Stuff!

[lederhosen]

Have had djfiggy visiting, giving the opportunity to get out and see stuff. We saw the Dali exhibition on Wednesday with Brandt and Silverblue, and that was interesting. I can't really make blanket statements about somebody with as diverse a body of work as Dali; some of his stuff doesn't do a lot for me, but Galatea of the Spheres is a favourite (and just about all of it becomes more interesting with more understanding of the process behind it).

Yesterday we went out to Phillip Island and saw penguins (cute, in a vicious sort of way, and I think we have a candidate to replace kookaburras for Generic Weird-Sounding Bird Noise in movies).

Also went climbing yesterday; I'm quite sore today, but I think it's good sore. I didn't try anything too difficult, but I feel like I got a fair bit of exercise.

Have been reading 'The Story of English' (McCrum, MacNeil, and Cran, not to be confused with other similarly-named work). This is a fascinating book, particularly in the way it deals with English as a universal language of communication versus the appearance of regional varieties.

My only quibble: "most Australians tend to attribute the half-familiar New Zealand accent to a remote part of their own country. A New Zealander in Sydney might well be asked if he or she came from Tasmania... if a New Zealander and an Australian from the same social background shared a railway carriage only an expert phonetician could tell them apart on the basis of pronunciation."

As the book notes itself, only a couple of pages earlier, Australia doesn't have much regionality of accents; while I'm told there are subtle differences, I've never been able to hear them. The most noticeable accent/idiom differences here are, for want of a better word, class-based.

OTOH, there is a well-known distinction between Australian and NZ accents - I don't know if it's obvious to outsiders, but I don't think any Australian in that railway carriage would have much trouble telling who was from NZ. (Unless the NZer had been in Australia long enough to shift accents, which does happen.)

Comments

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Hee; great first impression nudging them toward the hedgehog account, yes. It's much cuter.

[serehfa.livejournal.com]

I can tell the difference between regional accents to some extent, but I grew up somewhere with its own distinct accent so it might make it easier than say, in Sydney which is such a melting pot. Even different country towns have their own sounds. People move around a lot here though so the accents blend; also we have had less time in isolation for the accent to differentiate.

I have always been fascinated by the way all the southern english speaking regions have similarities in accent - South Africa, southern Australia and New Zealand.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

The book makes mention of that - apparently because most of the settlers came from the Midlands, around the same time.

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

The Queensland accent is distinctive... it just sounds more 'rural'... can't be more exact than that... I'm not sure I believe people who claim to hear a difference between Sydney & Melbourne accents, but you're better placed to pick that than I at this point. I await your results...

The New Zealand accent always seems to me like an Englishman trying to sound Australian.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Have had djfiggy visiting

Visited by a hedgehog! Awesome ;)

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

If a New Zealander and an Australian were in the same room I think I could tell they had different accents, although I wouldn't want to say which was which. I'm not great with accents.

I'm curious as to how well English speakers outside the UK and Ireland can distinguish our regional accents. I live in England and I can recognise Welsh, but I know people (mostly in Wales) who can tell Cardiff Welsh from Swansea Welsh.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I can hear the difference between several UK regional accents, but couldn't name most of them.