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Grandmother of Five posted:I'm curious about how much of a language barrier regional US dialects represents, and whether any US dialects come across as wholly or largely incomprehensible to you as native American English speakers. Free movement, modern transportation infrastructure and nationalism were solidly built into the American experience. We didn't have a Middle Ages (well, we did, but we genocided all those groups) so our regional dialects cover a much larger area. Mass Media and general population movements post-WWII also basically eliminated seriously hard-to-understand dialects. For example Boontling would be incredibly hard to understand, but it has less than 100 speakers. Gullah is another dialect that is really hard to understand. At a quarter million speakers, it's one of the larger "semi-unintelligible" dialects but similar to African American Vernacular English modern Gullah speakers can always understand General American and can usually code switch so as to likewise be understood. Some truly isolated local communities don't speak English or, in the case of certain parts of Appalachia, speak a sufficiently archaic form of English so as to be essentially a different language, but those are rare exceptions. If you are having a hard time understanding someone, it's probably because they speak English as a Second Language and don't speak it very well because they are an immigrant or from a recent but isolated immigrant community. As opposed to being from what used to be the Feudal demesne far enough away that theoretically spoke the same language nobody would have spoken to each other until sometime after 1650 but never bothered to linguistically unify for . . . various historical reasons.
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Feb 8, 2017 07:05
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Tony Montana posted:I'm with Tiggum. The police are a white power organization designed to protect the propertied white class. If you don't fall into that spectrum, the cops will absolutely not protect you and are much more likely to be antagonistic towards you. For most Americans, you are much more likely to be killed or extorted by a police officer than you are by anyone else. The recourse for this is, of course, to address your complaints to the police. Famously, a police officer recently complained to President Trump that a particular representative was trying to take away their ability to seize assets (that is, take property up to and including all the property) of people they arrest. This is all pre-trial. If you want it back, you have to sue the police department. Good luck with that. Trump suggested ruining the career of the politician trying to take away that particular power. It's a hosed up world man.
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Feb 9, 2017 08:19
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Tony Montana posted:It's not a hosed up world, man. America is hosed up, like really hosed up. Fair correction and point well taken.
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Feb 9, 2017 09:25
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bongwizzard posted:That is some absurd hyperbole dude unless you have some data to back it up. We'll never know because it is incredibly difficult to collect data on extrajudicial murder by cop. If you have to hide the evidence, that's damning enough. The cops are a criminal gang out to steal your money and kill you. 
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Feb 9, 2017 17:20
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As a white man, nobody ever invited me to the white privilege party! I had it rough growing up, some "privilege".
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Feb 14, 2017 02:43
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The nice thing about living in the Bay Area is that we need no guns. During the auto-de-fe this morning, I was able to use my superior vehicle to eliminate several candidates from the employment pool. This is good and well because it continues to demonstrate that I am a worthy employee and my employer will surely see my worth. They say that Samuel Colt made all men equal with his gun but the gun is a tool for cowards. Here in San Francisco, if you kill someone with a gun because they are better at your job, you blame Twinkies. If you kill someone with your car, well, that could have happened to anyone. Once again, guns are for pussies.
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Feb 16, 2017 10:12
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The nice thing about living in the Bay Area is that we need no guns. During the auto-de-fe this morning, I was able to use my superior vehicle to eliminate several candidates from the employment pool. This is good and well because it continues to demonstrate that I am a worthy employee and my employer will surely see my worth. They say that Samuel Colt made all men equal with his gun but the gun is a tool for cowards. Here in San Francisco, if you kill someone with a gun because they are better at your job, you blame Twinkies. If you kill someone with your car, well, that could have happened to anyone. Once again, guns are for pussies.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:41
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spacetoaster posted:So your cops don't carry guns? That's pretty impressive. That particular gang is still armed and still actively murdering people. Though hopefully someday their reign of terror will be eliminated. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/video-sf-police-filmed-unloading-barrage-bullets-man-article-1.2454453 All cats are beautiful.
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Feb 18, 2017 03:24
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I used to cut across grass and people looked at me like I was completely insane. Like, across a square people will walk 2 over sidewalk as opposed to root 2 over grass. If all you do is walk over sidewalk, then sure, your feet will be pretty clean anyway. Why not leave the shoes on. But Americans are also funny about being barefoot in general. If I run out to grab my paper and am barefoot my neighbors look at me like I'm insane. Don't I know there could be broken glass? I mean, sure, theoretically but realistically where I live people aren't dropping bottles on the ground very often. And even if they are my feet have callouses so I'd have to be pretty impaired for them to do damage. You step on a piece of glass, you notice it, it hurts, you pull it out of your foot. That used to happen to me a lot in college (where broken bottles were pretty much everywhere) but you usually don't even bleed. You feel a prick, you pull the glass out, but because your callous protects you there isn't even any blood. Why buy shoes when your body makes them for you?
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Feb 20, 2017 09:18
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Do you pee in jars to maintain control over your essence? What's so dirty about outside? When it's bad enough to be seriously dusty/dingy (for example, when it hasn't rained for ages) then it's dusty/dingy inside too.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:51
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honda whisperer posted:Same shoes you wear in public restrooms. Oil from leaky cars in parking lots. Gum and bird poop on the sidewalk etc. What kinds of jacked up places do you go where so soiled that you need to take them off? I mean, if my shoes are obviously soiled I'd take them off. What I'm really concerned with are microparticles in the air from pollution. That's why I'm always naked in my house. It's the only way to be clean.
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Feb 22, 2017 03:58
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honda whisperer posted:I work in a machine shop. The bottoms of my shoes are covered with tiny shards of razor sharp metal. Not gross but painful. Not bringing those shoes in makes 100% sense. But that falls well within the "soiled" aspect most people here are talking about.
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Feb 22, 2017 07:08
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Rural/Southern "politeness" is absolutely insufferable. In the Bronx if someone is talking my ear off about nothing they are pulling a big dick move. If my grandfather wants to talk my ear off, that's his prerogative, he's earned it. Same goes for my boss. When some stranger talks to me about random poo poo I don't give a gently caress about while circumventing the point with "politeness" they are suggesting that my time is something that they have a right to and can waste. It's the rudest thing loving possible but if I ask them to get to the point, then I'm the loving monster. There is a time and a place for shooting the poo poo but I haven't met a person from a rural/Southern space who doesn't think that that place and time are "every where and every when".
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Feb 28, 2017 08:12
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In my experience with Scandinavians (note: mostly Finnish which may-or-may-not count as actually Scandinavian depending on which skull-type chart you are consulting) if we assume that "talkativeness" follows a normal distribution for national populations the tails of the "least talkative Americans" overlaps with "the most talkative Finns". Like 2-sigma for each in opposite directions.
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Mar 1, 2017 00:09
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Upstate NY is a trash place for trash people.
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Mar 2, 2017 19:54
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I always wear orange on St. Paddy's in America. The worst I've gotten in a pinched cheek but I can reliably get a lot of free beer at English and Scottish pubs.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:30
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Grandmother of Five posted:
It's more like Germany/Neatherlands. The Dutch hate the Germans and build a lot of their national identity around "not being German" whereas the Germans hardly think of the Dutch at all and when they do it is vaguely positive.
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Apr 5, 2017 18:12
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 Milk in a bag and throwing loonies at strippers
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Apr 6, 2017 22:19
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When I would go to Edmonton for work, I used to like to use a lighter to heat the coins up. It would really make the girls jump!
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Apr 7, 2017 21:47
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