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A Call To My Mother…
My phone call to a significant other was to my mom. It was interesting to notice little things i had never caught onto before. She has an accent since English was her second language. We spoke a lot about school and work and i realized those are our usual topics. I also realized she never used to get emotional, and with this call she was telling me that she missed me being home with her a lot. As we continued talking, i also realized that she bounced around speaking English and Spanish in the same sentences a lot. I also very oddly brought up the topic buckets and pails and i realized she does not say either. Instead she says the Spanish translation of it. When i called her she began with “how are you? como estas mija?”. She doesn’t use hella at all and says soda with an accent. All of the slang she used when she was younger was in Spanish. That turned into very cute and funny conversation. I then asked her to pronounce the listed words and she kept telling me that they were all the same words. I assumed this was because English was her second language. overall, i had a very good and interesting talk with my mom.
Call a Significant Person
I decided to call my grandfather because he lived in Boston for most of his life and he tends to say a lot of different words and phrases that I would never think to say. For example, if he likes something he says “this is bully” or if he is asking you if you are hungry, he will look at you and simply ask “Jeet?” as far as the generics go: soda, how’s it going, and bucket are all things that he will say. My grandfather was disgusted when I brought up slang from my era. He particularly despised ratchet and went on talking about how he didn’t understand why a trashy girl was being called a type of wrench.
GenS_100 Calling a Relative
I called my relatives, and since they are British, their word choice and accent are different from those who were born and lived in America their whole lives.
I noticed they tend to use the word “pail” more than they use “bucket” even though they use both. When they answer the phone, they don’t say “What’s up?” or “What’s good?” Instead they’ll say “You alright?” That’s the way people in England also greet each other even when they aren’t on the phone. Usually they won’t say soda or pop, and they’ll say fizzy pop instead. They never use “hella,” but they did tell me about some interesting slang from England. My cousin told me when people are typing online, they will use “babes” a lot. Saying the words “crap” and “piss” in England is worse than saying them in America. When describing something that belongs to them, instead of using “my,” they will tend to use the word “me.” For example, when we were talking about school, my cousin said “I almost left me bag in the house.”
When my family in England pronounce “pool” and “pull,” and “feel” and “fill,” the words sound really different. When they say “bad” and “bat,” the words sound similar, but “bot” sounds different. “Caller” and “collar” sound pretty similar.
Through my visits to England and conversations on the phone with my relatives, I’ve noticed the word choice between Americans and the English can differ a lot.
-Meg Collier
Gen 100 Calling a Significant Figure
For this assignment I called my cousin who was born and raised in Los Angeles. I decided to call my cousin instead of my parents because my parents can not speak English so calling him would fit the assignment more. I don’t see my cousin very often because he’s very busy the only times I get to see him are at family gatherings. While talking to him on the phone I didn’t pick up on anything new or surprising about the way he speaks. We had a very casual conversation, we talked about college and dorm life and he gave me a lot of advice since he has already been through college and is now getting his masters at USC. He started of the conversation with a “What’s up?” and “What’ve you been up to?” in which I replied “nothing much”. Since he grew up in southern California he rarely uses the word “hella,” even during our conversation. During our conversation, I asked him a serious of questions and found out that he says soda and bucket instead of pop and pail which is not very surprising in California. Being a 23 year old male college student he knows quite a lot of slang such as “swag”, “sick”, “dope” but he rarely uses slangs that I use such as “totes”, “adorbs” and “ratchet.” However, like me he has never heard of the words dank and flame which I think sounds kind of funny and weird. The vowels in pool and pull, feel and fill sound totally different to me. I also pronounce words such as bad,bat and bot differently. However, the words collar and caller sound the same to me and I say them similarly too.
My Mom’s Linguistic Habits
She says bucket, never really uses the word pail.
How are you? How have you been? How’re you doing?
Pop
She will say hella occasionally. Mostly as a joke or to make me or her other kids groan.
a) [Pool/Pull] Different, subtly. b) [Feel/Fill] Different, distinct. c) [Bat/Bad/Bot] Bat and bad are similar, bot is clearly different. d) [Collar/Caller] Same, indistinguishable
Slang she used as a kid: bitchin’, cute, cool, rad/radical, stoners, chopped/choppers
Gen_S100C Call Home HW
Andrew Gasparini
Call to Mom
I made a phone call to my mom, who is from San Ramon, CA.
A) I asked her about what we use when we wash the cars, and she used the term bucket.
B) She uses the phrase How’s it going? a lot.
C) I asked her what I always drink, and she said soda pop. I think she was joking around when she said this.
D) She did not use hella in our conversation, but I know she uses it occasionally.
E) She didn’t have any idea what the term, dank, meant. Or at least she pretended she didn’t know its primary use.
She mentioned that when my dad is around his cousins, he uses his slang from their childhood, because they were all really close. So when he’s with them he always says everything is killer or wicked or sick! I also notice him use the phrase, “Right on!” constantly.
When asked about the different vowels and how they compare, she said that they all sounded very close, but we had our own distinctions between them.
Calling Back Home
The person I called was my uncle because he is often curious about my new dorm life. Our conversation was very casual and consisted of very few English words because we mainly communicate in Chinese. He asked me ” How are you doing?” instead of “What’s up?” which was expected because I think only people of similar age would say something like that since it is quite informal. He also says soda instead of pop and he does not use the word “hella.”
The set of words such as pool and pull , feel and fill sound completely different to me, whereas collar and caller sound the exact same. I feel that although many words in the English language sound similar to one another, as long as we use it in a correct sentence, we will be able to differentiate the meaning of it.
Ask a Family Member
So I decided to talk to my parents about their terms that they use. Heres what I came up with.
Bucket or Pale?
Both say Bucket. Mom is from New Jersey and she said she used to say Pale when she was younger.
Hows it going? How are you?
Both say how’s it going to friends, and how are you to co workers.
Soda or Pop?
Soda!
Nobody says Hella…thank you Mom and Dad.
Some New Slang… My Dad says “redonkulus” it’s a bit annoying, he uses it way too much!
My mom’s response was… well I mean I’ve heard of twerking.
Slang they’ve heard me use: Ratchet, Crankin’, dope
Vowel Practice:
A) Pool/Pull- Different
B) Bat/Bad/Bot- Same
C) Feel/Full- Different
D) Caller/Collar- Same
It’s interesting because both of my parents are originally from the East Coast. My Mom is from New Jersey and my Dad from Pennsylvania. They have been living in Southern California now for upwards of 20 years. However it seems strange to me that my Mom was familiar with the term pale from her childhood. I have never heard her use it with me! It was so funny when I was talking to them because as soon as I brought up some slang from my childhood I asked them if there was any slang from when they were younger. They both had to think but they came up with: groovy, wicked, and trippy. How Funny :)
Gen s100: Calling home
I called my mom for this assignment. The way she talks is Spanglish. She uses broken English. During this call, I noticed that sometimes when she is speaking, she is using words in past tense rather than present tense. Her accent is a Spanish accent, it isn’t that deep. Since, my mom is from a different country her use of slang is not up to date. However, is understands slang when I use it. She knows “what’s up?” is a substitution for “how are you?’. Little things like that she understands, but not words like: ratchet or turned up. On how she speaks, I really didn’t find anything unique with the words she uses. She really only talks to me in Spanish and uses Spanish slang. However, when she does speak English she tries to pronounce her words more clearly.
A) She uses the word bucket.
B) When I called, she used the phrase “How are you?”
C) She says the word soda, when I asked her.
D) She doesn’t know what “hella” meant.
I really didn’t hear anything different in her English slang. However, with her Spanish slang there are some words that I probably never heard of and had to ask her.
a) The Pool/Pull, they sound different to me. Pool sounds like I an saying “oo” and Pull is more short and more deep, like I am saying “uh”.
b)The words Feel/Fill do not sound the same. The word “Feel” sound softer than “Fill”
c) The three words sound the same to me.
d) Caller/Collar sound the same or very similar.
Parents Back Then and Nowadays
I called my dad and he has a mild British accent that I don’t really notice, but everybody else does. He says:
- Both pail and bucket
- What’s up, what’s good, how’s it going and how are you
- Soda
And of course, he says… HELLA! (I’ve taught him well)
He also tries to say ratchet and all the slang words that my friends and I use to try and be hip, but to also bother us.
Some slang words that he claimed to have used but is still used back then are:
-Brilliant
-Bog…Toilet
-Fab…Fabulous
In London, many of the people who live in the East End speak with a Cockney accent (which is considered “ghetto”) but here’s some slang that many people from London used back then as well:
-Apples and pears…stairs
-Dog and bone…phone
-Whistle and flute … nice suit
a)Pool/pull sound similar but have a slight difference if you pronounce the vowels correctly.
b)Feel/fill sound similar but the double e has a longer pull on the word, the i cuts it short.
c)Bat/bad/bot all sound different.
d)Caller/collar sound exactly the same to me but if you know the spelling and context you know the difference.
D5 Creation