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Linguists have identified a new English dialect that's emerging in South Florida (phys.org)

submitted 1 year ago by EnglishMobster@kbin.social to c/news@kbin.social

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"We got down from the car and went inside."

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[–] wjrii@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Language changes, and if it is used in a way that has any kind of underlying logic that enables communication, then there's no such thing as "bad" grammar, just more or less popular dialectical choices (though of course at the fringes these can affect how broadly your message can be understood), and signifiers that are more or less prestigious to a given group. Even something as basic as "don't use double negatives" only makes sense because there are multiple semantic frameworks one could set up around what a double-negative means (e.g. is it a logical negation, a sematic intensifier, or an emotional intensifier?), and it will often, though not always, serve your communication needs better to treat it as a logical negation. Basically, language evolves; communication has a cultural context; don't be a pedantic dick.

Almost completely shifting gears, and pulling something tangential from the article, a few weeks ago, I ran across some folks online complaining that they were being enthusiastically served chicken when they'd mentioned they don't eat "meat." This snippet from the article helped me clarify how it could be a language issue:

In Spanish, "carne," which translates as "meat," can refer to both all meat, or to beef, a specific kind of meat. We discovered local speakers saying "meat" to refer specifically to "beef"—as in, "I'll have one meat empanada and two chicken empanadas."

[–] sangwich@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Spanish, "carne," which translates as "meat," can refer to both all meat, or to beef, a specific kind of meat. We discovered local speakers saying "meat" to refer specifically to "beef"—as in, "I'll have one meat empanada and two chicken empanadas.

Reminds me of where I grew up, we used “coke” to mean soda/pop. As in, want a coke? Which kind? Coca Cola, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, etc.

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I am assuming you're from the southern-ish US, and so am I. I've always thought that while it's true enough, there was more nuance to that trope than is given out. At least in my experience, using "Coke" like that wasn't an all-purpose term, exactly, but more of a social dance where the word does more work than it would elsewhere, but also retains its meaning as a specific product. This would be as opposed to something like Kleenex, where there is still an understanding that there's a brand with that name, but the sense of its being a generic synonym for tissue is much more important and "semantically compact," if you will.

Like, I don't think anyone would offer you a "Coke" if they didn't think that full-sugar Coca-Cola was one of their available options, and if you ask for a "Coke" you may well be planning to pick something else if they offer, but you're usually signifying, as a social grace, that you're willing to accept full-sugar Coca-Cola (and probably Pepsi) as an option if that is all they have or the other choices are not to your liking.

By asking for the regionally dominant product, you're showing that you know what's easy and normal, and that you're a part of the same regional culture and you don't intend to be difficult. I guess I've heard people say "what kind of coke do you/y'all have?" but even that is more just skipping a skip in the same type of interaction.

Or maybe I've just thought to much about this, and I'm trying to square a circle when no one asked.