Virgin train announcements

“Any passengers not travelling please make your way tothe platform”

But if they aren’t intending to travel they aren’t passengers! AAAAAARGH!

Overheard on the train:

African man on a mobile phone, in fake American accent:

“Whatever”

“I don’t give a bunch of ham!”

Not sure what his accent was, possibly East African of some sort. When speaking Englih and not doing he American thing he was clearly non-rhotic. But when speaking another language I didn’t recognise he has a sound that sounds very much like a rolled “R” to me. Which I foolishly thought was odd for a bit, but obviously isn’t. Maybe he doesn’t perceive that sound as the same as an English-language post-vocalic “R”. Maybe the version of English he learned simply doesn;t have an “R” there (as mine doesn’t). There is no reason he should associate the written “R” with a consonant – it might just be a peculiarity of English spelling. Its just a clue that the vowel is lengthened. Our “TH” isn’t a T followed by an H, our “NG” is not an N and a G, the “E” in a word like “fate” is not a vowel, its a clue that the “A” is pronounced differently from the one in “fat”.

Two things

The way we speak now, part 184:

Curly, the taxi driver from Lewisham, pronounces “shot at” and “shite” almost identically.

Men have bags:

Someone in Another Place wondered why men can’t have handbags. Well, in London we can. I counted some men I saw on the way home from work last night.

184 had no bags
49 had plastic carrier bags or branded shop bags
363 had proper bags

Result: Most men round here carry bags.

Further result: looking at men is much more boring than looking at women.

Wasn’t that interesting?

Intergenerational rhotaicism clash

Overheard on a bus:

Small boy [worried]: “Mummy, where’s Carl?”

Slightly older sister [patient]: “He’s in the buggy” [pointing at little baby brother]

Mother [humourously]: “Who’s this ‘Carl’ anyway?”

Small boy: “Carl!”

Mother [rhotically]: “He’s called ‘Carl’, not ‘Cal”

Sister: “Carrrrrrrrl”

Small boy: “why didn’t you call him ‘Michael’?”

Black family, I guess possibly the mother had a Bajan accent but I don’t know enough to tell for sure.

The point being that the children have non-rhotic London accents (though clearly a black London accents) and so for them there is no “R” or “L” in the name “Carl”, any more than there is for me. Its all one vowel glide. So he probably hears his mother say something like “KARR-ul” but she hears him say something like “KAAUW”.

That’s not a very satisfactory way of writing that!

Does IPA work on this blog?

What I’d say is perhaps [kaəɫ]
What the mother seemed to be saying to me is more like [kærərl]

I probably didn’t do that right!