Mercs Say The Darndest Things

[Jim di Griz]

I think with Afrikaans you've got a noticeably strong difference due to the time and influence of other languages - pretty much what Canadian French is to modern French I'd say. I'm sure English has it too but I've not heard any stand-out examples myself, so I think you're right, the global amalgamation is slowly knocking all of the edges off  :(

I might be wrong about the one Dutch voice though - that's just the way it sounded to my ear, and to be fair, it's been fourteen years since I lived there, so I'm more than likely a bit rusty in accent recognition. Funny how much Danish I can understand though after learning Dutch  :)

Sorry about going a bit off topic by the way.

[Binnatics]

Don't worry about getting off topic over here. The best conversations usually start off topic ^-^ :-X

I've heard it before, the comparison between Danish and Dutch. I don't know Danish well enough to have a good opinion, but it sure looks the same when written down (same for Swedish btw)
There was a Danish guy though at my college, that was from Denmark. He only lived in Holland 2 years back then, and I wouldn't know the difference from a real Dutchman when he spoke. Really amazing.

[PZ]

...Sorry about going a bit off topic by the way.

As Binn mentioned, we never balk at going off topic  ;)  In fact, we tend to have discussions that are very much like we would have in person - the topic changes with time, so feel free to add anything or diverge whenever the thoughts come.  It is way too much trouble to search each time you want to discuss something.  I've visited other forums where a new visitor is blasted for asking a question that was answered in a topic somewhere, and all that does in my opinion is inhibit people from posting, so here at OWG, anything goes.

I wonder how that must be for English people? Do local accents still surprise you and make your own language feel like spoken in a place far away in space and time? Or has it all somewhat merged together again due to the global importance of the language?

Well, for me in America, it is often quite possible to determine the regional location of an individual from their accent, especially if you have lived there before.  For instance, I formerly lived in New England (Vermont), and it was easy for me to detect the difference between accents (several) within New York state, and then very easily the nearby New Jersey.  Then also having lived in Texas and a couple of southern States, you become accustomed to the regional differences in how words are pronounced, and sentences are constructed even though we all technically speak the same language.  Then of course, there are the differences we hear in English in the UK and Australia.

It is fascinating how people tend to mimic one another, and I imagine that the development of an "accent" falls on a single individual who has pronounced a particular word in an unusual manner, and others pick it up.  Then if populations are physically isolated from one another, their languages tend to diverge in time, even if they initially were exactly the same.

[Jim di Griz]

...I've visited other forums where a new visitor is blasted for asking a question that was answered in a topic somewhere, and all that does in my opinion is inhibit people from posting, so here at OWG, anything goes.

GT Planet by any chance?  ;)

Cheers both - I rather got the impression that divergent conversations might be the norm after reading through a few threads - still, I felt it best to apologise just in case (how very British of me.)

I've got a reasonable ear for accent differences, possibly due to having lived in Wales, where each valley has its own accent.

As for the Danish observation - I only got that from watching The Killing on TV  :)

[PZ]

... (how very British of me.)

:-X

Although I've not visited GT Planet, I get the idea that it is similar to other forums where posturing, boastfulness, and low IQ is the norm.  :-()

[Jim di Griz]

Those are indeed the three chief weapons in use there...plus of course their ruthless dedication to all things GT...oh damn it, that's four weapons...

[PZ]

It sure is nice to interact with you fine chaps that do not exhibit those awful characteristics.  :-X

[Art Blade]

I wonder how that must be for English people? Do local accents still surprise you and make your own language feel like spoken in a place far away in space and time? Or has it all somewhat merged together again due to the global importance of the language?

The most used line I know is "they ruined our language" (from British English speakers about American English)  :-D

[fragger]

According to a couple of sources I've consulted, modern American English sounds more the way older English used to, and it's actually English English that's done most of the changing over the last few centuries. Another way to put it is that if you went back in time a few hundred years and visited England, the people would sound to you more like modern Americans than modern Britons.

We can't really know how true that is at this remove, but obviously dialects, speech patterns and accents change over time. I've noticed that if I see and hear old Australian newsreel footage from the WW2 era, the Aussie accents definitely sound subtly different to what I hear today. A hundred years from now they'll sound even more different, no doubt. That's linguistic evolution in operation, and the divergence is even greater when a language has been transported to some far-off locale where it begins to evolve separately from the mother tongue, especially in times past where distance has been a major factor.

As for ruining English, American inputs and influences are just part of the ongoing development of language that goes on all over the world all the time, and not just with the English language. Dutch and Afrikaans is another example of two dialects, each sharing a common ancestor, diverging as a result of location, time and distance.

I sometimes wonder if languages and dialects will continue to diverge in this manner now that the internet is overcoming the "tyranny of distance". With more people from disparate cultures increasingly connecting with each other in real time over more of the world's surface, will prevalent languages like English continue to diverge or will they in fact become more cohesive? I find myself alternating between English and American spellings and figures of speech far more than I ever have in the past, and I have no doubt that this is due to the influence of the net (as well as the media, but mostly the net). I don't do it unconsciously, I do it because some "Americanisms" appeal to me and I find it fun to employ them from time to time. But over time and with repeated usage, I'm sure I will eventually use American expressions and spellings unconsciously. I already alternate between "a$$" and "arse" without really thinking about it. Go figure ;D

We do live in interesting times.

[Art Blade]

From my point of view, not being a native English speaker, it seems that AE is simpler. The way "average" Americans talk and write compared to "average" Britons indicates that they cut off all the nice little things I like about British English. Apart from some dialects, spoken American English has a lot less "melody" to it compared to the nearly singing type of British English. Written AE simplifies "complicated" spelling and kind of mimics a phonetic writing. For example nite rather than night, center rather than centre, mesmerize rather than mesmerise. But they all say amazing and never "amasing".  I'd guess that in general AE is easier to grasp than BE. Then there are those differences, as fragger pointed out: a$$ rather than arse. Bucks rather than quids -- hehe :)

[PZ]

I find myself alternating between English and American spellings and figures of speech far more than I ever have in the past, and I have no doubt that this is due to the influence of the net (as well as the media, but mostly the net). I don't do it unconsciously, I do it because some "Americanisms" appeal to me and I find it fun to employ them from time to time. But over time and with repeated usage, I'm sure I will eventually use American expressions and spellings unconsciously. I already alternate between "a$$" and "arse" without really thinking about it. Go figure ;D

We do live in interesting times.

It is difficult to ignore the differences in regional usage of the English language and I too alternate between spelling variations on occasion.  I also pronounce words differently when the mood strikes.  For instance I sometimes pronounce "skeletal" as "skull-ee-tal" instead of how it is normally pronounced in my area "skell-eh-tail"

[Binnatics]

The word Skeleton is in fact a weird word. In Dutch it's somewhat the same 'skelet' and it sounds un-Dutch to me. I was thinking of that recently when my daughter pronounced the word for some reason.
In Dutch a proper term for Skeleton might be 'bot-stelsel' (bone-system). Don't know if the word could sound weird in English too, maybe it's just weird-old-me that find a word funny again :-D

[Jim di Griz]

Aparently it's a modern Latin word (well, modern as in the re-emergence of Latin well after the Roman Empire c1570) so I'd say the church had something to do with that one - plus the English and Dutch were either fighting or trading with each other for most of the 16thC so some crossover was likely - we got a lot of nautical terms from the Dutch language and more Brits spoke High Nederlands than Dutch would have spoken English back then (this is according to a Dutch publication about the history and evolution of Nederlands.)

What Fragger says is also spot on - I too find myself borrowing Americanisms mostly because they fit. Equally I also borrow Aussie/Kiwi turns of phrase due to a high percentage of gaming friends hailing from that quarter - though I haven't used 'ripper' in a long time... :)

Having said that, I use old English words quite frequently for the same reason - I like 'em. I tend to keep to the English spellings though, weird as they are.

As for the 'Net drawing things closer: yup, I agree. It can only enrichen peoples' vocabulary choices, bringing some words back into usage that have caught on again after apparently falling asleep for a few centuries. It's all good, I say.

[nexor]

With the changes that is happening in SA it brought about an almost complete new version of English, although the spelling basically stays the same the pronunciation has gone for a ball of chalk, and all this comes from politicians and the media, news readers, reporters, program hosts and advertising..

[TheStranger]

I can't believe I just found this thread. Overlooked it for years. Very interesting lines and most of them were unknown to me.

Today I heard something I hoped I would find here, but I can't remember exactly. Two mercs were talking and one of them said something about screwing the sister of the other merc. I hope I hear these lines again, they were funny.

Merc 1: "You look like you were dropped on your head when you were a baby!"

Merc 2: "Come here and say that, I'll drop you!"

Merc 1: "In your dreams!"

It seems I have to pay even more attention to the speaking mercs.

[mandru]

 :-D

[PZ]

One of my favorite threads - they do have the funniest conversations.

... hey... hear about Ned?...

[fragger]

 :-D

[OWGKID]

I heard two mercs in Pala speaking about their wife being pregnant for 3 months and the other one replying: "you could afford college when this is over". I modded the max reputation values in gamemodesconfig and I heard a merc shout "I'll kill you!" in Leboa near a GP  I find it funny when they shout "Who the hell are those guys?!" "I think its only one" "Who is that guy? CIA? KGB?! Who knows?"

[PZ]

I love the lines in FC2 - you can hear lots of casual banter using the IgnorePlayer cheat  >:D

[mandru]

 :-D

[OWGKID]

Regarding quotes: I got a DIFFERENT reaction from the police chief when I shot him. I was at rep level 5.  He said "You have already killed me, but you must do it public" Rather than pulling out his weapon and shoot me, he apparently asked me to shoot him  :o :o

[PZ]

I don't remember seeing that one  ???

[Art Blade]

me neither  ???? :)

[fragger]

I've never heard that one ????