When I listen to movies from the 1930, it seems that everyone speaks with a kind of New York accent...

...maybe they did, or, at least, pretended to.

//New York City English is a remarkable dialect in about a dozen different ways. “If we look around the world for the national standard dialect, most people believe that the national standard is the clearest variety,” says Michael Newman, a linguist at Queens College and the author of New York City English. “But that's not the case; it's based on the most prestigious speakers. In France, upper-class Parisian is the norm. In England, it's upper-class London and the northern areas.”

Given that, the standard American dialect should be New York; newscasters in Ohio should be trying to sound like Bernie Sanders. But of course they aren’t. Standard American English dialect is “vaguely Midwestern-sounding,” says Newman. It wasn’t always this way. The old New York accent, sported by FDR, among others, was well on its way to becoming the national standard. This accent, now basically extinct, has hardly anything in common with the modern New York accent. The old accent is often referenced by one strange transition: the “er” sound became “oy,” so New Yorkers could talk about the corner of Thoity-Thoid Street and Thoid Avenue.//

Retronyms

Retronyms are the words invented for "old things" when the word previously used for that thing has become identified with "new things."  Mental Floss explains:

In 1980, Frank Mankiewicz—then president of National Public Radio—coined the word "retronym," for a term specifying the original meaning of word after a newer meaning has overtaken it. The term was popularized by New York Times “On Language” columnist William Safire in a 1992 column, where the writer wondered what people would call “regular mail” after the advent of email (snails didn’t come up). Retronyms had been used long before 1980, though; here are a few of them.

So, "quill pens" were once simply "pens" and "silent films" were "films." No one needed to speak of "land lines" before cellular phones. In 1860, "live music" would have been an oxymoron.

What will be the "retronym" for that kind of marriage between a husband and wife?

Cool Stuff.

A tour of accents in the British Isles.

Questions that may have bothered you.

In 1776, did Americans have British accents?

The answer is, "yes," but 18th Century Englishmen sounded more like modern Americans than they sounded like modern Englishmen.

I had a linguistics professor who pointed out that the British accent of Cornwallis' era would have sounded like a modern American from Virginia or Tennessee.

I've had the experience and now I have a word to describe it....

...particularly over near my daughter's ice skating rink over near Highway 99 and the motel district, where crystal meth using 20 year old women appear to be a not insignificant part of the demographics.

13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)


The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.

*Shudder*

From Mental Floss's "15 Wonderful Words with no English Equivalent."

Gumusservi, the Turkish word for "moonlight shining on water" is nice.

Like finding the "lost world."

This video discusses a University of Cambridge linguist who is studying the "Romeyka" language.  Romeyka is spoken by about 5,000 villagers in the Black Sea regions of Turkey and is apparently a form of Greek that preserves the linguistic structure of classical Greece.  These Greek speakers were allowed to remain in Turkey because they were Muslim.  The term "romeyka" is hold-over from the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire, which styled itself as the "Roman Empire."



This article describes Romeyka's interesting archaicisms:

Linguists found that the dialect, Romeyka, a variety of Pontic Greek, has structural similarities to ancient Greek that are not observed in other forms of the language spoken today. Romeyka's vocabulary also has parallels with the ancient language.


Ioanna Sitaridou, a lecturer in romance philology at the University of Cambridge, said: "Romeyka preserves an impressive number of grammatical traits that add an ancient Greek flavour to the dialect's structure, traits that have been completely lost from other modern Greek varieties.

"Use of the infinitive has been lost in all other Greek dialects known today – so speakers of Modern Greek would say 'I wasn't able that I go' instead of 'I wasn't able to go'. But, in Romeyka, not only is the infinitive preserved, but we also find quirky infinitival constructions that have never been observed before – only in the Romance languages are there parallel constructions."

The villagers who speak Romeyka, which has no written form, show other signs of geographic and cultural isolation. They rarely marry outside their own community and they play a folk music on a special instrument, called a kemenje in Turkish and Romeyka or lyra as it is called in Greek, Dr Sitaridou said. "I only know of one man who married outside his own village," she said. "The music is distinctive and cannot be mistaken for anything else. It is clearly unique to the speakers of Romeyka."

Civility.

At Theology for Dummies, the latest kerfuffle involves "civility" and whether it is obscene to call someone a "silly ass."

On the former, there is this interesting call for balance by Msgr. Charles Pope.  After citing some seemingly intemperate language by Christ and the Apostles, Msgr. Pope observes:

Now, most of the passages above would violate modern norms about civil discourse. Are they sinful? They are God’s word! And yet, they seem rather shocking to modern ears. Imagine getting into your time machine and going to hear Jesus denounce the crowds and calling them children of the devil. It really blows a 21 Century mind


I want to suggest to you that these sorts of quotes go a long way to illustrate the cultural dimension of what it means to be civil. The bottom line is that there is a great deal of variability in what people consider civil discourse. In some cultures there is a greater tolerance for anger. I remember dating an Italian girl for a brief time back in college. I remember being at her house and how she and her mother could really go at it with a heated debate (usually in Italian – Mama Mia!). But no sooner had they very intensely argued over some particular point, say of preparing the meal, than they were just fine, as if nothing had happened. Angry discourse was more “normal” for them.Even in this country there are regional differences about civility. In New York and Boston, edgy comments and passionate interruptive debate are common. But in the upper Midwest and parts of the Deep South conversation is more gentle and reserved.

At the time of Jesus angry discourse was apparently quite “normal” for, as we see, Jesus himself engages in a lot of it, even calling them names like, “Hypocrites.” “Brood of Vipers,” “Liars,” “Wicked” etc. Yet, the same scriptures that record these facts about Jesus also teach that he never sinned. Hence, at that time such terms were not considered sinful to utter.

Jesus also engaged in prophetic actions like overturning the tables in the temple courts. No one said he’d done wrong, they just wondered where he got the authority to do this (cf Mark 11:28). In that culture prophets did things like this. No one liked it, but just like our culture tolerates some degree of civil disobedience, even reveres it, Jesus’ culture expected things like this from prophets.

Careful -Now be careful here. I am not saying it is OK for us to talk like this because Jesus did. We do not live then, we live now, and in our culture such dialogue is almost never acceptable. There ARE cultural norms we have to respect to remain in the realm of Charity. Exactly how to define civility in every instance is not always clear. An old answer to these hard to define things is “I know when I see it.” So perhaps it is more art than science to define civility. But clearly, we tend today, to prefer a gentler discourse.

On the other hand we also tend to be a little thin-skinned and hyper-sensitive. And the paradoxical result of insisting on greater civility is that we are so easily “outraged” (one of the more overused words in English today). We take offense where none is intended and we easily presume that the very act of disagreeing is somehow arrogant, intentionally hurtful or even hateful. We seem so easily provoked and quick to be offended. All of this escalates anger further and charges of hate and intolerance go back and forth where there is simply sincere disagreement.

Balance - The Scriptures give us two balanced reminders. First that we should speak the truth in love, and with compassion and understanding. But it also portrays to us a time when people had thicker skin and were less hyper-sensitive and anxious in the presence of disagreement. We can learn from both biblical traditions. The biblical formula seems to be “clarity” with “charity,” the truth with a balance of toughness and tenderness. Perhaps an old saying comes to mind: Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.

As for the latter, we have to remember that the use of the term "ass" comes from "asinine" which has nothing to do with the body part [or, in light of the way that "asinine" is spelled, the animal, although some etymological sources do make that connection.]

Asinine and "ass" as in the term "silly ass" - to disappoint the thin-skinned people described by Msgr. Pope derive from the perfectly non-obscene Greek word "synesis."  "Synesis" means "the habit of right judgment." The contrary of synesis is "asynesis." (See Aquinas Commentary on the Nichomachean Ethics, Book 6, Lecture IX.)   People who lack the habit of right judgment, i.e., people who make poor and foolish judgments are described as "asynetos," or in English "asinine" from which we derive terms like "ass" and "silly ass."

You can see this etymology in Charles Dickens' classic use of the the phrase "the law is a ass - an idiot" by Mr. Bumbles in Oliver Twist.  Bumples properly correlates "ass" with "idiot" which connotes "asinine" - one "s" - not the body part, which would be "arse", or the animal.

The tendency we thin-skinned moderns have to associate "asinine" with the body part reflects our linguistic tendency to break words down to similar sounding roots - "eggcorns" - and then conjugate from those roots, whether they are imagined or real.  Although it may be better characterized as a collision between "folk etymology" and "back formation."

In any event, "asinine," like the word "niggardly," has nothing to do with the faux-roots that cause such controversy among thin-skinned moderns.