Our is hour but harder, if I say it correctly If I say it like the mouth fumbler i am, our/hour/or/are/probably some more... All sound the same Vowels are hard mk
The more I try to figure out exactly how I pronounce very common words or sounds, the more I realize there often isn’t just one pronunciation. It’s extremely context-dependent, and I don’t just mean code switching. Where is the word in a sentence? How long is the sentence? What other words are nearby? How difficult do I think it will be to make myself heard? And that’s not even touching the emotion(s). If I’m raising my voice to catch someone’s attention, “It’s OWers!” Otoh, “We left ar car right in front of the hydrant.” The more effort/emphasis I’m putting specifically into that word, the more ow-er it seems to get. I guess that sort of makes sense since English slurs words together and uses vowel length for emphasis. A longer, more defined pronunciation means the word is relatively important.
I’ve been hyper aware of how much I slur sounds and rely on variable vowel length since I read a memorable example sentence in a German grammar book. Apparently in German you don’t eat eleven apples yesterday then do something like, “eiYAAYtuhlevunAAAPulseisderDaay” and call it a job well done. You might want to like, separate the words just a bit I guess.
(which is to say I have been known to squeeze an entire word sentence into three smushed up syllables on many an occasion)
way late answering this, but I was interested. My family doesn't have a set word for them, maybe "scraps" is most common, but I've personally called them scrapey-bits, trash bits, and sink snacks (for the garbage disposal to eat)
Huh. This isn’t a thing much discussed in my family. The only way extra food isn’t leftovers is if there’s a good reason it can’t be stored. You’d typically dish out what you think you can eat. If you overestimate, you put it in an airtight container, stick it in the fridge, and finish it later. Anything that didn’t get served goes in a communal container, and anyone can help themselves. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a serving. People like snacks, or you can combine or supplement small amounts of different foods to make a meal. If there’s so little food left that it’s not worth storing, it’s pretty much a dirty dish at that point. Things that can’t be stored for long, guacamole for instance, usually are not made in large amounts and get priority when eating so there won’t be leftovers or waste. If there’s still too much, it will still probably go in the fridge in case someone gets around to eating it before it turns. If the leftovers sit too long, it’s just spoiled food. That gets promptly tossed. If it’s something that’s inevitably going to get tossed because nobody would reasonably eat it, like if someone pulled the crust off their bread or something, then that’s table scraps or food waste. These terms are pretty much synonymous. It’s treated almost like farting in friendly but vaguely polite company. It definitely happens, and there’s nothing abnormal or shameful about it, but you try to be somewhat discreet. If you must generate food waste, you don’t make a production unless you feel it warrants a regretful remark, and other people don’t typically comment except to acknowledge regretful remarks. This applies less to pure plant matter, which goes in the garden compost and is not considered waste. We call it compost, or stuff for the compost.
At the summer camp I went to when I was a kid, they called food scraps "Ort." They weighed the uneaten food scraps from off the plates at the end of every meal, and one year when the campers were particularly bad about taking more food than they actually ate, the staff did a whole thing where the camp was attacked by the Ort Monster. :::PPP
I went to a summer camp with "Ort" once and for the life of me I cannot remember which summer camp it was.
This was a wildlife camp out in the middle of nowhere in eastern West Virginia. If that doesn't sound likely, maybe it's a widespread Summer Camp Thing.
I don't recall ever hearing it at summer camp, but I also went to camp in a very different region--a Christian camp* here in NorCal--so it could be that it didn't spread to my specific area? *I also went to a performing arts-type day camp as a smol, but that was a bring-your-own-lunch deal so I'm not counting it. I didn't hear it there either, in any case.
Today I learnt mangiacake, a word italian-canadian families use derogatorily (mostly about WASPs/ppl with 'no cultural heritage') is Canada only but somehow I can't believe that! Is that really true? I'm not Italian myself so I might be missing some context for it but I heard it all the time around my community... I would've thought with cultural drift that word would be continental but it doesn't seem to be. Broader question, are you guys aware of region specific insults?
I'm Scottish and therefore it's probably cheating for me to say yes, but yes, regional insults definitely a thing.
