Aloha Everyone,
According to an article which appeared in Business Insider, there are 24 distinctive dialects are spoken in the US Mainland. Some of them sound like a foreign language and often incomprehensible to "outsiders".
Unlike accent which is how a word is pronounced, dialect has its own grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and common expressions, as well as pronunciation. The following are but a few examples of American dialects:
1) The North
2) Northern New England
3) Greater New York City
4) The Midland
5) The South
6) New Orleans
7) The Eastern Seaboard
J.J. and I hear Texan say "I’m fixin’ to.” which does not mean that something is broken and it needs to be repaired. Rather it means that the speaker is about to do something.
A lady from Louisiana told us that Siri on her iPhone is rude and does not like her. She blames this cool treatment by Siri not to follow her audio command to her grandchildren who insulted her. I gently reminded her that though there is a real person who did the voice of Siri, it is a computer program communicating with her. A kind, gentle and affable Southern lady, but she frequently lost me after her "Hi y'al"greeting.
Aloha -- Cathi
