Re: Brain Malfunction/alan
this is pretty amazing , alan! maybe it's because the "f" in of, comes after a vowel and the brain is so eager to recognize it only where it is more prominent, as in capitalized.
--modified by kathy at Sat, Jan 26, 2002, 03:10:58
Re: Brain Malfunction
also when i look at this, "of" registers in my brain as " uhv" , the way it is pronounced. am i the only one who finds this worthy of commenting on and interesting?
Re: Brain Malfunction
Because I knew it was a trick question I found six before I scrolled down. I first counted 3, then said to myself that can't be the right answer because it is too easy. Then I saw the f's in of. I'm weird. I "got" the movie the Sixth Sense from the beginning and was not surprised by the ending and the same thing happened when I went to see A Beautiful Mind yesterday. I've worked with psychotic patients and I also think like a writer. It is very hard for me to find a book or movie that I don't know the plot and ending already.
I can only go watch movies in stadium seat theaters on the top row and with sunglasses on with my head back. The movies can't be action movies either. Really weird, huh? I see very few movies until they come out on video, but I just can't wait to see movies that are suppose to be hard to figure out or about something mysterious. By the way, I can't spell or pronounce words worth a flip. I use to think that made me dumb, even though I always excelled in school. I can't spell out loud even worse, so I had panic attacks at spelling bee's. If you could hear the way my kin folks talk, especially my Dad, you would wonder if it is not another language. I'm trying to do a dictionary of words before they are lost for all time.
--modified by Delaine Inman at Sun, Jan 27, 2002, 10:26:02
Re: Brain Malfunction/delaine
i also have been frequently able to determine the outcome of things you are describing. this was always accompanied by a question of why others didn't know this and also a feeling of disappointment because there couldn't be that surprise for me.
i think your dictionary is a great idea. different regional dialects are very interesting and it's amazing what people don't understand just by the language being used. i'm always learning new words or expressions i have never heard before. i had a great interest in linguistics at one time.
Re: Dictionary
Delaine, I sure hope you do complete the dictionary. Will it be a "Red Neck Dictionary?" I want to purchase one when finished. We lived in the South four months early in our marriage and there were so many terms that were new to me. One that really threw me was when a fellow worker asked if he could "carry" me home. I couldn't figure that out, as I hadn't been injured. Finally got it sorted out and let him know that I had a car.So many regional dialects and expressions are going to be lost as we become more and more homogenized in this country. It's too bad. Spelling ... Spelling bees were the only thing I was ever chosen first for; everything else, I was last!!! Sally in North Idaho, waiting to read Delaine's dictionary.
Dictionary/nuttier than a fruit cake& crazy as a jaybird
Yeah I reckon I've been a carried home many a time, cuz I had too many things to tote in my polk and I was much abliged to 'em. I should a knowed better and a had em put it in a toesack in the first place. I ain't never gonna git above my razin and be shamed of my kin folk and the way they talked. If ever I did, I'd be 'cused of gittin' high falutin and too big fer my britches and my Daddy more an likely would give me a whuppin shor nough to bring me down a notch or two and rightly so. Hit never would be a good i'dee to be a puttin on airs. I recollect some folks gonnin off somers to git schoolin and comin back talkin real proper and actin well to do. Make you pert neart wanna throw up. Can't never tell how some folks gonna change after they been gal a vantin around with them there city folk. I guess they don't git nough fresh air in them places and it's been too long since they got their hands good and dirty. I've had a right smart a learnin, but I feel tobble good about where I cum from up in the holler of the Tennessee hills. Ya'll come see me some time and I'll cook you up a mess of salit, arsh taters and a pone of corn bread. You'll get yore belly full as a tick, but I won't let you founder. I jest live down the road a piece. Turn at the Laffaty place and drive until the gravel road runs out. The creak ain't sa deep that ya can't git across it. The weather's been the beatinness thing. We had a killin frost the other night then it rained cats and dogs and the back water wuz up the next day. It's out of the holler field now. So come on down when ever ya feel up to it. Sorry to hear ya been feelin poorly. Hope you'll be struttin like a banny rooster soon. I'm a fixin to go to bed now or I'm gonna be ill as a hornet come mornin. I've been sittin here a spell and I've been aimin to git up earlier than I did yisterde. The sun was done up when I woked up this mornin and half the day was done gone. Lord willin, we'll see one tanother soon and that'll jest tickle me to death. Bye now. Delaine
Re: Southern Gal
Ya shore did git me to thinkin' bout my dear sister-in-law, Lila, born and raised in Memphis, livin' in Mississippi when she died tragically at a young age of cancer. Lila used to love to come and visit us, because she never did see snow before. I miss her - she was the most laid-back person I ever knew! Mary
Re: /nuttier than a fruit cake& crazy as a jaybird
Loved it, Delaine!!! You made my day. I absolutely thrive on listening or reading "Southern talk." A lot of the phrases and wordings that you used are common here, also. Maybe we're from the backwoods, too. How come, though, you don't say "cain't?"I'll amble out to your spread (cowboy talk) soon, the good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise. Sally in North Idaho, where we're often told not to get too high falutin' or put on airs. Here on the rez, we're referred to as Honkies (non-Indians).
nuttier than a fruit cake,
Aw shucks, Sally, I don't rightly know and cain't recollect or thank uf no cuses. Hit jest may cum ta me druckly. My mine is a slippin and I ain't no sprang chicken no more. Much obliged fur brangin hit up. We may be cut frum the same cloth cuz we shore seem ta be 2 peas in a pod .
Cuzin Delaine
--modified by Delaine Inman at Wed, Jan 30, 2002, 21:27:53
Re: /nuttier than a fruit cake& crazy as a jaybird
I don't recollect why I didn't spell it that way. I do say cain't. We're cut frum thu same cloth and thank lak 2 peas in a pod.
Re: Dictionary/nuttier than a fruit cake
Delaine, That was great. what does polk and tobble and toesack, mean. I never knew anyone who spoke like that. I love it. Maybe one day god willing we will meet.
Cindy in California
Re: Dictionary/nuttier than a fruit cake
Well I orta make ya wate fur thu dictionary ta cum out. Seeins how ya cain't and yore my friend I'll tell ya.
Polk is a paper sack. Tobble means "I feel pretty good or a little better." Toesack is a burlap bag that held feed. They were kept and used for many things including clothing and storage or sacks for the children to pick cotton. I have picked cotton in a toesack with a strap sewn on it. I got paid 3 cents a pound for the cotton I picked.
Re: Dictionary/nuttier than a fruit cake
I think tobble must come from "tolerable". I've heard it most of my life and that is how I understand it in context.Virginia in AL, who understands just about all of the "Tennessee speak", cause it's not so different here in the valley than it is in those hills.
Re: Dictionary
Wisconsin----"Throw the dog down the stairs some meat."
"Get off the bus when it bends the corner twice."
Michigan===="Come by my house and whistle me out so my mother will see who I hang by."------My personal favorite.
All these are very old and may be out of use now.
Don't you dare make fun of the south young'un. Ann D. from KY
--modified by Ann Doyle at Tue, Jan 29, 2002, 14:01:34
Re: Dictionary
I'd never make fun of the South. I've always thought I was really a Scarlett O'Hara person put in the wrong setting!!!Sally in North Idaho
Re: Dictionary
Hi Ann,I have really been enjoying the discussion about regional expressions. I understand the bus bending the corners and whistle me out but
"Throw the dog down the stairs some meat" has me wondering. . . are we going to throw some meat downstairs for the dog or throw the dog down the stairs for some meat? My two dogs would be horrified if they thought it was the latter! :) Squirmmy1
Re: Brain Malfunction
Delaine, you really are weird. You go to the movies to eat the popcorn, not watch the screen. Not only that, you spelled "weird" right when most people memorized-----i before e. except after c. or when sounded like "a" as is neighbor and weigh but how many people know the exceptions? The weird foreigner seizes neither leisure nor___________________________??????at it's height. Doe's anyone remember the other word? I'm another non-speller whose head is full of odd stuff right or wrong like the above. Ann Doyle
Re: Brain Malfunction
Lord how mercy I know I'm weird and I never meant no harm to the South or any of my kin folk. I got carried away, sorry. I do realize it is a dying dialect and I find that sad right down to my roots. I couldn't be prouder to be a redneck.
Re: Brain Malfunction
Delaine, I understood every word you said. When I was little my Daddy used to say, "Yall kids done made a lob lobby mess" and I never understood what he meant except we were "messing up" the house. Years later when I was a school secretary a Forest Ranger came in and wanted to plant some Lob Lobby Pine trees. I asked him why it was called a lob lobby pine, he said it shed its needles making a mess under the tree. That is when I finally understood what my Daddy meant. Some of the expressions our parents and grandparents used did have some logic behind them. There is one expression my mother used that I would never dare to tell. It was x-rated but just the mental picture of imagining what she said would make you laught. Joyce in NC who is very southern and bye the way I went to a "flea market" this morning and bought lots of goodies. We did our share of walking, it covered about 2-3 acres.
Re: Curiosity???
Curiosity about the saying is getting the better of me!!!Sally in Idaho who is supposed to be going out for lunch four miles from here, and who does not look forward to driving as it is beginning to snow.
Re: Curiosity???
I've really been enjoying the Southern dialect subject. Delaine's post brought back many memories of my Dad. My family is from S. Missour and many of them still live there.
Evelyn
Re: Curiosity???
Delaine I loved it.I am from Southern Illinois and heard my folks
say some of the same things.
I went to ST, louis today for my shots when we left the hospital it was pouring rain the traffic was just awful.It took us 40minutes to go
4miles.
I would rather be a hillbilly than go though that every day.
Colleen in IL who goes to the store over yonder on the slab.
Re: Brain Malfunction
Alan:Leave it to you to find another way that our brains can malfunction! Right! I only saw three. Thanks for the snow. Grandkids coming from Okinawa Saturday and have ordered flakes to play in. Judy
Re: Brain Malfunction
Even though I tried to keep in mind it was a trick, I still only counted 3. Really glad to see that I'm normal though!Carol Brown, Naselle, WA, where it is really snowing here right now.
Re: Brain Malfunction
I only counted 3 - there goes that 3.9 GPA in college! I'll have to have my 1st grader look at it when she gets home from school and see how many she counts.Kelly in Dallas - 60 degrees again today
Re: Brain Malfunction
I saw this a few days before you posted it. I thought that it was interesting and glad that you posted it. I got the usual standard of three even though I knew that there was a "trick" to it as it was so obvious. I had sent it off to both my sons and the younger one counted 4 (I really don't understand why someone would get four) and I haven't heard back from the one that has the "genius" IQ. He is probably embarrassed.Shirley in Arkansas
Re: Brain Malfunction
I don't usually have problems with stuff like this. Yes, I found all 6. I've spent too many years proofreading, so I shift into that mode fairly easily. Has nothing to do with "genius" or IQ. More to do with being picky about details.But I don't think it is really a malfunction. I just think it's a shortcut that our brains take to process things more quickly and easily. How important is it really to notice every letter ordinarily? Virginia in AL, loving this warm weather - as long as we don't have tornados when the next cold front comes through.
Re: Brain Malfunction
Well, I feel a little foolish. I spent most of my career proofreading also, but I only got three. I think I've been retired too long! My husband got four.Carol in Naselle, WA, where we have lots of snow.
Re: Brain Malfunction
I got 6 but only because I am having a double vision day. Once the "of"s were pointed out to me , I saw 12. Doe's that make me a super genious? Ann Doyle
--modified by Ann Doyle at Tue, Jan 29, 2002, 18:03:33
|