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Re: Word usage in English dialects // was Slang, curses and vulgarities

From:Tristan McLeay <conlang@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 2, 2005, 10:55
On 2 Feb 2005, at 6.26 pm, Adrian Morgan (aka Flesh-eating Dragon)
wrote:

> Tristan McLeay wrote: > >> damn good ads, if I say so myself). The association between 'bloody >> idiot' and drink-driving is still current, though, > > It isn't here, and hasn't been for over a decade. But I remember it > fondly.
Really? So you're not getting the 'Only a little bit over?' ads, then? I spose not, the TAC's a state thing.
> >> I tend to have chook for the animal, whole, and chicken for the animal >> as food. Things like 'a chicken' is as ungrammatical to my ear as 'a >> beef'. If you're having chicken for dinner, you might be having a >> whole >> bird, or you might be having chicken wings. If you're having a chook >> for dinner, you're eating the whole bird (well, minus the head, >> feathers, guts). Presumably roasted. Some people might say they're >> having chook for dinner (note no article), but this seems derogatory >> to >> me, if you could speak offensively of chooks. > > I don't agree with this: "a chicken" is perfectly grammatical to me in > the context of "Shall I go down the shop and get a chicken for tea?"
Yes, well, the article's not the only thing wrong with that sentence... (I'd never use the word 'shall' unless I was purposefully affecting a British style. 'Tea' I'm also a bit not-to-fond-of there, dinner and breakfast refer to styles of meal, but lunch and tea refers to the time you have the meal, so you'd have chicken for dinner at tea-time. But around here tea's almost dead as a meal anyway, amongst my age-group...) So you know, you aren't doing anything in your defence against my statement that you sound British :)
> A few people say "chook" for all purposes, including references to > food. My cousin, for one.
Yeah, that's the definition that seems derogatory to me, to which I alluded at the end of my sentence. -- Tristan.

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Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>