Things you were shockingly old when you learned

To be fair, there's quite a few southern accents, not just white folks either

True enough. I've lived in Georgia long enough I can usually tell if someone is from there, or Virginia, Alabama or Mississippi. Some of the other states are a bit less distinct.

They speculate that the early settlers of the original 13 colonies probably sounded Irish (to our modern ears), but there's obv no recordings of them

xpost - yeah, I was watching some 'top model' show with my GF, and I'm like 'that woman is from Arkansas' and I was right

I'll take a Graham of your finest cocaine, good sir.

West Country/rural English is more likely than Irish.

I'll take a Graham of your finest cocaine, good sir.

LOL

What I mean is most people in the South of England in those days would have had accents that resembled West Country or Norfolk accents - though not any more.

interesting: This (early American) accent was rhotic, meaning the R's were heard as in "car" rather than "cah". The American accent today is known as rhotic, whereas the English accent is now non-rhotic.

Unless it's your cousin from Bahston.

Apparently we all sounded the same in 1750 but it was the ENGLISH that changed while Americans mostly stayed the same

Put that graham in you craig and smoke it

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65493/what-did-original-colonists-sound

americans saying Craig as Creg always sounds weird to me

I've lived in Georgia long enough I can usually tell if someone is from there, or Virginia, Alabama or Mississippi. Some of the other states are a bit less distinct.

I once guessed correctly that someone was from North Carolina triangle area because of their accent!

(my stepfather has it bigtime, "warsh" clothes instead of "wash" etc)

Xp
cr-AY-g. Australia pronounces it this way too. Maybe the g should be capitalized.

In the southern parts of the UK, Craig is pronounced to rhyme with plague. In Scotland broadly the same, but with the rhotic r?

Craig can rhyme with vague or with keg. The difference may be personal or regional or associated with a particular speech community.

I don't think it's a right/wrong thing, and it shouldn't be presented as such. Any more than skedjull / shedjull or RENaissance / reNAIssance.

Had no idea Americans pronounced Craig like keg. I once briefly lived with an American who said herbs the American way, without pronouncing the 'h', and for years I thought that was just a personal affectation of hers.

since we're here, how are these given names pronounced

niall ferguson (i know you're gonna say 'cunt', but i mean apart from that)
rian johnson

Where I'm from (NJ):

Craig = kreg
Graham = gram
aunt = ant
good morning/how are you = what's up, asshole?

I associate "warsh" for "wash" with the Midwest, because that is how my grandmother, from many generations IL/IN, pronounced it.

niall ferguson - "Ni-Yel Fer-gus-son" I cant even see how else you'd say it.
rian johnson - Ree-ann.

Oh wait I get it now, do some people say "Neil" for Niall? Am I wrong? lol.

Nigh-All

wash = 'worsh' used to be a thing in SW pennsylvania, eg I-70 and I-79 meet up in worshington

i used to think this sort of thing was fading away but then i met my mom's neighbor. she's a few years younger than me, and a grandmother, and kinda hot, and incredibly nice, and literally every single pittsburgh stereotype you could imagine wrapped into one. she's amazing

How bout them Stillers

i was worried that niall = neil

and that rian = ryan

but i'm relieved to hear otherwise

How bout them Stillers

oh, they're goin all the way

wait, Rian Johnson is pronounced Ryan, right?

"ree-ah-nuh"

Rhiaaaaaaaaaaa non

i was worried that niall = neil

It is? Or at least it should be, because that's the Irish pronunciation, compare with Niamh for instance - need gyac or darraghmac to confirm though. Anyway it's how the Niall in Niall Ferguson is pronounced.

wait, Rian Johnson is pronounced Ryan, right?

He pronounces his name as "Ryan" though I keep wanting to say "ree-ahn" like Rhian from Wet Leg.

It is? Or at least it should be, because that's the Irish pronunciation, compare with Niamh for instance - need gyac or darraghmac to confirm though. Anyway it's how the Niall in Niall Ferguson is pronounced.

Now seems to be an opportune moment to mention my all time most hated mispronunciation (I'm always going on about this, here and elsewhere): it's Auld Lang Syne NOT Auld Lang Zyne.

Which, coincidentally, is also my most hated song of all time.

Only interesting (probably not?) to UKers over a certain age, but:

In 1958 this all changed with the introduction of the STD system, standing for Subscriber Trunk Dialling, in which every city, town or rural area was allocated its own code and numbers could now be dialled directly. The codes were based on 0 followed by the numbers corresponding to the first two letters of the place on the phone dial. Therefore, for instance, Cardiff = CA = 22 = 022 and Newport = NE = 63 = 063, as per the standard circular rotary dial.

We had something similar in the US... for instance, my childhood phone number would have been Highland-36992 in the 50's, but by the late 60's the HI in Highland had become 44 (as it is on the dial/keypad)
You'll still see old signage with that old system, there's a liquor store in Redwood City that still has it painted on the back wall

^^^(But my town wasn't called Highland, I'm not sure where those old names came from)

Except for especially small towns, a given community would have had more than one central office, and thus more than one two-letter code. So, coukd be Highland was a later-disused name for a neighborhood, or some archaic local hero whose fame lingered into the 1940s but not beyond.

In the 1960s when the phone company began replacing the charming prefixes with a fully numeric system, a group called the Anti-Digit Dialing League was founded. This San Francisco group mounted a light-hearted campaign against the "dehumanization" of the telephone system through the elimination of prefix names.

I used to notice phone numbers on TV shows and movies in the old days were KLondike 5-xxxx. Later I learned 555 numbers weren't used for real numbers so they used them in movies/TV. At some point much later I realized KL is 55 on the dial.

btw, my land line also starts with 44, and it's referred to as Hilltop here.

i was worried that niall = neil

It is? Or at least it should be, because that's the Irish pronunciation, compare with Niamh for instance - need gyac or darraghmac to confirm though. Anyway it's how the Niall in Niall Ferguson is pronounced.

― John Donne In Concert (Tom D.), Thursday, 20 July 2023 06:40 (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

would always default niall to ny-al fwiw

if he was snippy about that id ask him where his fada was

Later I learned 555 numbers weren't used for real numbers

Did they carve out an exception just for this? Old shows always had 555 numbers and I never knew if they reserved that particular prefix just for fictional shit

(They used to always use obviously fake currency too... I recently found a newer "motion picture" $100 bill on the ground and flipped out, it looked so real from a distance)

I only found out a few years ago that the area codes in north america (three digit regional prefix before a seven digit phone number) were just allocated as they were needed and aren’t strictly geographical

I grew up in 515 (then central iowa) and was surprised that montreal is 514

They intentionally don't put similar area codes in the same region, to avoid confusion. "I know he lives in LA, was that 212 or 213 area code?"

I’ve just sung it a bit more in my head and realized I was singing Uncle Love actually. Had to look up the lyrics to Mr Briggs and now I remember- makes more sense with the new album tbh

I’ve realized shockingly late this isn’t the Blur thread, sorry

Most US area codes had either a zero or one as the middle number (for simplicity and easier memorization). 212, 202, 314, 703, 314, etc.

As numbers proliferate and overlays for mobile numbers proliferate that is changing.

But you can still see relic phone numbers from the days of GRamercy, etc. Pretty sure my home town's prefix originated in an alpha name, I just don't remember what it was.

In the 1970s and 1980s I spent time in towns small enough to not even need seven digits (let alone 10). You could talk to your middle-school girlfriend with five numbers. A time-saver because lots of phones were still rotary.

Coming from NJ, which has nine, I was shocked to learn that there's only one area code — 406 — for all of Montana.

xp As late as the 80s my aunt and uncle in rural Ireland had a two digit phone number in their town.

Most US area codes had either a zero or one as the middle number (for simplicity and easier memorization)

not most - all of them! it was built into the AT&T software because nobody ever thought they would need more

"Initially, states divided into multiple numbering plan areas were assigned area codes with the digit 1 in the second position, while areas that comprised entire states or provinces received codes with 0 as the middle digit. This rule was broken by the early 1950s,[22] as NPAs with digit 0 in the middle had to be split, but until 1995 all area codes assigned had none other than the digits 0 and 1 in this position"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan