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The Queen's English


breeksy
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What the hell is this woman on?

How dare she have the temerity to suggest that we are somehow closing our door on the big bad world simply because we don't speak 'Queens English'?

 

What if she had graced the Western Isles with her presence instead of Shetland? Would she now be demanding the immediate cessation of all efforts to promote and retain the Gaelic language? I know that Gaelic is another language, while Shetland is, apparently, 'almost another language', but surely if Yours Disgruntled from Middle England can't understand what us simpletons from the Shires are saying, moves must be made to address it!

 

Stupid bint, I think I'll write her an email..........

 

To: Ms Middle-england@headupownarse.co.uk

 

Subject: ........and the Volvo you rode in on love

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@Fjool - yes, looks like it. But I suspect there would be quite a few Shetland speakers in Shetland who would have a similar opinion about using 'dialect' in a public place, at least. They might not think that educated people shouldn't speak Shaetlan, but standing up and speaking it 'itae da public' might be a different matter.

 

I once attended a function where one of the speakers gave a speech. Afterwards someone commented 'X spak clear da day - sometimes he duisna spaek sae clear.' The reason was that the speaker normally spoke - in public :roll: - in Shaetlan, but this time for some reason had spoken English.

 

Many years ago, Tom Morton (I think) commented on the use of the phrase 'Faerdimaet' as the name of a shop. What was this, what did it mean, etc. The implication obviously was that someone from Da Sooth shouldn't have to decipher vernacular shop names. I don't recall there being an outcry about that.

 

Similarly, I'm told that SIBC has an anti-dialect policy - certainly it's easy to believe so if you listen to it - but I'm not aware that anyone in Shetland has written to the press to object about this. Conversely, when Mary Blance started to speak Shaetlan on 'da wireless', I believe the phone hardly stopped ringing all night with people complaining.

 

My points? That there is a general tendency in Shetland for English to be approved of and Shaetlan to be disapproved of in anything other than traditional 'dialect' contexts; that this tendency is probably increasing; and that Shaetlan speakers are just as likely to have this tendency as incomers.

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I love the Shetland accent, but I don't speak it to my uni friends because they wouldn't understand me.

 

I find I can speak Shetland to some of them - a lot of the ones from Aberdeenshire and Angus, and indeed many parts of the north, pick up on it after a while and I can comfortably speak it to them knowing they'll understand me. And as soon as I'm sure they'll understand me I'll speak it to them. I'm always afraid I'll lose the dialect if I don't.

 

It also helps to make it clear to them that we DO NOT speak Gaelic - in fact, most Shetlanders I know are anti-Gaelic.

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You mean that people that sit on Shetlink all night actually have employable jobs to go to? :wink:

 

I can understand where this conversation could easily be misunderstood but if she has lived in Shetland for three years then surely she would realise the importance that dialect has in Shetland?

 

To begin with I should probably state that I am neither a Christian nor a great supporter of the Royal family. That doesn't mean that I am not a great believer in family values. People are entitled to their beliefs and I have never stood in the way of that. I have had friends in the past from many different religious backgrounds (further reinforcing my feeling that there is no definite religion).

 

In a day and age where the church congregation seems to be diminishing I think she should be grateful of any church service that is preaching her faith whether it be read in 'The Queen's English', 'Irish', 'American', 'Latin' or 'Good auld turdlin' '.

 

Best of luck to her and I hope she finds her new home as accommodating as Shetland has been.

 

I second that.

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What the hell is this woman on?

How dare she have the temerity to suggest that we are somehow closing our door on the big bad world simply because we don't speak 'Queens English'?

 

What if she had graced the Western Isles with her presence instead of Shetland? Would she now be demanding the immediate cessation of all efforts to promote and retain the Gaelic language? I know that Gaelic is another language, while Shetland is, apparently, 'almost another language', but surely if Yours Disgruntled from Middle England can't understand what us simpletons from the Shires are saying, moves must be made to address it!

 

Stupid bint, I think I'll write her an email..........

 

To: Ms Middle-england@headupownarse.co.uk

 

Subject: ........and the Volvo you rode in on love

 

I'm creasin mesel! :lol:

 

One of my former flatmates was born in England but lived in Lewis from the age of three (she's nearly 18 ). She hated life on the island, which was why she came away to uni at the end of 5th year instead of staying on to sixth year. Apparently so-called 'natives' of Lewis don't take too kindly to incomers and generally make them feel inferior. Personally I like to think that we're not like that in Shetland but I could be wrong. So indeed, if Her Disgruntledness from Yorkshire was to go to Lewis and demand they didn't speak Gaelic she'd most likely be drowned in the Minch for her efforts.

 

Indeed, a lot of people south do write Shetlanders off as bumpkins when they speak the dialect. I usually expect a lot of my uni friends to do that when I speak dialect to them. But if we're being critiscised for speaking it in our own community then what's the world coming to? :cry:

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Hmm. One absents one's English self for a few days and returns to find all Hell breaking loose over one's countryperson making ill-considered remarks.

 

Yes, I reckon it was ill-considered. If any of us went to a church in, say, Devon, or Wales, or Yorks or wherever, would we feel we had to write to the local paper about 'dialect' words cropping up in the service? I certainly wouldn't. God knows there are more than enough forces trying to make everybody in the British Isles talk in the ugly 'Mockney' (which always sounds to me as though the speaker is 'fretnin vilence'), and I'm on the side of anyone who's trying to fight back with their own traditional tongue.

 

Conceivably there's a case that if a church congregation appears to be mostly English or foreign tourists, the priest should stick mostly to plain English (how many Brits even bother trying to understand, say, plain French or German, never mind some of their dialects?), but if the congregation is mostly local, then let the language be that spoken locally.

 

Whether Shetland is a 'dialect' or more of a language comprising a mixture of old Norse and English is a question for that other thread, of course, but to condemn its being spoken in its homeland is ridiculous. Meanwhile ...

 

http://erroraccessdenied.com/files/images/inurforum.jpg

 

:)

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Filska brilliant emails, so many brilliant points. And she canna be bothered reading it!

 

This wife is totally windin me up! Honestly she sends her email address in an expects folk to be alright an calm about it. Whit did she expect when "Shetlanders are hyper sensitive and militant" aboot it. Use dee common sense wife. Good grief min! She is entitled to her opinion but being so bloody minded aboot things is terrible

 

The bit that gets me is "as an English person" to me it's sayin this is what aa English folk think. I dunna think they do it, in fact I ken they dunna, hit joost leads ta anti English feeling and stirs up trouble.

 

I felt after reading it that to her using dialect means that you are a second class citizen and it really made me mad very mad. Who is she to say that.

 

I don't really have a strong accent now. I did after working in a newsagents for a long while but moving sooth changed that especially when I studied Law and did reception jobs and I wish I had my accent back I really do (I suspect it may to the fore when I move back fingers crossed). Sorry it's a bit of a sore point for me.

 

:evil:

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I'm used to speaking a fairly gentle Shetland dialect when here, and as straight an English as I can without sounding like an impressionist when aboard (if not speaking their language) but I don't find any problem with me loosing Shetland dialect/accent.... it's just another "language" - switch about depending on the situation ;-)

 

I actually find talking with people from other parts of Scotland more work a lot of the time, as you don't want to talk English to them, but if you ease that back towards something "more Scottish", you are suddenly having to try and think "is that a Shetland word or a Scottish one" all the time........

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Wis yun da final email she sent den?

 

Yea - yun wis hit. End of.

 

Sorry - have been overwhelmed with work so first time I have been on this week. Thanks for kind remarks; I was concerned folk might have thought I had gone a bit OTT. I wonder what she is an 'Author' of?

 

Considering all the dazzlingly erudite contributors there are on here, particularly on the dialect thread (not in any way counting myself in that category) she really had no idea - nor did she, unfortunately, appear to learn anything at all from the encounter. Shame.

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Attitudes like hers are not uncommon in Scotland or England hence my attitude to them.

I have spent a great deal of my life traveling the world and the only place that people look down their noses at me is in the UK.

In the USA and Europe you tell someone you are from Shetland and the first reaction is typically "thats where the ponies are from", if they have heard of the place at all, the same goes for Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This is followed by a load of questions about what it is like here,

Appart from South Africa most of the continent has never heard of us.

In the UK though the typical reaction on hearing you are from Shetland is SHEEPSHAGGER.

I use this as my screen name with pride as it is water of a ducks back to me, and it is damn sure no soothmoother will want to be refered to by this tittle

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sheepshagger you wouldn't have happened to been involved with LS would you? just the countries you listed!

 

At Uni here everyone calls the Welsh and an area in Scotland sheep shaggers, not much known about Shetland really. I live with two English lasses and when I showed them the post by 'Queen's English' wife they said they would never do that. If they went to Shetland they said they'd expect to hear Shetand dialect in public places seeing as it is Shetland.

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