(September 10, 2023 at 7:33 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: You'd have to go house-to-house, lol. I think the widest agreement you could find would come at the regional dialectic boundaries. If you applied a translation you could maybe combine a few. The way we use language impacts how we communicate the most basic elements of our identities.
eg, a "real man" says yall. Not you all. Not y'all. Yall. That's splitting it up east of the miss, south of the kentucky (fuck you ohio). I, as a "real man" can have a reasonable expectation of saying that word and being understood in-kind so long as I use it within that region, roughly delineated by major rivers, mountain ranges, and the atlantic ocean. If (and when) I go to boston, as an example, my "real man"-ness is only that insomuch as it's expressed as a fetish and recognized other. I would know exactly what kind of bar to go to, to find the kind of girl saying the same thing, using those words. We can make an even finer cut if we use texas. Between boston and texas - and again referencing fetish seeking - I'm basically looking for a place with a country jukebox both ways - the difference being cowboy hats or baseball caps. Subtlely different ideas about manhood roughly map to type-shift even within the southern dialect.
I say "yall" but type "y'all", because I like the English language more than I care about some jackass's opinion of me. And folks in California don't seem to mind.
