Беликова Е.К., Саратовская Л.Б. - The United Kingdom and United States of America in Past and Present (1268141), страница 33
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The major dialect areas,recognized in American English are Eastern New England, Western orMiddle American, and Southern Americans can easily identify a man as aNew Englander or a Southerner after hearing him say a few words. Thereare people who believe that the New England variety is a truly culturalform of speech, and there are many Southerners who are sure that theirway of speaking is the American best.The speech of New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont) ischaracterized by the retention of rounded vowel in words like ”hot” and“path” and flat a. The Connecticut River is an important regional dialectboundary, separating the r-less dialect of Boston from the other regions.Southern dialect is characterized by the loss of r finally before theconsonants and by the unrounded vowel (as in father, grass, dance, andpath). Instead of diphthong [aw] southerners pronounce sound [a] house,south, out.
Many speakers insert glide in Tuesday [tyua-] and make nodistinction between vowels in pin/pen. Final consonant cluster reductionoccurs in words like last and kept (these are pronounced something likelass and kep). People in the southern states speak with a drawl - they tendto speak slowly and lengthen the last sound of each word. They usecontracted Y’all for You all, expressions like “Howdy, y’all” for “Hello,everybody”. President Clinton, from Arkansas, had a southern accent.In New York City, especially in the boroughs outside Manhattan, manypeople speak so- called New Yorkese. Speakers of New Yorkese oftenspeak very fast and tend not to pronounce “r” in words that end in “er”.A word like “water’ sounds like “wata”.
The presence or absence of “r”has become class marker. The pronunciation of curl as coil and bird asboid is characteristic of working-class speech.The language which teenagers often like to use is strongly influencedby popular music and fashion. The immediate examples: Yinz, yunz,you’uns (plural you): Hey yoy, gues; My peoples = my parents; I were =I was; I didn’ have no money; there ain’t no sense= there is no sense;got’em=got them; gimme=give me; I ain’t got= I haven’t got;130oughtta=ought to; nigger gal= black girl; Whaddaya think she’s talkin’about? (What do you think she’s talking about?), wysi-wyg (what you seeis what you get)Black American or Afro-American Speech has also some peculiarities.One theory holds that this variety of American English developed fromso-called pidgin English – the language first used by black slaves ofdifferent African languages forced to communicate with each other andtheir owners.
Another view holds that Black English results from theretention of British English features that have not been retained in othervarieties of American English.American Vocabulary. One of the peculiarities of American English isthe usage of a number of medieval English words, which are no longerused in Britain today. When the earliest English colonists came toAmerica they were speaking English of the 17-th century.
The words fall(autumn), used by Shakespeare, and corn (which means in England anygrain, e.g. .wheat) are immediate examples. Some old English words havedeveloped new meanings. The very popular word sheriff, which meant inEngland or Wales a person appointed by the King to carry out ceremonialduties and in Scotland the senior judge, in America is applied to theperson who observes the law in the state.
The word guy (a boy, or a manin A.E. in informal use) came from the name of one of the most popularvillains in England Guy Fawkes who organized Gunpowder Plot againstKing James 1 in 1605.Here are a few examples of British and American words, meaning thesame phenomena or people:B.E.A.E.B.E.A. E.GovernmentSecuritiesBanknoteChairmanManagerMinisterMilliardLeaderOfferGuaranteeTo run a businessGoods trainLabelBiscuitsAdministrationbondsbank billpresidentexecutivesecretarybillioneditorialtenderwarrantyto operate businessfreight traintagcookiesGoods trainlabelsome time agochildrenpostform (at school)trama tina billa carpeta cara lorrytimetableintervalfreight traintaga way backkidsmailgradestreet cara cana checka ruga automobilea truckscheduleintermission131Secondary schoolBarrister/solicitorhigh schoolattorneytapsweetsfaucetcandyWhen your flight deplanes (B.E.-disembarks) in America, you take carryon (hand baggage), get a cart (trolley), stand in a line (queue) to receiveyour baggage (luggage) in the airport.
If you want to continue yourjourney by railroad (not railway- B.E.), you won’t buy your ticket at thebooking-office but at the ticket-window, and the man who sells it to you isnot the booking-clerk, but the ticket-agent. The train is already waitingand you get into a car or a sleeper (B.E. - a sleeping carriage). After yourjourney you get out on the track (platform) and take a cab ( a taxi) or goby subway ( tube, underground) to the hotel or American friend’s ofyours.
If you want to fix a meeting (to arrange a meeting) with the friend,it will be best to call him up (not to ring up). If you don’t have enoughchange you may use a collect call (B.E.- charge transferred).If your friend has an apartment (a flat) on the second floor (B.E.-firstfloor) or over, you take an elevator (lift) to come to him.
If he lives in ahouse, he may have a yard (a garden). In the house there is a living roomwith a dining area, a bedroom and a bathroom. There is a closet (B.E.“wardrobe”) in the bedroom; there are draperies (curtains) on thewindows, rugs (carpets) in all rooms. In the bathroom there is a tub (abath) and a faucet (taps).When an American goes out he may walk along a sidewalk, (pavement)to the downtown (to the center). He uses thecrosswalk (pedestrian crossing) to cross the street. Heputs gas (petrol) at a kitty-corner (diagonallyopposite) gas filling station into his automobile, thendrivers along a freeway (motorway), takes left ( turnsleft) and after about three miles he comes to theInterstate (the main motorway in the US connectingdifferent states).
The story can be continued on andon.The origin of many common American words and phrases is veryinteresting and peculiar. Here are some of them: Uncle Sam. That nameused to belong to an American man Samuel Wilson who marched in aparade in the style of dress that had been copied for the picture innewspaper drawings. Later this name became national personification ofthe USA, and sometimes more specifically of the American Government.Yankee This term was at first applied to the inhabitants of the Dutchcolonies in North America, especially to those who lived in New132Amsterdam, i.e.
New York. Dutch name Jan corresponds to English Johnand Kee may be the pet form of another typical Dutch name. Yankeebecame the designation of any inhabitant of New England, andsometimes of the whole United States.OK. The origin of the American word “okay” generally abbreviated totwo letters OK, is quite obscure.
One of the versions is that O.K.represents the initial letters of “all correct”. The establishment of the newword was reinforced by the use of the letters “O.K.” for signing officialdocuments during the Presidential term of general Andrew Jackson(1829-1837), who could not be called a well-educated person.Dollar. The word “dollar” comes from the name of coin used 400 yearsago .In 1516 silver coins began to be minted in a mine near a smallvillage, called Joachimstal, in Bohemia.
The coin was called a“joahimstaler”, after the village name, or “taler” for short. When thetalers were brought to the Netherlands they were used as “daler”. TheEnglish borrowed the Dutch form “daler” and began to spell it “dollar”.The dollar had been the currency of Germany and Spain for over twocenturies before it became American. Thomas Jefferson proposed that theSpanish dollar would be the unit of currency, thus helping America tobecome independent of the British pound sterling after the war forindependence.The California Gold Rush in the late 19th century gave rise to many newwords, transforming the meanings of the original ones.Bonanza The modern usage of the word “bonanza” is a figurativeextension of its original one as “a very productive mine”, which is itself adirect borrowing from Spanish (meaning “prosperity” or “success”).Nowadays, it denotes something that is prospering quickly, bringing goodluck and wealth.
One of the long-running American TV series Bonanzaportrayed a family of men working on their enormous Nevada ranch. Thefilm reminded the viewers of the farms and ranches in the late 19PthPcentury,, testifying to the figurative usage of the original word.To Pan out. This expression meant a method for obtaining the gold byfilling a pan with the ore and gently washing away the soil and gravel,leaving the heavier gold at the bottom of the pan.
The expression wasfiguratively broadened to the meaning “ to get success”.The new ways of life and characters of 20-21 centuries brought a lot ofnew words and coinages “Disk jockey”, “natural” (something verysuitable), “show business”, “star” (popular performer), baby-sitter,133basketball, chewing gum, credit card, home-made, know-how and so onare all originally from the American usage of the world of business,entertainment and technology.
Many of the new American words arebased on old grammar processes of compounding existing words, as in“boyfriend, bookstore, brainstorm ballfrog, supermarket, heliport(helicopter + airport), motel(motor+ hotel), docusoap (documentary +soap opera), breathalyzer (breath + analyze), fly-drive holiday (to travelby plan and a car”). American English also tends to coin and use morefreely nouns compounded from a verb and a preposition, such as“blowout, checkup, fallout, etc.
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