.
(a Cornish pasty crimped 'at side' the proper way)Is it a lie? Oh yes.
Most people who live here adopt the accent at some point. It never fails to confuse tourists and stops them asking inane questions like "Where's the beach?".
The Cornish accent is a treat for the ears and unlike some of the TV programmes
(who incidentally, never get it right) the accent is more of a way of speaking than just a lilt. A regional dialect that differs from Devon (next door) , Somerset, or Dorset and the greatest irritation is to be compared with a Bristol accent (pah!). Cornish people have no hang-ups about the rest of the country - you are all just foreigners as far as they are concerned. Non-Celt's who live over the bridge in heathen England!
.
So if you're coming down on holiday this summer, smile, drink the cyder, eat the pasty's and nod in the right places when a local talks to you. You can then leave us to tuck into the real Cornish stuff.....
Oh, and watch out for those things in the picture below. They'll steal yer scrumpy, yer pasty and yer wife too!.
pee ess - The title of my post means "Listen carefully dimwit, or I'll give you a wallop".
40 comments:
My, I've drank some rough old scrumpy in the Ship Inn in Pentewan Sands. 1983, I think.
That post of yours brings back long forgotten nights of drunkeness and debauchery!
Hick's Special Draft (H.S.D.) I think. Went down well with a cointreau depth charge! hic.
He he and there I was thinking fez meant bum! I can't remember what I drank in Cornwall... strange that.
Carm down, carm down! Ders no pont gettin all upset about reeginal dialects, like. I live on de sunny Wirral peninsular but when I open me mouf people hold onto der watchis!
I like pasties and I like cream. I'd rather have a pint of guinness than scrumpy in all honesty! That blue guy looks kind of familiar!
I just realised that my previous comment was more accent than dialect...
Dialects exterminate you in a very local kind of way i believe.
Scrumpy and a depth charge, John G! Shivers. You should try Spingo at The Blue Anchor in Helston - flat on yer back in under a minute!
Possibly the local population took you under their wing, V. Did your pint have a cocktail umbrella in it? Hmm, thought so.
Well written, Jon, I can hear that accent but yes, what I was saying is that the Cornish have made English their own. They make up words, add a few more and speak very quickly. Strange really cos we all move really slowly! Another southern thing, no doubt.
Please don't smack my fez. I'm inordinately proud of my Turkish headwear.
I will only smack yer fez if you've had a ciggy, MT! Maybe you could replace the dreaded nicotine with Scrumpy. Do you have Scrumpy in Merka?
Thazza nice Bristol twang you have in that writing of yers, Miz Minx...
Ow, stop that, don't smackee me cross me fez - it'll fall orf and me head'll be bare - and cold.
Really worried now. Tell that blue pesky piskie s/he can have me scrumpy and pasty but to keep his/her hands off my wife!
(Could be cultural foodstuffs at dawn - I lob a bowl of kneidlach soup, the piskie returns with a well-aimed tub of clotted cream which I skillfully bat away with a barrage of potato latkes before being smackeed by a scrumpy jug but all is not lost as I follow up with my hidden stock of gefilte fish balls ...)
You are lucky that you are so far away Miss Van Pod. Not sure why I'm grumping anyway - I haven't got an accent!
Debi, I am sure the Knocker (piskie) would rustle you up a Stargazey Pie (a pie of whole pilchards, yes, gazing starward) if you lobbed hard enough. I know latkes and gefilte fish whatnots, but what is in the soup?
Gosh, aren't we being cultural. Perhaps we should think of our most awful regional/cultural dishes.
hey minx, you are so lucky to live down there! the furthest southwest i have been in uk are exeter and weymouth. i would love to visit cornwall at some point, it looks stunning.
Minx,
You know it is the general consensus here in the US that the people in the southern states (those residing south of the Mason Dixon line) are quite thick, inbred, bible thumping hillbilly/redneck types.
My sister married a good 'ol boy (a resident of that region), and moved down there. I still give her quite a bit of ribbing over it, but she loves it down there!
The regional colloquialisms are one of my favorite things to tease her about, the food there is quite different than it is anywhere else in the country, and they have a look all their own.
But there's nothing like southern hospitality. Nothing like it at all.
Funny old world, yes?
Professor Henry Higgins keeps coming to my mind.
Great post Minx. I shall remember it in my travels to England.
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
Minx,
As an aside, I just noticed that your picture of the lovely Audrey Hepburn, up on the right side of your page, depicts her 'flipping us off'... in a way, with her right hand, as it's laying down on it's side.
I hadn't noticed that before.
Did you choose this picture on purpose?
Scarlett & V.
A Stargazey pie? - wouldn't dat be one filled wid beans... now dat would make it loik dat Oirish Star - dat what is a far-ting...
And on a more sane note - ha ha - if Debi is lobbing latkes and kneidlach, then I'm going to throw a tomato bredie and some koeksusters her way.
not the intention of your post but...
I'm hungry now.
I have never been across the pond. It is a whole world, I know of not. And right now I am quite interested in getting to know- a pasty, and some scones with cream.
by the bye,
thought of you yesterday, as I was deciding which earrings to wear. I realized I was choosing between three pairs, all of which I nicked from my mom many years ago when I went off to school. They are some of my favorites, my treasured treasures. There is almost guilt in me there, there is the idea of it, but not the feeling of it.
Well, I'd love to live in Cornwall and have your accent. Being a Londoner is so boring!
NMJ - yes, really lucky, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Cornwall has an invisible string - no matter where you are you always want to return.
Oh great Aty, an international food fight! I lobb a Lardy Cake and a couple of Saffron Buns in your general direction.
Taffiny - a recipe for a pasty.
Take one twelve inch round of shortcrust pastry. Fill with sliced potato, turnip and best steak. Season well. Fold and crimp the edge and bake. The results will be dire if you are not Cornish!
Marie, London is not boring, just full. You have many things on your doorstep that we have to travel a hundred miles for, theatre for example, although the Minack theatre is an ampitheatre carved from the cliffs. Um, well, there are other things and I don't have an accent.
Scarlett, Aud's one fingered salute was a minxy gift from the Wordcarver. Not only a poet but a talented fiddler of all things photographic! Go here to have a look at what he did to poor old Pundy....
Queen Pundy
adelaide fringe poster competition - national
The annual Adelaide fringe poster competition is now open. Entries close on 5 September 2007. For more information and to download the design brief, visit www.adelaidefringe.com.au/2008-Fringe/Poster-Competition.aspx
F*** , me cut'n paste has scewed up.
Sorry.
Meant to say...
Can't understand a word you lot are saying. Didn't you guys send the thick ones to duke it out on an idyllic island in the Southern hemisphere?
The "Survivor" 1700's version.
And come to think of it...aren't there refugees from Cornwall living in sunny Patagonia?
PS that strange bit of information was meant for my Public Artists job board. Please feel free to delete it PLEEssssse
Hell no, going to leave it there Noony, someone might be interested!
As for sending our best and most talented your way - tis true. Many of me own relly's populated Ballarat all by themselves! There were miners though, but probably on the dodgy side of honest.
hey Minxy. do you know what LM's right. There were Cornish tin miners in Argentina and they brought FOOTBALL and pasty's, although the pastys are now called empanadas and contain tuna, olives and tomato sauce and boy could I murder one now.
And even though I was half asleep I can vouch that you have no accent, although I have no idea if I had an umbrella in my pint cos I can't remember! I've been to Helston thought which may explain why.
An international food fight ... could only happen here.
I might stop chucking stuff and just stand here with me mouth open.
No change there then.
We need someone Swiss to chuck choccy.
Any takers?
Sorry Debi, I ate all mine.
Just licking my fingers now.
I could get you some Rocky Mountain Oysters... though... if you like... ;o)-
Scarlett
Scarlett, please explain Rocky Mountain Oysters - it may be important.
If it would help I could throw a Sachertorte and an apfelstrudel - being the half and half sort that I am.
Right, Debi, open yer mouth wide then!
The I follow up with a hevva cake and a lump of Yarg.
Right, well since I'm a whole international convention all by myself, I'm chucking some more of my heritage at Debi - open wide now, dear, for a goodly dollop of Bløtkake and to match Minx's Yarg, I'm also lobbing some Jarlsberg at ya!
Oh yeah, and a bottle full of vanilla extract...
Laughed right out loud, Minx.
Wicked giggles...
Alright then.
Rocky Mountain Oysters are "the name given to boar or bull testicles. They are usually peeled, coated in flour, pepper and salt, sometimes pounded flat, then deep-fried"... according to wikipedia.
This is accurate information.
I've never enjoyed them myself, but one of my friends said, "Anytime someone hacks off a males testicles, peels them, pounds hell out of them, slices them up, spices them up and then deep fries them... I am there. It's the least I can do".
She's not keen on males.
But I hear they're very tasty!
Open up and say ahhh Debi... here ya go!
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
I think I'll stick to Scouse, probably blind given the last comment!
It's all gone horribly wrong. I was fine with the sacher torte and even the various types of cheese. But I draw the line at boar bollocks.
No wonder gluttony is considered a sin. *slinks off stage left, lips firmly sealed, where there is a waiting bucket ...*
listen, I'm a devonian, and I don't understand you lot... what chance do the poor NON-westies have!
I have a vague feeling that I just shouldn't have asked, Scarlett. Where's yer bucket, Debi?
A small confessional, Luce - I was born in Devon and lived most of my formative years in Torquay. I am, of course, bi-regional. Don't tell the Cornish - I have managed to integrate quite well.
TORQUAY!
Oh dear, V, was that wrong?
(scuttles off, worried look on face....)
Minx & Debi,
It's taken me a bit to stop laughing hysterically & dry my eyes... ahh that was so funny.
I should also tell you that RM Oysters are considered a delicacy all throughout the midwest here, there are even festivals for them.
Still, I am siding with you both (and Jon)... eww... I just can't wrap my mind around the concept of eating them. Doesn't matter how much the chef does to prepare them, they are what they are and it's just yucky.
I will do this though... Debi, if you've finished with the bucket...
Stephany's chocolates of Denver makes some of the worlds best chocolate (apparently altitude has a great deal to do with it, and we're way up there), so let me toss some of her "Denver Mint Chocolate" (the Denver mint is where they mint half the nations coins, but hers taste much better), and some Colorado wine - we are on the same latitude as Italy, and Colorado does produce good wine...
so, wine and chocolate on the way, better now?
Poor Debi. Hope that's made up for it somehow.
How do the French eat escargo? another ewww...
and Minx, some chocolate and wine your way as well!
Scarlett (just me, Viaggiatore has taken cover, he wants no part of this food fight)
Don't know how the French eat escargot, but if there is chocolate and wine being tossed around then chuck some this way PLEASE!
Torquay. Dunno, it was a funny ole place.
Thank you, Scarlett. Thank you so much. *sniff sniff*
(Thinks: huh - first she's the one who makes me throw up by chucking a hail of bollocks to me ... and now she thinks I can bought off by chocolate. As if ...)
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