Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Lancastrianisms
Are almost impossible to express through text, it's all about the accent and delivery, and I'm not very adept at phonetic approximations. It helps if you know that my family lived in Lancaster (England, not Pennsylvania) from the time my sister was 6 months to 9 years old, so she had a pretty strong vernacular built up. Most of the Lancastrianisms are really little in-jokes in my family, referring to stories told by my parents about time they spent living in there. They take too much explanation to be funny. The most transferable one is when my sister had been told several times by my father to clean up her mess from some 6-year-old art project or other, and he kept noticing that she had NOT cleaned up at all. So. After the final warning had been given, it was time to check on her progress. He walked very slowly and theatrically down the hall, making his steps clearly heard to give her a chance to hear him and start to tidy up. He found: a perfectly tidy kitchen. With my sister sitting at the table. She looked up at him and said "was you stampin' about the house thinkin' I hadn't doone it?".
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4 comments:
Well, Britain's having its wettest and coldest summer for XXX years, so pack a cardie!
It really is wet and cold. Think March.
I am laughing at your sister. And imagining a 6-year-old innocent/self-righteous expression to go with the delivery...
So is the South of Europe expiring in a heat wave while you're getting cold and soggy? My parents have been commenting on what a miserable summer it's been so far.
I suppose it's not such a joke now when I say to Matt that we'd better go live over there before global warming knocks out the Jet Stream and the UK becomes much colder and wetter all the time (and my parent's house gets submerged).
Our kittens must have read your comment about black cats being characterful because they were very very lively this morning. Cute. But very characterful.
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