- Jun 24, 2001
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Here in Georgia, I was having a conversation with a coworker from Michigan about the differences in common spoken English AND pronunciation between the Northern and the Southern states here in the good ol' US. It stemmed from a coworker's note incorrectly saying "suppose to..." instead of "supposed to..." (from a coworker who commonly makes mistakes, like "sale" instead of "sell"), but we went on to discuss "y'all,*" "pop" vs. "soda," "naw" vs. "no," etc. Eventually, I had to say "...and you know, you guys have some perversions of your own. Take 'worsh' instead or 'wash' and 'ideal' instead of 'idea' for example." "Ideal" instead of "Idea" was like some kind of epiphany to him. He had no idea what "idea" was!
I was 16 before I ever heard someone make that mistake, and I was in a "Yankee state" when I first heard of it. In West Virginia (Union, therefore "Yankee!"
), I couldn't believe that the English teacher was taking specific care to explain the difference between "idea" and "ideal." I exclaimed that no one was that stupid because they were completely different words, only to later hear everyone around me making that mistake. When I came back to Georgia, I didn't hear it again until I was an adult. The culprit? An ignorant idiot who always ignores me when I tell him that it is a completely different word. His excuse? His family was from "up North" and they all say "it" that way. I guess it doesn't matter if "it" is actually saying something completely different. :roll:
My coworker quickly agreed that it was a Northern thing because everyone he knows up North says "ideal" in place of "idea" and he had never noticed that we called it "idea" in the South. He has lived here for decades... DECADES! He just thought we were pronouncing it strangely/incorrectly when he wouldn't hear the "L" sound. Anyway, many (well, some) people in the South butcher the word without changing the meaning by calling it "idear," and I'd accept that as a "Southern thing," but when I had to pull up Internet results to demonstrate the different meanings of "ideal" and "idea" to my coworker, almost all of the discussions were pegging THAT as a "Southern thing!" WTF?! People who lived in SoCal, The South, and The North were even calling it a Southern thing (perhaps they had it confused with "Idear?").
"Ya'll?" Southern thing.
"Tea" meaning sweetened ice tea? Also a Southern thing.
"Ideal" used in place of "Idea?" NOT a Southern thing.
Yeah, it's popular to attribute dialect and pronunciation issues with The South, but let's not take this too far! As we all know, a Southern drawl does not reflect someone's intelligence or level of education. Ideal vs. Idea is just pure ignorance (though I wouldn't tell my coworker that), so assuming that it is a Southern thing is just pretending that "Southerners are dumb."
Just for kicks, I told him about my friend that still types "Nall" instead of "No." He thinks [thought?] that "Naw," "No" with a Southern drawl, is written "Nall." I have corrected him many, many, many times over a decade, but "Nall man" is still a common response to a question when asking him something online.
*a valid gender-neutral contraction for "you all" that's better than "you guys" ("yous guys?") while clarifying the plurality of "you"
Anyway, we have enough English perversion rightly attributed to the region, so we don't need any more thanks.
I was 16 before I ever heard someone make that mistake, and I was in a "Yankee state" when I first heard of it. In West Virginia (Union, therefore "Yankee!"
), I couldn't believe that the English teacher was taking specific care to explain the difference between "idea" and "ideal." I exclaimed that no one was that stupid because they were completely different words, only to later hear everyone around me making that mistake. When I came back to Georgia, I didn't hear it again until I was an adult. The culprit? An ignorant idiot who always ignores me when I tell him that it is a completely different word. His excuse? His family was from "up North" and they all say "it" that way. I guess it doesn't matter if "it" is actually saying something completely different. :roll:My coworker quickly agreed that it was a Northern thing because everyone he knows up North says "ideal" in place of "idea" and he had never noticed that we called it "idea" in the South. He has lived here for decades... DECADES! He just thought we were pronouncing it strangely/incorrectly when he wouldn't hear the "L" sound. Anyway, many (well, some) people in the South butcher the word without changing the meaning by calling it "idear," and I'd accept that as a "Southern thing," but when I had to pull up Internet results to demonstrate the different meanings of "ideal" and "idea" to my coworker, almost all of the discussions were pegging THAT as a "Southern thing!" WTF?! People who lived in SoCal, The South, and The North were even calling it a Southern thing (perhaps they had it confused with "Idear?").
"Ya'll?" Southern thing.
"Tea" meaning sweetened ice tea? Also a Southern thing.
"Ideal" used in place of "Idea?" NOT a Southern thing.
Yeah, it's popular to attribute dialect and pronunciation issues with The South, but let's not take this too far! As we all know, a Southern drawl does not reflect someone's intelligence or level of education. Ideal vs. Idea is just pure ignorance (though I wouldn't tell my coworker that), so assuming that it is a Southern thing is just pretending that "Southerners are dumb."
Just for kicks, I told him about my friend that still types "Nall" instead of "No." He thinks [thought?] that "Naw," "No" with a Southern drawl, is written "Nall." I have corrected him many, many, many times over a decade, but "Nall man" is still a common response to a question when asking him something online.
*a valid gender-neutral contraction for "you all" that's better than "you guys" ("yous guys?"
) while clarifying the plurality of "you"Anyway, we have enough English perversion rightly attributed to the region, so we don't need any more thanks.
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