41–50 of 80 posts
What's slightly funny is that De Niro explicitly doesn't have a New York accent when he says that famous line. If anything he's putting on a more neutral accent than his normal one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWL-FwX4t4
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people outside of NYC think it's rude the first time they hear it! No "please" or "may I" in sight.
In South Africa we will often say "hello" and "how are you?" before ordering, no exaggeration.
Neither hacking nor news... Peculiar...
- cooperative overlap: old school interfaces were based more on turn-taking, with the computer providing a 'prompt' when it was ready to accept more input. Nowadays we tend towards an overlapping style of UX, with the computer following the link which is now under the mouse instead of the link on which one thought one had been clicking, before the last relayout.
- dialect adoption, like software adoption, shows strong network effects and path dependence.
Best New York slang is saying, "lemme get a" when you order hot food at a bodega.
Thinking of music and NYC also Kenny Gioia comes to mind. After having watched tons of his Reaper instructional videos I think I dreamt in a thick New York accent;-)
The most perplexing thing about New York English is the use of "on line" instead of "in line" when waiting for something.
Neither hacking nor news... Peculiar...
I sometimes would also prefer that the guidelines would be enforced with a more tech/science heavy focus but I also appreciate how big of an effort it is to moderate HN. Nevertheless you can still go back to the old more tech heavy frontpage (AFAIK it uses a previous HN ranking algorithm?): https://news.ycombinator.com/classic
Yeah, regional American accents are dying, unfortunately. I think they added a lot of color to dialog in the U.S. My own grandfather grew up in the Appalachians during the Great Depression and has to this day the thickest accent and the funniest idioms. But with each generation after him the accent has worn off more and more. When you go to NYC you kinda hope to run into these old school New Yorkers and have them tur…
Social pressure can play a role in the demise of regional accents. As someone who grew up in Appalachia, there are certain biases that come with that accent. It's is one of the reasons some professionals from the region try very hard to "talk normally." There is even training you can undergo to lose your accent. I learned early in my career that people make certain assumptions about you based on your accent. Over the…
Though I assume he didn't mention that his family had been fairly well known off course bookies (pre legalisation)
My wife pointed out that in South African English, which comes from British you don't pronounce the final "r" in words after a vowel.
Growing up in the Midwest I took a job with a Midwestern tech company that had a LOT of east coast banks as customers. Some folks would warn you that when you talked to them they're "really rude" but others would tell you that they sound harsh, but actually are really nice. It was a curious mix of warnings, and for the most part I certainly noticed the accent and different patterns, but didn't think twice about it. T…