) influence?
In Norwegian we can make nouns of verbs by adding "-ing" just like in English, but we're perfectly happy to create compound words using the verb forms, and in fact using the ing form sounds completely wrong.
So: "å bade" = "to bathe" and
"bading" = "bathing", but
"badedrakt" = "bathing suit".
This is very quickly becoming my favourite channel. I would also like to know why those from the US, say, "I could care less", instead of I couldn't care less, or why they confuse "lie" with "lay", e.g., I'm tired, I need to lay down. Cheers
Even worse is when they confuse "then" and "than": A is better then B. First this, than that.
I agree, and I'm an American (USA). I feel like it's a lazy way to speak and doesn't make sense. I tend to be a grammar person though.
6:14 had me in tears. Great video editing. 😂
Glad you enjoyed it!
Funny story. I was born in the USA to immigrant parents and American English is my second (or third sorta) language although it is the one that I use the most and with the most facility (the other two being Armenian and Turkish). I lived in southwest Connecticut until just was 18 and have effectively lived just outside of Boston for the balance of my 59 years. I say coffee like New Yorker, I kinda pahk my carrr in Boston, and drop vowels in final syllables in words that end in n like other Connecticutions. My funny story has to do with an admonition that I used to direct at my sons as they were growing up having to do with being on time. I used to say to them that they must “leave room for error”. unfortunately for many years my sons and my Bostonian wife only heard “leave room for air”. I found this out when I was in a tirade about being late and I used my phrase again and finally in their teenage frustration asked me “BABA…what does room for “air” mean…honestly we don’t know what your talking about”. I responded indignantly “Not room for air but room for error” to which they replied “what air? And finally I slowly said “not air - error - E R R O R” and they said oh THATS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING…room for ERR-OR” …I stopped, replayed my expression in my head and suddenly I heard my “air” for the first time. We cracked up and I gave up being angry for being tardy this one time.
superb work on the video and very funny!
The "mirror" and "nearer" verger is so old and complete that a lot of Americans have forgotten there ever was a split here. A lot of American singers will use a non-rhotic version of General American to sing because the R sound isn't very euphonious when held for a long time, and the pronunciation of "mirror" in American popular music is often "meera", not "mihra" (though not always--the (Canadian, but still natively rhotic) James LaBrie of Dream Theater says "mihra" in "The Mirror").
Also regarding "fur babies"--that also distinguishes domesticated from wild versions of the same animal. I have distinctly remembered someone saying "they were bunnies, not wild rabbits". There are no "junkyard puppers" or "feral kitties". Fish in a tank can be "fishies" but not fish caught on a hook in a lake. I think the potential threat to humans plays a role here, too--a feral rabbit, which cannot seriously harm a human, could potentially be a "bunny" if it looks like a domesticated breed, but a feral dog, no matter how far from the wild form it is, is not going to get a pet word, because feral dogs can and will grievously harm humans if they feel the need to.
The "classicisms" are a very strong class marker in American English--upper-middle class speakers and above will never, ever say "vertice" (or "vertexes", for that matter), "parenthese", or "process-ees". It is something that will *instantly* mark a speaker in upper-class company as "trashy".
Thank for that. All very informative. I have a video coming out soon about how people’s accents change when they sing.
An ex-colleague of mine from Illinois had a brother called Hairy. I had to do a double check! For her a car and the verb to care sounded the same. I called something lovely one day and she giggled saying I sounded like someone’s grandma. We remained on friendly terms 😉. My relatives from NY (almost everyone in Ireland has cousins in NY) sometimes add the g from the end of words to the next word: They live on Lon Guyland (Long Island). They also add an intrusive r to words ending in a: A woman called Linder might have a good ideer which sounds kind of English to me, when they’re actually Irish Americans. Thank you for another really interesting video, go raibh mile maith agat. 😊
Greetings from an expat Brit (by way of Norfolk) behind the Orange Curtain in SoCal. I've been here for 37 years now, so I think I'm going native and becoming feral, but I'll never give up my English swear words, most of which whoosh over the heads of unsuspecting locals without any sign they understood them... I also like to sprinkle a few Norfolkisms in, like mardle and bishybishybarnabee and rumman. Fun!
Where in OC are you? I’m in Mission Viejo.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I'm in Costa Mesa.
I grew up around Philadelphia and have lived in New York for 35 years. Even though the two cities are about an hour and a half apart, there are differences in the accents and I was always aware of them growing up. One thing that I've always thought of as a uniquely New York pronunciation is saying the word forward as foe-werd. We didn't say that in the Delaware Valley. Not sure how many people say it that way outside the New York area.
Love these videos. New sub
Thanks for subbing. So glad you like them.
I discovered you today and I love how you make learning about languages fun, funny and exciting. Your editing is sublime as well, what do you use?
I was just in yosemite a few weeks ago! Thats awesome!
A magical place.
Another difference is the pronunciation of the first vowel of “during”, where British typically has a “yu” whereas in American pronunciation it rhymes with “learning”.
We do say "swim lessons" just like "dance lessons and "go for a swim" just like "go for a run." You can use it as a noun.
Most enlightening, although I was surprised that you didn't mention my own particular bugbear, which is Americans insisting that the study of numbers is the singular noun: Math [not Maths, i.e. the diminutive form of Mathematics]. Indeed, as I wrote this post the spell-checker in TH-cam flagged up Maths as being spelled incorrectly and offered Math's, Moth and Math as suitable alternatives! Keep up the good work!
Thank you. Annoying though the maths thing may be, it didn’t make the cut here since it’s well known.
In NZ I'd use 'swim' as a noun referring to an instance of swimming, like 'I went for a swim'
Hi. You are spot on with that. There is a group of verbs that can form nouns to describe an instance of the activity, but not the activity in general. You can go for a run, but you can’t list run as one of your hobbies or buy a pair of run shoes.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I'm never sure whether things like that are regional or widespread!
Mate, what I'm more fascinated by is how you guys saw so much American television. As a TV nerd I'm trying to figure what channels played our shows. I watched many UK shows as a kid way back in the 80's and 90's. I study language, and I find the linguist approach to meaning through language fascinating.
Well, buying in US shows was a cheap way of filling the schedules.
It meant my generation was fully converstant with US English, while it wasn't really so the other way round.
Our impression was that the US was only interested in Monty Python, Benny Hill and Are You Being Served?
@@MisterBrain Here in California, every year at my grade school in the '70s they would show us _The Red Balloon_ and I would go out to recess afterwards and find myself speaking in an English accent. I found out much later in life that my bio-parents were both Scots-Irish although living in California when they met.
I never met anyone in real life who had an English accent until I was an older adult and I was only around them a few times for a bit. However my papers say I was adopted at age 1 so maybe I picked up on a British accent while in the womb and maybe after for awhile. I don't know. It's always intrigued me.
Not sure if you're aware, but English was originally pretty much all rhotic (r after a vowel/before a consonant). This began to change first among upper class speakers in the Southeast in the 1700s or so. It was the case in the majority of rural England well into the 20th century, while now it's mostly the West Country and of course Scotland, Ireland etc.
There's a small area around Burnley and Accrington in Lancashire which is also rhotic, which is odd because nowhere else in that region is. The cricket commentator David Lloyd is a good example.
@@ajs41 It's a last vestige of a much wider area. When you say 'nowhere else in that region is', it depends on the age of the speaker. Among old people there's still a lot of rhoticity in other parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
@@peterw29 I'm not an expert so I don't expect to be 100% right about it.
Not sure if this is rude or presumptuous but I'd imagine that the age profile of your following may be a slightly older demographic. Just want to say that I'm a fairly young fella in my 20s and I absolutely love your channel. Just discovered it recently and I'm binging it now. So interesting, please keep it up!
Not rude or presumptuous at all! I seem to be doing well with the 25-35 and the 55+. What’s weird is I have far more male viewers than female. So glad to have you on board. Thanks for saying hi.
The biggest problem I used to have visiting the US was having to spell out my surname everytime at hotel or airline checkin, because they didn't understand what I said. In the end I learnt to pronounce my surname in the American way (Harl instead of Horl) and never had to spell out H-a-l-l again. American idioms are worth learning too to avoid confusion. Trying to buy a bottle of scotch in a liquor store was always a problem. A bottle in English is a specific volume, not so in the US, I'd get blank looks. A friend of mine tipped me off to ask for a fifth of whisky. Problem solved.
With your examples it seems that specific amounts drop of (a dozen roses vs dozens of roses) so with couple perhaps a couple of minutes is indefinite while a couple bucks means exactly two.
Awesome video. Love it.
I would also like to mention that up here in Canada I feel like our English is heavily influenced by American English though TV, movies, and just having them as neighbours. However I am sure we are different in several ways.
Could you please explore some examples of how Canadian English is different?
I bet there's a noticeable difference between west coasters and east coaster in Canada like there is here in the States.
East Coast accents such as heard in PEI and Nova Scotia are distinctive. The Newfoundland accent is unique and very different from other East Coast accents. However, as an Albertan, I hear very little difference from Ontario to BC. Toronto is a melting pot much more than the rest of the country, and there are a lot of accents from the origins of the speakers. It is also true for Vancouver, but to a lesser extent. Quebecois accented English is very different from France-french accented English.
In South Carolina, "rural" comes out like "roo-al", the second r ignored completely
I think that is based on location. The upstate accent sounds different from a low country accent.
Great video! I would say the Mary-Marry-Merry merger is pretty much widespread throughout the United States, in one place it is not, Philadelphia. In fact in Philly, there are several differences in accent and dialect for example American "sidewalk" is "pavement". It is possibly the hardest accent to imitate, it's rhotic unlike other big east coast cities like Boston and New York and the s sound in "sink" is often pronounced "zink" like in the west country in England. Some say the sound is somewhere between Northern and Southern American English but the diphthong in "nice" comes out like "noice". Anyways, thank you for creating great content!
I grew up in the South, and while I've heard the Mary-Marry-Merry merger in certain accents, I don't think it's quite as widespread.
I think Mary and Marry have pretty much fully merged in mosts accents I've been around (I pronounce them the same as well), but Merry is usually distinct.
Philadelphia born and bred (now living in Ireland) here, and definitely pronounce 'merry', 'Mary', and 'marry' distinctly different from each other!
Is it pavement because that's what we use here in the UK, or is there another reason?
I'm a new Yorker but they are all distinct in my accent
Fascinating comment about the use of the British term ‘pavement’, I had no idea they were so sensible in Philly! I’ve occasionally read comments on YT vids like this by people who claim that ‘sidewalk’ isn’t just part of US speech but it’s also the traditional term in the West Country (South West England, where many sound like pirates), I’d imagine it was said as ‘zoidwahk’ but I’ve never actually heard it said there myself.
I am so deeply inspired by your descriptivism and the fact you teach accents! I've always liked accepts at least as much as learning a language itself. How does one become an accent coach?
Thank you! 😃. I work as a leadership and language coach but have never done any accent coaching.
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. H. Parenthesis!
And vertex: thatvis completely new to me!
An American Grammarian.
I also do the southern US thing of adding R’s where they are none. Wash becomes warsh.
interesting thing about 2:27 is that american english too used to have the distinction. Merry and Mary were pronounced with an equivalent distinction to that of british english a few generations ago
My understanding is that the distinction still exists in some parts of the eastern US.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages Probably true, must be a different part of the east than where I'm from. I've only ever heard elderly people speak like that
I usually think of puppy as meaning specifically a baby dog. Doggie (or sometimes doggo) is the "cutesy" word, usually said when talking to kids. Little kids say things like "bye, doggie." This can be a dog of any age.
I speak standard American English and some of this is just dialectal in different regions. For example, I would pronounce mirror with two syllables and pronounce the -Rs in both syllables.
When an American says 'horror' it often sounds to me like they're saying 'whore'. Sometimes this is hilarious.
Funny! Forward/farward/ford/fard; door/doe-uh; frawg/frog; five/fahv; etc. Some distinctions even within families. Some accents are not totally regional but exhibit an urban/rural dichotomy. Hence, rural folks in Ohio may sound very similar to rural folks in Georgia.
Interesting! Many thanks.
I'm from Massachusetts and I say "a couple of" about half of the time, but I always write it like that. I never really noticed til now, but yeah I guess I drop it out of convenience.
I’m an American born & raised in Hawaii. We got our own kine talk hea. 😊🤙
Nice one Dave, given time theyll learn😂
As my mom was from Germany and immigrated to the U.S. but was an medical interpreter and spoke British English…it had a peculiar influence on how we learned English, despite living in the United States…I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many…which varies depending on what object to which I am counting…it’s strange…I don’t use puppy or kitty to refer to adult dogs or cats…that’s younger people and a new change to SAE. I definitely say forward as you’d expected…it definitely has an influence with a parent from abroad who’s taught you English. I like to swim…It’s almost like people from Oz…they too will use shorter forms of nouns or noun verbs and vice versa…I wonder if computers and the net have some effect. As a scientist I’m used to asking why…unfortunately there is no why in language as my dad always said.
"I use couple to mean two…few to mean more than two but less than an estimated many" -- same for me. I go 'round and 'round with my husband about this for some reason. He just doesn't know it. 🤷
Dave, just doing some electronics whilst listening to you and I am always amused how the Americans say SODER rather than SOLDER. They must think we are very strange!
Yes, that’s a weird one.
And 'business' comes out 'binness' quite often.
Lets go for a swim. Swim is definitely used as a noun in American English.
Hi. It’s is but only in that construction, which allows several verbs which aren’t normally usable as nouns to act as if they were.
my gosh, I forgot about the Lessie and the Flipper, so long ago...
The face MTG was on your list of not so smart people....sold me...new subscriber 🤣🥰
Glad you appreciated that. Welcome aboard!
What surprised me in America is that sometimes I struggled to understand Americans. For example fox can sound like fax. And so many words differ. Thus bonnet and hood, windscreen and windshield, crisps and chips, chips and french fries, scones and biscuits, biscuits and cookies, lawyer and attorney, indict and charge, and so on. I loathe the verb burglarize, and presumably the ill doer is a burgalizer. And I dislike “Can I get me a” rather than “Can I have”. But in the end it’s just a dialect of English. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, than British English.
Yes. All part of life’s rich tapestry. I’ve lived here for seven years now and am still finding things that surprise me.
Not to defend "burglarize" as such...but I would say that it doesn't imply the actor is a "burglarizer" any more than to "materialize" would produce "materializers" instead of "materials."
Interesting and entertaining video. I don't care a bit about the topic....I just find your presentation enjoyable😂
I appreciate that!
About US "r" running rampant, my grandmother, who grew up in a log cabin in a West Virginia holler, pronounced Hawai'i "har wahr yuh".
I love it! My nana, from the East End of London, pronounced it Ah-way.
As with the Rs, many of your other examples of our quirky use of language can be both regional and personal. To some extent, the longer one has spent in an educational setting, the more careful one tends speaks, at least in formal settings. Also, I don't know if Brits do it, but we have a tendency to code switch depending upon the setting in which we are speaking. That said, I'm sticking hard to our fully expressed Rs. They're there so you might as well use them. Oh, and by the way, you could have added the colloquial use of Rs at the end of words such as in "winder" (window), "soder" (soda), and "ider" (idea). Thanks for the video.
Really great videos Dave! New sub from me!
Awesome, thank you!
I've noticed recently that many Americans drop the "t" sound when it comes after an "n." They say "winner" instead of "winter," or "inneresting" instead of "interesting," for example.
Where did "horseback riding" come from?
I find it strange that Americans need to specify what part of the horse they use when horse riding.
There appear to be a number of expressions in the USA that are archane/anachronistic and have passed out of use in the rest of the Anglo sphere.
I've watched a handful of your videos so far and have been really enjoying them! I must say, as an American from the southeast, I DO say forward with both R's, and it always sticks out to me when I hear other Americans say fuh-ward or foh-ward, instead of fORward. But my pronunciation seem to be in the minority! I hear foh-ward all the time in videos, podcasts, the news, etc. from Americans all across the country. It's so interesting to me!
I would say the verb=noun thing is a Germanic language feature. Still it is interesting that there seems to be no clear reason why one would you swim versus swimming. But, I have to say I grew up doing both.
Some of us do say "Let's go for a swim."
You can do that with many activity verbs. But it doesn’t make them full nouns. You can go for a run, but you don’t wear *run shoes.
Not arguing, simply remarking.
@@Sparkja1 No sure, I hope I didn’t come across as arguing either.
"Let's go for a swim." We DO use "swim" as a noun in some cases.
Though I doubt I'm the only one to do so, I feel a need to point out that "swim" is frequently used as a noun in common british English, in reference to the activity. You are walking when you go for a walk, and you're swimming when you go for "a swim". Verbs are often noun-ified like this, you can go for a fly, a run, a sleep, a cry, and lots of other nouns.
That said, I think I get what you mean to say, that describing things as nouns of the variation "swim" (swim goggles, to use your example) is in contrast to the British English "swimming goggles". For whatever reason, I take it as the cardinal example for activity-nouns to conisder how a team of people doing that activity is described - a "swim team" or a "swimming team" - but only ever a "running team" or a "track team", never a "run team".
The thing that sounds strange is something like "swim goggles" when it should be "swimming goggles".
But we do say “run rate”, which is about commerce and not athletics.
One of the most interesting things I've noticed about North American accents is the way the "n" in the middle of a word like "romantic" can sometimes almost sound like it's disappeared. So it sounds to me, an English person, like "romatic". If you listen to the famous song Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins, a band from Toronto, you can hear this particular example. (Maybe this is just a Canadian thing, but I didn't think it was, I thought it was a general North American thing).
That’s an intriguing observation. I’ll have a listen to Echo Beach. I have noticed similar phenomena in the US. I think they’re probably nasalising the vowel and dropping the n. I’ve also noticed that in words like Clinton, which can come out as one syllable.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages I'm from the American Midwest, Chicago area, and I pronounce the ending syllable of Clinton as a glottal stop ("Clint-n"). Come to think of it I suppress the "T" sound, so I really pronounce it "Cli-n". It's still two distinct syllables, just not the way it's spelled.
I have no idea why I do this.
Nasalized- absolutely . In phonetics lab 40 years ago, we showed that at least some Americans (linguistics students) didn’t pronounce either an n or a t in words like can’t. There’s a syllabic n followed by a glottal stop. This was well known as a common phenomenon of Standard American speech. By the way, mirror and mere are often distinguished by length- the former has a long “r” (often with a retroflex glide) in careful (yes, that’s right) speech.
I'm California born and I can defnly say that I suppress the 't' in words like romanic.
Swim is a noun, as in go for a swim (a single instance of the activity). The ing variant is for referencing the activity in the general sense, as in swimming being good for the heart. It seems to me that some other words use this pattern...a dance, dancing. (Dance can also be used roughly in the latter sense, but in that case, less about the activity as an activity and more about the artistic element.). Have a think, versus the general activity of thinking.
As a swim parent, my son is on the swim team. Or we may ask, "Is your child in swim?" Yes, we do say that and most people associated with the sport use this form, but it is still a swimming pool. If you said, "Is your child in swimming?" One would likely think that you are asking if the child is in the pool.
As far as the pronunciation of "forward" you mention, this is an example of "dissimilation." If a word contains two r's in rapid succession, then the first one may or may not be omitted, even in rhotic dialects. Other words where this might occur are "particular," "caterpillar," "governor" and "surprise."
Interesting. Thanks for that information.
Did you stop by Warshington while you were in the US???
I don't get why he says "swim is used as noun". In all those examples, it's an adjective. "What kind of trunks? Swim trunks". However, it is used as a noun universally, such as "going for a swim".
So you mean that "swim" in "swim trunks" had the same function as "green" in "green trunks"?
_"Were on high turralurr. Howdydoodydodeafen."_
- "What?"
_"We're on high turr alurrt! Holly doody do defenn!!!"_
- "Can you speak British for a moment, please?"
_"URRU TUURRURRRRUUUUSSSSSS!!!"_
😎
I went for a swim....used as a noun...
You are not the first to mention that. Look at the comments below for the discussion.
Thank you. At least this one didn't go right over my head like your video on Scotland did! Now on to the languages of the African continent...
I don't like 'addicting' used to mean 'addictive'- seems to be preferred in America.
re: swim as a noun, from someone who speaks American English. Yes, swim can and often is used as a noun, and there's in fact a difference in meaning between the root form and the -ing form. Taking the hobby example, if someone were to respond with "swim," I interpret that to mean they swim competitively, or at least take it quite seriously, but "swimming" carries a much more casual connotation, mostly swimming for fun. Funny enough, the same is true for another example you brought up: dance/dancing. To me, dance carries a much more serious connotation, "the expressive art of dance," whereas dancing is much more casual, just a fun activity. Swim can also be used as a noun in phrases like "go for a swim," for example. All of this may be somewhat regional, as the US is quite a huge country. I'm on the east coast, so this perspective may be quite different from what you encountered on the west coast.
Also, your channel is massively underrated. Please keep it up! I don't have any friends interested in linguistics, but I might share some of your videos with them anyways.
ah, I should have scrolled down. This comment seems to be a bit redundant.
Thanks for this. I'd say it enhances previous answers rather being redundant. I think your point about dance vs. dancing is very enlightening.
Great video, Dave! I can't hear the difference between marry/merry/Mary even when I slow your video to half speed. How can people like me, who grew up in a region with only a dozen vowel sounds, learn to distinguish among 4 or 5 additional vowel sounds? I'm from California's Central Valley. Despite that, over time I have trained myself to pronounce "pin" and "pen" differently. But that's easy, because we use both those sounds, though admittedly, for other purposes. I can't even hear the differences between cot/caught, Aaron/Erin, Loren/Lauren, Dawn/Don, and marry/merry/Mary. If I want to fit in better with East Coast company, how can I learn to pronounce sounds I don't even hear? Thanks!
For the little it's worth, I'm from Canada's east coast, and my "urban" Maritimes accent has all those mergers. 😸 It's interesting you mention the pen/pin merger in the Central Valley -- I'm not familiar with that particular regional accent, but I've been noticing that some people in Oregon seem to have an accent I might describe as "Southern-like but rhotic (not R-dropping) and without the drawl".
It never ceases to amaze me when people can’t hear the difference between the ‘cot/caught/cart’ vowels (though the situation with ‘cart’ is of course complicated by the fact that many people pronounce the ‘r’). If you say the word ‘ball’ like people do in England and shorten it you get the word ‘bull’ but if you say it like most Americans do and shorten it you word ‘boll’ - can you hear the difference between ‘bull’ and ‘boll’?
Instructive and fun. As a Bostonian my fellow countrymen think I am pretentious be cause I do have a strong working class Boston accent. Hardly fancy pants talk around here “
I know someone from the Isle of Wight (UK, not Virginia) who says 'fawad' instead of 'forward as most people here do. And he also says 'ass' instead of 'arse'.
Great video! I thought swim was both noun or verb? We say let's go for a swim as often as let's go swimming. I'm Southeast coast of the US.
a very common phenomena
American here. Generally I agree with what you're saying, but I don't pronounce mirror and mere the same. I've grew up in the American South. I here two syllables in mirror, for the second syllable is almost an faint echo. I mention where I grew up, but I often here people try to mimic the accent there by reducing words like "goin'" to just one syllable. Again, there's actually a faint echo of "ing". I find this curious because I never see this brought up by linguists.
Interestingly, that odd pronunciation of 'forward' is identical to one I used to hear regularly from a guy from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. As you said, it's difficult to get your tongue round the fully rhotic version, so maybe people in different parts of the rhotic world have independently adopted the same solution.
I know you made this video two years ago but it seems that you've confined your travels in the US to certain areas without experiencing the variety of American speech. It reminds me of the Monty Python troupe. They were firmly convinced that the Footlights/Python type of comedy would never go over in the US. What many English fail to understand is the size of this country and the accompanying varieties of English. I grew up in NYC and live in Massachusetts. Most of the people I know clip their R's substantially or drop them all together. Please listen to the varieties available in this huge country. Some of the more unusual are Northern New England and Southern New England, Niagara, Reservation English, Hispano English.
''want to go for a swim," is common 😂
My nieces are involved in competitive "cheer."
You can go for *_a swim,_* though, just as you can go for a run or a walk or a jog or a hike.
I don't know if there's a connection but the German counterpart of 'couple' (which can be used in both senses as "two people in a relationship" and "several") also doesn't require a counterpart of "of".
Ein paar Rosen => a couple roses
Likewise in German you say "Schwimm|unterricht" or "Schwimm|team". (I added the vertical bars " | " for clarity.)
So I can imagine the couple and the swim thing as being influenced by Geeman migrants.
Quite possibly. You make an interesting point - Germany is one of the biggest sources for immigrants to the US.
It makes sense from an immigrant and "Melting pot" standpoint. If you REALLY want a linguistic adventure travel through the different parts of Texas. Not only do you have the stereotypical "Texan" accent, but you have parts of Texas with more of a Germanic influence, and some with a more Mexican Spanish influence.
"Swim" is definitely still a noun in America. As in "go for a swim"...
In the U.S., we pronounce OUR and HOUR the very same.
I think most parts of the English speaking world do the same - if not all.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguagesI’m English and I say ‘our’ exactly like the word ‘are’ but I say ‘hour’ as ‘ow-uh’ just like it (and ‘our’) is officially transcribed in most non-rhotic dictionaries. Many Northern Irish people say both ‘hour’ and ‘our’ as ‘are’ in fact. I have heard many Americans say things like I do with added r’s though - there was a viral image of an ignorant Trump supporter who called him ‘are President’ doing the rounds a while back!😂
The Mirror thing becoming Mirrrr is a regional thing only some American folks suffer from. Another regional cringer is when Legs become Laigs, makes my skin crawl. These are inter-American observations.
I've noticed Adrienne from popular TH-cam channel Yoga with Adtiene says laygs instead of legs. She's from somewhere in the southern US.
I am an American that does not have the Mary, merry, marry merger (your order may vary, very, verry). To me, I pronounce them all differently. I grew up on Long Island, NY, in the 1960s, until 8, then the Mid-Hudson Valley, NY, mostly in the 1970s until 18, then Baltimore, MD for last 47 years. I am guessing it was the early Long Island influence that is responsible.