[net.nlang] English Dialect, as seen by Americans

drg@rlvd.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) (05/04/85)

I know that the rules of the net say that differences in spelling etc should
not be flamed about, so I suppose that might apply to this as well, but...

I have been reading net.nlang with some interest for a while. The thing that
amuses me most about the aticles, is that most of the comments made about
English (as opposed to American!) colloquialisms (sp?) are made by
Americans. Although there is nothing wrong with this, it should be noted
that a great many Brits are unaware of some of the dialect usage which many
American contributors appear to be experts on. Some of them may even be so,
but so many examples recently show that there is confusion. For example, the
phrase "I'm going to surgery" is uncommon, and is unlikely to be used to
mean "I'm going to the doctor's". The common usage of "I'm going INTO
surgery" means going into the operating theatre, but a doctor may use it to
mean that he was going to work, just as a councillor or Member of Parliament
might. 

Many of the phrases discussed so far have subtle variations, most of which
have different meanings depending on the context. Please do not take such a
context dependent phrase and generalise about the rest!

drg@rlvd.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) (05/16/85)

I have been desperately trying to think of a way of explaining under what
circumstances a Brit from <fit the appropriate region here> might use "the
Monday" as in "I'll see you on the Monday". I have actually heard it used
many times but I don't think that I could link a specific region with it.
I think that it is quite widespread, but then, I could be wrong...

The trouble is that I know *intuitively* what it means, but I can't really
explain it! I think this applies to a great many of the phrases which have
been queried on the net, which may be one reason for the conflicting
replies, apart from the fact that a phrase may have a subtly different
meaning to different people from different areas.

I think that "the Monday" is used where a *specific* Monday is implied but
not stated. "I'll see you on Monday" just means next Monday, but "I'll see
you on *the* Monday" is used where the parties to the conversation know
something else, such as "I'll see you on the Monday [that I come back from
my holidays]" or something like that. That's how *I* would interpret/use it!

gilbert@hwcs.UUCP (Gilbert Cockton) (05/30/85)

In article <408@rlvd.UUCP> drg@rlvd.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) writes:
>
>I have been desperately trying to think of a way of explaining under what
>circumstances a Brit from <fit the appropriate region here> might use "the
>Monday" as in "I'll see you on the Monday". I have actually heard it used
>many times but I don't think that I could link a specific region with it.

>The trouble is that I know *intuitively* what it means, but I can't really
>explain it! I think that "the Monday" is used where a *specific* Monday is 
> implied but not stated.

 On Tyneside, an unstated specific day is intended:

	"He came on thi Monday" 
	"We went on thi Thorsday that week" 
	(the week is known by speaker and audience).

The problem may lie with the example which has a future tense and
thus to me makes the context of "the Monday" less certain.
Geordies do use "thi" (short `i')  for the immediate future, 
"A'll see yer thi morra" for "I'll see you tomorrow", but not for
more remote futures, where "this", "next", and "thi comin'" seem
to be preferred.