Divided by a common language...

[Peter B]

Now that reminds me of a guy who worked in a team near me many years ago. Had about the most impenetrable Scottish accent you could imagine. Then someone mentioned they'd spoken to his father, saying his accent was much softer and more Australian. Apparently most of Dougie's accent was just for show.

[molesworth]

Now that reminds me of a guy who worked in a team near me many years ago. Had about the most impenetrable Scottish accent you could imagine. Then someone mentioned they'd spoken to his father, saying his accent was much softer and more Australian. Apparently most of Dougie's accent was just for show.

Oh, there are Scottish accents, and then there are Scottish accents 

Above and beyond the standard Glaswegian or West Highland strains that are well known around the world, if you head far up to the North-East you encounter the mysteries of "Doric" and "Mearns", which even other Scots often have trouble with.

(I, of course, have almost no accent...  )

[jfb]

Oh, that's right.  I looked that up once and forgot it.  I have a hard time distinguishing a Yorkshire accent from a Lancashire accent.

I lived in Yorkshire for a few years and I could definitely tell the difference between them, but now I've been back down south for a while they seem to have merged together again. Would a Bostonian be able to differentiate a Texan from a Tennessean?

Yes, just be aware that there is a range of Texas accents.  Deep East Redneck Texas has the more rounded accent you'll hear through the Deep South, while Central and West Texas are more like how Jay describes.

Dallas is its own animal, sitting somewhere in between. 

If you still have trouble, you may have to listen for idioms or regionalisms.  Ask if they drank Big Red as a kid, if they know what you're talking about then they're Texan. 

[Peter B]

Some regionalisms can be interesting...

Back in the 1960s and 1970s the Holden car company (owned by General Motors) produced a muscle car called the Monaro. It was named for the region to the south of Canberra. Locals pronounce the region's name m*-NAIR-ro, while people around Australia call the car a m*-NAH-ro.

Likewise, a little way north-east of Canberra is a village called Tarago. This is also the name given to a range of Toyota vans sold in Australia. The village's name is pronounced TA-r*-go (almost as if you were saying 'tarry-go'), while the van is known to Australians as the t*-RAH-go.

Then there's the curious case of the shopping centre (and the sports ground) in Canberra known as Manuka. Kiwis will recognise the name but not the local pronunciation of MAH-n*-k*. Manuka as a tree or honey is pronounced m*-NOO-k*. Funnily enough, though, I understand the Maori pronunciation of the word is closer to the Canberra pronunciation. Go figure.

[gillianren]

Ask if they drank Big Red as a kid, if they know what you're talking about then they're Texan. 

Or had a store with a good novelty soda selection.  Cactus Cooler is a bigger regional identifier for Californians; I've never seen it in a novelty soda section in Washington State.

[JayUtah]

Yes, just be aware that there is a range of Texas accents.  Deep East Redneck Texas has the more rounded accent you'll hear through the Deep South, while Central and West Texas are more like how Jay describes.

Dallas is its own animal, sitting somewhere in between. 

If you still have trouble, you may have to listen for idioms or regionalisms.  Ask if they drank Big Red as a kid, if they know what you're talking about then they're Texan.

Indeed, it's hard for foreigners to appreciate just how very large (and diverse) Texas is.  Their tourism slogan used to be, "Texas:  It's like a whole other country."  Which is a dead giveaway that someone else wrote it, because many in Texas would say "nuther."  It's really the only state that's considered both a Southern state and a Western state.

[apollo16uvc]

[jfb]

Yes, just be aware that there is a range of Texas accents.  Deep East Redneck Texas has the more rounded accent you'll hear through the Deep South, while Central and West Texas are more like how Jay describes.

Dallas is its own animal, sitting somewhere in between. 

If you still have trouble, you may have to listen for idioms or regionalisms.  Ask if they drank Big Red as a kid, if they know what you're talking about then they're Texan.

Indeed, it's hard for foreigners to appreciate just how very large (and diverse) Texas is.  Their tourism slogan used to be, "Texas:  It's like a whole other country."  Which is a dead giveaway that someone else wrote it, because many in Texas would say "nuther."  It's really the only state that's considered both a Southern state and a Western state.

Not just foreigners.  I've met people from the Northeast who honestly thought you could drive from Dallas to South Padre, splash around in the ocean for a few hours, and drive back in time for dinner.  It's similar to the reaction I had when I first saw a map of Vermont and thought "wow, their counties are HUGE" before looking at the scale bar. 

One year we took a road trip to Yellowstone.  Two-thirds of the first day (Austin to Denver) was spent getting out of Texas, which brings us to our unofficial state anthem:

The Sun has ris
The Sun has set
And here I is
In Texas yet

On one end of the state you have the desert, at the other end you have swamps or massive pine forests, in the middle you have the Hill Country, on the caprock you have landscape best described as "80% sky", and then you have the coast, and all the different kinds of communities such landscape inspires. 

[Peter B]

Yes, just be aware that there is a range of Texas accents.  Deep East Redneck Texas has the more rounded accent you'll hear through the Deep South, while Central and West Texas are more like how Jay describes.

Dallas is its own animal, sitting somewhere in between. 

If you still have trouble, you may have to listen for idioms or regionalisms.  Ask if they drank Big Red as a kid, if they know what you're talking about then they're Texan.

Indeed, it's hard for foreigners to appreciate just how very large (and diverse) Texas is.  Their tourism slogan used to be, "Texas:  It's like a whole other country."  Which is a dead giveaway that someone else wrote it, because many in Texas would say "nuther."  It's really the only state that's considered both a Southern state and a Western state.

Not just foreigners.  I've met people from the Northeast who honestly thought you could drive from Dallas to South Padre, splash around in the ocean for a few hours, and drive back in time for dinner.  It's similar to the reaction I had when I first saw a map of Vermont and thought "wow, their counties are HUGE" before looking at the scale bar. 

One year we took a road trip to Yellowstone.  Two-thirds of the first day (Austin to Denver) was spent getting out of Texas, which brings us to our unofficial state anthem:

The Sun has ris
The Sun has set
And here I is
In Texas yet

On one end of the state you have the desert, at the other end you have swamps or massive pine forests, in the middle you have the Hill Country, on the caprock you have landscape best described as "80% sky", and then you have the coast, and all the different kinds of communities such landscape inspires.

You think Texas is big? I understand a lot of Americans don't realise Australia is nearly as big as the 48 states. Most Aussies have a story about American tourists underestimating the size of Australia, like the people staying in Sydney who mused out loud that they were planning to drive to Uluru (Ayers Rock) as a day trip.

Which I can tie together neatly with this little story, which I'm sure must be true...

A cattle station owner was having a drink at a pub in the Northern Territory. A Yank walked in and started bragging.

"I'm from Texas," he said, "where everything's big. Why, my spread is so big it takes me a week to ride around it on my horse."

The station owner nodded, "Yeah, I had a horse that slow once, but I shot it."

[molesworth]

A cattle station owner was having a drink at a pub in the Northern Territory. A Yank walked in and started bragging.

"I'm from Texas," he said, "where everything's big. Why, my spread is so big it takes me a week to ride around it on my horse."

The station owner nodded, "Yeah, I had a horse that slow once, but I shot it."

Ah, the old ones are the best... 

Reminds me of visiting Wyoming and Yellowstone for the eclipse in 2017.  Chatting to the girl working in a small diner, and commenting about how open and empty it was, she had a wonderful drawling response of "Yup! A whole lotta nuthin'."  We certainly encountered quite a few interesting accents on that trip.

[gillianren]

People don't tend to realize the size of California.  It's the third-largest state in the US; it's almost 800 miles from Mexico to Oregon.  Another "and then you spend the whole day just getting out of one state" state, if you're driving north.  It's why the idea of a theme park in Anaheim that's California-themed never bothered me; for one thing, it's got sections about parts of California the tourists going to Disneyland aren't going to get to.

[smartcooky]

I think the most egregious example I've witnessed of the separation among English speakers happened on a trip to the Caribbean islands.  A member of our party from Minnesota (essentially identical to a Candian accent) was talking to native Cayman Islander about the differences in their respective dialects.  It was hard to imagine they were speaking the same basic language.

This sort of thing doesn't just happen in the English language.

Many years ago, when I was a young boy (we were still living in England then) my family was on holiday in St. Malo in Brittany, France. We were holidaying with family friends from Wales (Tenby in Pembrokeshire). The friends spoke English but they were also Welsh-speaking.

One day, we were all sitting in one of those beautiful street cafes having a meal, and Tom, my Dad's friend, kept turning around to look at a group behind him. He thought they were speaking Welsh because he could understand what they were saying. He approached them and asked if they were Welsh, but they were actually locals, speaking the local dialect, Breton. Tom and Mary were easily able to have a conversation with them.

[JayUtah]

Okay, now you have to tell me where in The Stand I can find you--for after this is over, because there is no way I'm going to watch it right now.

You asked for it.  A friend of mine found this link.

The scene starts at 3:48:57.  The location is the chapel attached to the local Catholic high school.  It's actually just a block or two away from a more famous high school:  East High.  East is the filming location for the infamous High School Musical series.  And the actual setting for High School Musical:  The Musical:  The Series.  That jumped the shark so effectively I think it's now in orbit.  But to be more relevant, Apollo astronaut Jim Irwin graduated from East High.  And yes, the tall guy in the scene is Stephen King himself.  The close-ups are props.  Most of the rest of us are just laying there very still.  The best part is that some of the other extras were actual students from the school, which has a very strong drama program.  They were tickled to "defile" their chapel.

And since I had to skim the whole six hours to find it, here are other points of interest.

00:11:26 Research Park, adjacent to the University of Utah campus.  Rockwell Collins has a building there.

00:14:33 The Newhouse Building, downtown Salt Lake.  It and the adjacent Boston Building were Utah's first skyscrapers.  My downtown data center is a five-minute walk from there.

00:18:24 The Empress Theater.  I was the lead scenic designer at this theater for about three years.  One of the shows I designed there was High School Musical.  And I actually got cast-off furnishings (hall lockers, etc.) from East High to dress the set.  Another show I designed there was Footloose, which was also shot in Utah.  At 00:18:30 you can see glimpses of the building next door, which is our scenery and property shop.  The cornice on the roof was destroyed by the earthquake earlier this year.  The sign at 00:18:37 is just across the street.  I reproduced it as part of the Footloose set.

01:37:26.  This is supposed to be Central Park in NYC.  It's actually a park in Salt Lake called Memory Grove.  It has a number of follies commemorating war dead.  Its at the mouth of City Creek Canyon, one of the Seven Canyons that line the east side of our valley.

01:44:38 North of Salt Lake City there are a number of petroleum refineries.  This whole sequence was shot at one of their tank farms.

02:20:10 This is supposed to be Oklahoma.  As the camera tilts up, however, we see a very famous Union Station in Ogden, Utah.

02:27:41 Not Vermont, but high-end apartments near Temple Square in SLC.

02:34:03 Vincent Drug is a cherished Utah pharmacy chain.  Another franchise location can be seen in The Sandlot, also filmed here.

03:15:45 The title says "Eastern Colorado," but the mountain in the background is Mt Timpanogos, one of the most recognizable peaks in Utah.

03:28:36 Salt Lake's famous Union Pacific station.  It has been superseded now by Salt Lake Central, a modern multi-modal station.  This station has now been incorporated into a downtown outdoor mall.  The shots of the interior that follow really are the station, really preserved in all its former glory.  Except that it's full of characteristic Utah scenes.  (It's supposed to be Boulder, Colorado's train station.)  The crane shot at 03:24:07 cuts to a fairly obvious shot of Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers entering the valley.

Most of the residences portrayed as Boulder, Colorado are actually in Salt Lake -- many of them in my neighborhood.  03:48:22 is a good example.  These two houses are characteristic of a prolific architect who designed dozens of houses in my neighborhood.  Note the main roofline that slopes front to back, interrupted by a dormer.  A prime example is at 03:56:17.  Note the red-rock foundations.

04:03:17 This nondescript road is noteworthy only because if you go down the slope off the left side, you're in the Memory Grove park.  If the camera were to pan only slightly more to the left, you'd see the Utah State Capitol in all its glory.  This is a popular hiking and biking trail.

04:13:42 More of Memory Grove.  You can see one of the follies in the background.

04:27:10 The road up Little Cottonwood Canyon, one of the Seven Canyons.  This is somewhat accurately reported on the title as being in Utah.  It's a fun road to drive.  At high speed.  In a fast car.

Well, that about wraps it up.

[gillianren]

Oh, believe me, I always recognize King.

[Peter B]

Hey, a little question for those of the English persuasion, about the meaning of a word.

I was watching "The Dambusters" on DVD with my sons today.

As the attacking aircraft assemble at the first dam, the mission commander, Guy Gibson, calls out to the crews, "Hello all Cooler aircraft, I'm going to attack."

What was the meaning of "Cooler"? Was it a code word for the mission? RAF slang (if so, what for)? More general English slang (again, if so, what for)?

Thank you.