Wednesday, March 6, 2013

National Grammar Day

The 4th of March was National Grammar Day (in the United States at least), and so I thought I would honour the occasion by talking a little about grammar.

Grammar is a slightly misunderstood concept in that it means different things to different people. To an average person, and indeed many books on the use of language, grammar mainly refers to spelling and punctuation. To linguists, however, it is a set of rules that governs how natural languages are structured and composed by native speakers.

I'm sure most of the people reading this have a memory of school English lessons where they were told about the use of "bad grammar" and, no doubt, reprimanded for it. This idea of "bad grammar" finds its roots in what is known as prescriptive grammar or a prescriptive approach to language. The term prescriptive refers to a way of looking at, and subsequently teaching, grammar that assumes that one particular type of grammar is superior to others and therefore should be aspired to.

The problem with this kind of prescriptive approach is that it does not represent real spoken language; the kind of language that you and I speak every day. We have to look to descriptive grammar for that.

Descriptive grammar, as the name suggests, attempts to describe the grammar of the language as it is used by native speakers, rather than attempting to determine a particular way of forming clauses and sentences according to rules that don't necessarily apply to the language use in question.

The Warrington dialect, just as any other dialect, is not Standard English. We have our own words, our own pronunciations, and indeed, our own grammar. And more importantly, the way we speak is not wrong or bad style, it simply has slightly different rules than the standard, and for that matter slightly different rules than other dialects. But, and this is the important part, there are rules! You cannot just say whatever, and call it grammatical.

Here are a few examples of Warrington grammar that are in every-day use, although you might not have noticed them:


Use of the past participle in place of the imperfect (past) tense:
  • I run to t'bus this mornin' (I run to the bus this morning)
as opposed to the standard "I ran to the bus this morning."


Use of the imperfect tense in place of the perfect tense ("have done" something)
  • 'ave y'et yer tea yet (Have you ate your tea yet?)
as opposed to the standard "Have you eaten your tea yet?"


Also with the imperative (giving an order)
  • Gerrit et! (Get it ate!)
as opposed to the standard, "Eat it!"


We also use stative constructions in place of active present/past continuous verb forms (linguist-speak for the following):

  • I am sat / I was sat
as opposed to the standard, "I am sitting" / "I was sitting".

However, this only works with certain stative verbs. As I said, you cannot simply say anything you like and call it grammatical (the asterix always denotes an ungrammatical example):

  • *I am ran / *I was ran
  • *I am ate/eaten / *I was ate/eaten

Spotting these features of a dialect can be tricky if you are not used to thinking about language in a particularly analytical way. But I would encourage everyone in Warrington to analyse the speech they hear around them every day. Especially if someone says something that you were told in school was wrong or bad grammar. It isn't necessarily, it's just the dialect obeying its own rules.

Does anyone have any pet hates that they think are just bad grammar?

Post them here or on the Facebook page, and we can analyse them together :-)
Wirelector





15 comments:

  1. Grammar,
    I found your comments concerning grammar very interesting.My dad told me "You have had an elementary education,he was quite right.However,that does not stop me from trying to improve matters.I would value your comments on the following common statements:
    Did ya not.canya not, wilya not,as-e-not,did it not, and there are more as you know.As all for the most part are questions,could you give me your thoughts on inserting Not at the end of such questions and is part of the northern dialect. It also brings to mind other statements such as, E,asn't az,e. she asn't gorrit as she. questions if I'm not mistaken.
    I do not use facebook by the way

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    1. It is interesting. I never say "Did yer not". I would say "Didnt yer?". Sometimes I hear "Did yer not" but said more in anger or as a pointed question,as Did yer not see who did it?"
      "Easn't az,e"etc: I would think they are questions. Do you think it makes any difference how they are said?

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    2. The more I think about these things the more interesting they become.
      Imaginary conversation;1. Frank asn't brought any nails fut job! Jack; Azee not? Eee, wara palarva.
      2.Theez nails iz 6" could ya NOT see they wuz too big,Eee,its like Fred Carno's ere.
      Fred Carno's,common in Warrington at one time meaning a job or company where confusion is the order of the day. I,m not sure about the real meaning of Palarva,but i still hear it used from time to time when things are not going too well.
      D'ya NOT think its interesting?

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    3. Really interesting and you have set it all out nice (oooops):-)

      I dont have many pet hates in our dialect but some things sound strange to me.I think I've mentioned this before. When the word itch is used instead of scratch. For example: "Dont itch that rash yer'l make it sore". or "Stop itchin' that scrawp". My son sometimes uses it in that way.

      I agree with you Bryan about the meaning of palarva. I also use it when I'm doing or watching something for ages that seems to be going nowhere.

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    4. I had to go on one of those PC courses at work where they try and tell you what you can and can't say because in might offend somebody. One lady said she objected to being called "Luv" I replied saying "better not go into Warrington market then"The next time I went to the market I made a point of listening to how people were addressed in general conversation. I heard the following terms in which I detected NO offence given or taken. Luv,Chuck,Cock,darlin,sweetypie,mymayte,dear, No doubt there are others which I missed. It would seem a great pity if this sort of freindly banter were to be lost with the demise of our town centre and market because I have a feeling that they are not heard in our sanitised supermarkets.

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  2. One of these type of pet hates just came to mind because I'm just about to go out with a friend who says it.
    I might say "I'm goin' ter London next week" She would answer "Oh yerare are yer" I'm tempted to say "Well Ive just told yer I am!".

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    1. Gaynor, I accidentally deleted your latest comment. My apologies! I have copied it here from the email notification that I automatically receive:

      "Luv does seem to be one of the endearments some people object to, especially for some reason,younger women. I would'nt normally call a man friend any of the ones you have mentioned above Bryan but maybe thats just me. I use their name. I think the main one I use is luv. How about you? With children I use Luvely or sparrer.

      I think you do still hear the terms in supermarkets. Usually at the till its said while you are passing your shopping through and very rarely when the checkout person is looking at you. Just said absent mindedly."

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  3. Grammar.
    Have you considered the way T & TH are put before some words,ie
    T,much.T,layte,T,little Obviously short for "too" My aunt would say "am goin t,th,Odeon or t,th,Empire (showing my age now!)
    "oh yerare are yer" has ring of jealousy or why did yer not ask me t,cum ? Gaynor I think your reply should be "ner-ner-ni-ner-ner"

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    1. I have now Bryan! I sometimes say ter/t I'm goin' ter pictures". Sometimes it's missed out altogether "I'll pur it in oven". Sometimes I say th'oven. When someone who normally speaks standard English tries to do a northern accent I think this t/ter/th is difficult for them to get right. Is it a glottal stop?. Wirelector might have mentioned it before.
      I used to hear "Oh yer are are yer" as a child and it usually meant "Thats what you think".
      I'm going to try that next time she says it Bryan. She wont take offence:-)

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    2. Hello Gaynor,
      Av jus gorrin, I ad a bit ov a job on in Padgit. I ad a bit "o" glass t,purrin an sum felt t,purron this blokes leantoo.it were raht kewld.In fact it were flippin freezin but norras bad as Mundy.Dear me, do I speak like that!
      The long "A"sound. Is the long "a" sound part of the northern/Warrington dialect,ie, Paay Daay or t,daay or were avin ar ollidiz in Maay.
      I have said this before but I find this question of dialect very interesting and listen quite lot to how people pronounce their words.Warrington folk seem to have the idea that they have no, what we would call Lancashire/northern dialect. But when you start to listen it is quite interesting to see just how much of that dialect is present in the Warrington dialect.

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    3. We defintely do have an accent of our own Bryan.I think a dialect is something unique to a certain town/area so I think we qualify for that to! I'm not so sure that we sound quite as broad as some Lancashire towns,but even they sound different to each other. We are all Lancastrians so to my mind we have Lancashire accents (no matter what it says on my post(mail):-)). I know a few people who use the long aaa and some who dont. Maybe more of the older generation use the long aaaa.

      One thing I do notice in our speech and I do it myself is: What like? What of ? Where from?
      eg: "av gorra a luvly dress fer weddin'"
      "Oh, what like?".

      "took sum great photers on 'oliday,their really good".
      "Cum on then ,war of?"

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    4. Hello Bryan and Gaynor. Sorry for the delayed reply, I'm in Ireland at the moment and quite busy.

      Anyway, to answer your questions, the glottal stop is indeed the short gap between the word "to" and "pictures" in Gaynor's example sentence. The reason for the glottal stop is that we omit the definite article "the" from the sentence "to the pictures" and replace it with the sound of the letter "t". However, the /t/ is not "released", to use the linguistic term, so we end up omitting the sound that was supposed to replace the word we omitted in the first place.

      The name "glottal stop" comes from the action performed by the apparatus at the back of the throat called the "glottis". The glottis is two bands of muscle that tense and relax to open and close in order to let air through when we want to produce sounds (speech). The "stop" is what happens when they abruptly close thus stopping the flow of air. You can feel them in action if you concentrate on the back of your throat when you say, in the dialect, "to t'pictures". Try it :-)

      The long "aa" sound you refer to, is actually a much older pronunciation than the one that is used in much of the speech of modern Warringtonians. It is a remnant of Middle English when English speakers used to pronounce the vowels very differently, before the Great Vowel Shift. Many dialects in the North, however, still have this pronunciation.

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  4. Something else I think we are hearing more of is the reply "I do". No, its not that there is a sudden rush of marriages :-). Somebody might say "Have you got a pen I can borrow?"
    "I do,yes".I would say "I have,yes"

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  5. Reference to Fred Carno's above is a reference to Fred Karno's Army, which you can google for more info. 'For 'palarva' look up 'palaver' in a dictionary to find the meaning and etymology.
    The use of 'itch' for 'scratch' is interesting. It is similar to the use of 'lend' for 'borrow', as in "Can I lend your pencil?". I hear a lot of people say 'brought' when they mean 'bought', as in "I brought it yesterday in Woolies", but I think that is just ignorance and not dialect.
    Hardly anybody uses the word 'lie' (meaning to be horizontal) nowadays. Everybody says 'lay'. It annoys me. "I was laying in bed" - What were you laying - eggs or bricks? Have you heard that Snow Patrol song, Chasing Cars? If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world? Grrrr. How can they get it wrong twice, then get it right?

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