Welcome Willard,
Dive in.

The funny thing about the slang terms that Dennis said is that people who live/grew up around Comisky Park talk like that. My wife grew up 10 minutes from there and my best friend around the corner. He says those kind of things all of the time.

You're right GP. And, the strangest thing is that you don't notice it while you live 'over by dere'. But, going away and returning was a culture shock. For me 'anyways'.

All of these slang terms were part of the normal speech, and everybody talked that way.

I friend of mine from Boston sent me a long list of these. I only posted the first 10. He sent them in response to my comment that he talked funny. Havvad Yahd. type stuff.

Silvercoach, have you ever traced colloquialisms, slang, pronunciations to specific geographic regions? That would be a fascinating study.

I grew up North Of Detroit in what used to be pretty rural farm country. My parents were farm kids of Belgian and German descent, and very large families. They all talked like that or should I say "dat". Alot of D's in the language "Dis" not used like today as in "he dissed me" but "Dis" = this, dat =that, doze = those, stuff like that, similar to what Dennis says.

Welcome to the site!

Dennis,
That would be an interesting study, I'll see if I can dig something up, no promises though.

Oh No, now I am too conscious of everyone's speech. My wife actually said bedgeroom last night. I asked her to repeat it. And, there it was again. Am I becoming overly critical? She squeezes the toothpaste in the middle too. I have known her for 40 years, and never noticed these things. I don't want to know any more.

And, my son came over and asked, j'eat? I guess that was, did you eat? Jokingly, I said I had a sammich, and he understood. I have heard others pronounce it sangwich. Hey people, there is a D in that word.

This will drive me insane.

Welcome to my world, Dennis, lol. For instance, the word "there" has no meaning in the English language without clarification, i.e. pointing (It's over there.).

Passive voice drives interpreters silly because we interpret meaning, not words. (The boy was hit.) WHO HIT THE BOY!?

People with accents drive interpreters nuts too, "Den ve vill talk about ze dour." was that door or war?

Yep, I'm glad someone understands my pain, lol. Good luck overcomeing this, Dennis.

Silvercoach, I know there are different dialects throughout Italy, the background of my heritage. And, the same word may have different meanings in different parts of the Country. There are also different words for the same thing.

When my father, 3rd generation removed from Italy, met my wife's grandmother who was born in Italy, the two tried to converse in Italian. My Father, in his Americanized/Italian speech from Sicily was talking with a Native born near the Northern Yugoslavian Border. I could see they had trouble understanding each other. Then all Hell broke lose when my Father said something like "you have a nice dress" and it was understood as " I am a dog". It took some fast talking to smoothen that over.

With all of the differences in pronunciation, colloquialisms, and slang, I can see where it would b extremely difficult to learn our form of English. Heck, when I went to England, I could hardly understand them.

Yeah, lol, now add the fact that interpreters are learning a second language on top of that, and language changes all the time. Lol, then you've got the picture! The interpreter is attempting to keep up with the slang and changes to 2 or more languages!

That's interesting about your father, anyone else have any funny misunderstandings with language they would like to share? (keep it clean!)