Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[1overcosc]

Francophone communities in Northern Ontario have a reputation for some weird linguistic quirks (mostly anglicization-related). Not the case this time apparently!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

The former is definitely preferred.

(In "correct" international French at least.)

I checked as I wasn't sure and both conjugations are actually correct. You're right about the one that is far more accepted.

Even if the second one is accepted, there are extrapolations on it that are considered bad French. Such the alternate infinitive "assir(e)". (Not sure how to spell it.)

Telling someone "Viens t'assire" kind of outs you as a lower class uneducated person in Quebec these days.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Telling someone "Viens t'assire" kind of outs you as a lower class uneducated person in Quebec these days.

Speaking of lower class jargon, what's the status of "youse" these days? I swear I used to hear it fairly regularly when I was a kid growing up in working class Winnipeg in the 80s, but these days I never hear it anywhere. Do people still say that?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I checked as I wasn't sure and both conjugations are actually correct. You're right about the one that is far more accepted.

Even if the second one is accepted, there are extrapolations on it that are considered bad French. Such the alternate infinitive "assir(e)". (Not sure how to spell it.)

Telling someone "Viens t'assire" kind of outs you as a lower class uneducated person in Quebec these days.

Actually, I was recommending the first one as "the one you should use in modern international French" just because I know it's the one that normally gets used most in practice, but not only is the second one correct too, I am pretty sure it's actually the higher level of language of the two but is somewhat outmoded/archaic nowadays which is why the first form strikes all of us as "more correct" at first sight.

For example, the imperative "assieds-toi" vs "assois-toi". (What we'd say in Quebec, "assis-toi", is in fact incorrect.) The few people I know who speak/write an extremely high level of French all happen to say the former.

[lio45]

Confirmation:

Originally Posted by le conjugueur, lefigaro.fr

Asseoir (et rasseoir) est bien connu pour posséder deux formes de conjugaison : j'assois et j'assieds. Y a-t-il une préférence dans l'emploi de ces formes? Autant le dire tout de suite, les deux formes sont parfaitement correctes.

Interestingly enough, they actually noted the Québécois use of the imperative that I brought up as example! (I disagree with their "unusual nowadays", that's a France-specific comment!)

Originally Posted by le conjugueur, lefigaro.fr

À l'impératif, on dira plutôt assieds-toi ou assois-toi mais jamais *assis-toi. Ce "assis" est une forme du présent de l'indicatif datant du XVIIe siècle aujourd'hui inusitée.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by esquire

Speaking of lower class jargon, what's the status of "youse" these days? I swear I used to hear it fairly regularly when I was a kid growing up in working class Winnipeg in the 80s, but these days I never hear it anywhere. Do people still say that?

Almost never hear it. The second person plural has always been "you guys" with the people I interact with.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by esquire

Speaking of lower class jargon, what's the status of "youse" these days? I swear I used to hear it fairly regularly when I was a kid growing up in working class Winnipeg in the 80s, but these days I never hear it anywhere. Do people still say that?

I hear it sometimes with some of my aunties and uncles. Could be a somewhat more rural-type thing (they all grew up on farms and moved to cities later in life).

There's a specific accent I associate with the way I hear it in my head (thinking of when it's used), and it's the farm/rural accent, so I'm going to go with that.

[SignalHillHiker]

Grand Bank, on our south coast, has a bizarrely sexy accent. No seriously. Ask Marty McFly, who has a mainland Canadian accent. We both confessed to each other a weakness for a girl with a Grand Bank accent lol. And hey if it works on me?

Anyhow, they have something even weirder than youse.

If I brought all of you to town and introduced you to a friend, she'd tell others, "Ryan and theys were here".

Youse isn't a big thing here, I think. Ye or ye's (pronounced like yuzz). Like what are yuzz at? Or what are ye at.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Almost never hear it. The second person plural has always been "you guys" with the people I interact with.

"Yuz" lingers in some quarters in expressions like "Wadaryuzupta?" but it's not common. It would not surprise me to hear "youse guys" rather than "you guys".

[Xelebes]

Something from the late 90s I remember here, especially among young girls: y'guyz. Still hear it on occasion. Bit different from you guys, especially with the exaggeration on the iamb.

[wg_flamip]

For me:

Formal - "Where are you all?"
Casual - "Where are you guys?"
Very casual - "Where're yiz'all at right now?"

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

For me:

Formal - "Where are you all?"
Casual - "Where are you guys?"
Very casual - "Where're yiz'all at right now?"

"Formal"? I don't think so. Could the GTA be witnessing the death of the second person plural?

[SignalHillHiker]

This week I've heard three or four different people on open line call in to send out "a huge bouquet" to someone, meaning a big thank you.

Haven't heard it before this week.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

This week I've heard three or four different people on open line call in to send out "a huge bouquet" to someone, meaning a big thank you.

Haven't heard it before this week.

I associate that phrase with the "beefs and bouquets" shows that some AM stations used to have in Ye Olden Days. It was full of riveting stuff like "I'd like to send a big bouquet to my bus driver Mickey on the 11. I was running to the bus stop, he saw me, and he waited!" or "A big beef to the lunkheads at the Workers Compensation Board who denied my claim!". That sort of thing.

[rousseau]

Since when do Canadians call porridge "oatmeal"?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/life...it-perfectly-every-time/article22857910/

What a weird one. Though the "chef" uses the word "versatile" in its proper Canadian-UK pronunciation instead of the peculiar American versidul, so his act is still identifiably Canadian.

Oatmeal is ground oats. The breakfast dish made from boiling oatmeal in water is porridge. This is not difficult. I don't know what the Globe and Mail is trying to prove.

[SignalHillHiker]

That's a weird one. We use both - both oatmeal is what you use to make porridge, I think. Surely I'd never call the prepared, wet stuff "oatmeal".

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Since when do Canadians call porridge "oatmeal"?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/life...it-perfectly-every-time/article22857910/

What a weird one. Though the "chef" uses the word "versatile" in its proper Canadian-UK pronunciation instead of the peculiar American versidul, so his act is still identifiably Canadian.

Oatmeal is ground oats. The breakfast dish made from boiling oatmeal in water is porridge. This is not difficult. I don't know what the Globe and Mail is trying to prove.

Basically everyone calls it oatmeal out here (oats/rolled oats/oatmeal for the grain and oatmeal for the prepared "porridge" made of ...oatmeal/oats/rolled oats). The only time I've really heard porridge is in a telling of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Maybe its a prairie or Western Canadian thing?

For me, porridge would almost mean any time of wet cooked grain dish and saying oatmeal instead just skips ahead to be more specific.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nathan

Basically everyone calls it oatmeal out here (oats/rolled oats/oatmeal for the grain and oatmeal for the prepared "porridge" made of ...oatmeal/oats/rolled oats). The only time I've really heard porridge is in a telling of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Maybe its a prairie or Western Canadian thing?

For me, porridge would almost mean any time of wet cooked grain dish and saying oatmeal instead just skips ahead to be more specific.

During my life as an anglo it was always porridge, even though the bag said "oatmeal". I'd still say porridge today if I had it at breakfast and eas speaking in English somewhere...

[esquire]

My dad always called it porridge and I always thought he was just hopelessly out of date, because the US TV commercials I saw as a kid always just referred to "oatmeal". I wasn't aware of the distinction referred to by rousseau.

[BIMBAM]

Originally Posted by Nathan

Basically everyone calls it oatmeal out here (oats/rolled oats/oatmeal for the grain and oatmeal for the prepared "porridge" made of ...oatmeal/oats/rolled oats). The only time I've really heard porridge is in a telling of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Maybe its a prairie or Western Canadian thing?

For me, porridge would almost mean any time of wet cooked grain dish and saying oatmeal instead just skips ahead to be more specific.

Actually, it's the same in Montreal English, my own variety. I've never once heard someone refer to the dish as porridge outside of a literary context.