Regional variation in words

My inclination for the "bless your heart" has always been that it's intended as a "because you're going to need it" kind of feeling, hence that evolved usage.

 

My friend moved to rural TN from Chicago and had no idea what bless your heart meant, but every time she asked we'd all just go "oh, bless your heart" as an answer.

 

I've only ever used it to refer to one specific species of wasp! (also I spell it "yellowjacket.") like, I went and looked at the Wikipedia page for the different species people call "yellowjackets," and the ones I'm talking about are Vespula maculifrons. like this guy:

the pictures of all the other species looked off, and I don't think I'd call them yellowjackets.

this is pretty hilarious to me, because around here (Delaware/southern Pennsylvania) "camp" exclusively refers to "summer camp," which can refer to any kind of organized program or activity kids do in the summer to keep out of their parents' way when they're not in school but in its purest sense means the kind of camp where you go live in cabins in the woods for a couple weeks with counselors (young adults, usually, who're supposed to guide activities and keep you safe or whatever) and run around outside and learn archery and shit. we also call those "sleepaway camps." I'd call a secondary house owned by rich people where they go to like "get away from it all" a vacation home or maybe vacation house. and vacation homes near beaches (specifically so that you can access the beach) are beachhouses.

one of the Britishisms I find consistently hilarious is "revising." my understanding is that in the UK it refers to going back over previously-learned material, usually to prepare for a test or exam. but where I'm from we call that "reviewing," and revising is the process of changing a paper, essay, story, etc. to improve it (i.e., editing.) language is weird!

 

oh same! i'm not actually from thunder bay, so i have to translate "camp" to "cottage". its like, what your whole family went to summer camp together? (shit i can't get out of this formatting i'm on mobile, save me awkward thunder bay regional slang)

 

Regional slang that has caused a bit of confusion on tumblr: snowbirds.

Snowbirds are a specific type of Northern tourist, typically middle aged to elderly, upper middle class, able to buy or rent vacation property, well known for being dogshit at driving and cruel, racist assholes to service people. Almost always white, usually from Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, or upstate New York. Everyone in Florida hates them. So when someone's talking about snowbird seasons or 'fucking snowbirds', we're talking about a specific group of tourists who drive down for the winter to fuck up the roads.

 

@jacktrash i skipped the quote, thinking you were quoting @PRelations, and thought you were discussing taking white tourists (who may or may not be pieces of work, and who have also gone to MN for the winter for some reason) to the lake. possibly to drop them in.

needless to say i was confused.

 

Listen, don't act like you're the victim, you probably started the whole thing by doing something horribly offensive, like existing within several feet of him.

(Seriously, what are these guys always so mad about?)

 

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that god's got a sick sense of humour.

Anyway, I have my own yellow jacket story. I was about, oh, ten? Or so. And we're at this outdoor suburban festival thing that suburbs do so they can say something actually happens there (whatever, guys), well, I was bored as piss right, so I'm hanging back while my SC and his wife are watching Irish step dancers or something, and I'm under this little garden trellis gate. I look up. There's a little bell hanging on the gate! I'm interested. Because I am ten and I need to touch everything around me. I ring the bell. There is no sound! Huh. I look down, vaguely disappointed.

Some seconds later I let out a horrendous yell, and they look back to see me doing my best impression of a ferret deep in the throes of a wardance. The bell made no sound for a reason: It was full of motherfucking wasps, who were disturbed from their midday slumber by a kid with idle hands. Was full of wasps. The bell-wasps are now on my lip, stinging the actual fuck out of it. How the hell they knew to go for the lip, no idea. The EMTs were probably laughing internally as they swabbed my now enormously swollen lip and happily, we left the festival before it was even dinner time.

Tl;dr: Kielbasa lip.

 

God didn't, they created themselves out of pure fury.

 

Yeah in elementary we were taught exactly what a yellowjacket (it feels weird to smash the words together, and this dumb tablet keeps auto seperating) looked like in comparison to a regular wasp or bee, because if it wasn't a yellowjacket you stood still as not to attract attention and spook it, and if it was you ran.

 

@esotericPrognosticator Oh my god, now I know why the teachers in Austria kept saying revise when I would mean review!

So... an interesting thing I guess, in Austria they kept calling the projector a beamer? And it's like... No, no one calls it a beamer, you guys are being weird with your English. I even asked a couple of British friends if they called it that at home.

Also I'm in a sociolinguistics class right now and the teacher brought up the regional soda/pop/Coke thing for the US. I'll accept everything except Coke being used as a generic because I'm sorry but... I'd like a Coke? What kind do you want? I... I said Coke. That's the thing. That's the name brand thing. But you can say you want a Coke and then say you want a Sprite but they're not the same thing at all! Like at least generic Kleenex there isn't some big class of tissues where it makes a difference like with all the flavors of soda there are. (Okay, I'll stop rambling about Coke and people can feel free to make fun of me for not liking generic Coke).

 

That's what it's called in Dutch too ;) I think that must be what they call it in Austrian German as well, and it sounds English enough that they assume it's correct in English as well.

 

@Emma That's cool. And sounds about right. False cognates and loan words and stuff make things complicated and sometimes you just shrug and say close enough :)

 

Fun things happen when regions mix partways. I have a friend who is a purely southern girl, bakes biscuits for breakfast and everything, who went to England for most of college and picked up the curse "bloody hell," which in a strong southern accent sounds more like "bluddy he-ull."
Have another friend who plays an elf during a Christmas event I worked at last winter, and for some reason Christmas elves have British accents. This guy was still southern to his core, and every once in a while would slip up and say "Have a great time y'all" in an English accent