Dialect Map
Knitting content first: I'm behind on my running commentary on Amber and Megan's Knitting Tarot -- they've been busy lately, and I was doing who knows what, and lost track. Also, #VII, "Blocking," gave me pause.
I'm not too fond of the Chariot anyway, these days; it's all about mastery of opposing forces and bringing things into line, and I've been feeling more rebellious than that. I admire its translation into "blocking," which is also about Making Things Behave -- brilliant move. Amber says, about it, "Blocking is a step or two beyond 'persuasion'; it's domination."
Well. Appropriate sometimes -- and especially appropriate for anybody who wants to actually create, and shape the world.
Reversed? -- Let go. Hand it over. (I'm not planning on giving a reverse for all your cards, Amber -- but sometimes the reading's Right There.)
*************
Natalie, the wild woman over at Pickle Juice, has found a dialect survey which can easily, for some of us at least, eat up a morning, so be careful. But if you do click on it, you can go to the state you grew up in, if indeed you grew up in the States, and discover something about how people talk there, and see if you fit in. If, like me, for instance, your Mother Tongue is Texan but you were raised, after the age of 8, in New Mexico, you can find out that the reason you didn't know what a "cruller" was until you got to New Mexico is that Texans, apparently, have no idea what one is; that the reason you call the act of throwing toilet paper over a house "tp'ing" instead of "wrapping" is that you left Texas before it occurred to you to do it; and also you can see hard data for what you already knew, that New Mexicans do not say "y'all," but "you guys."
But I do, and I'll go to my grave saying it, even in professional situations, because it irks me no end to have been raised with a perfectly good 2nd person plural that then other people want me to lose just cause their ancestors did, in some moment of insanity, and then didn't think another one up. "You guys," which is what New Mexicans say, will not do. And don't get me started on "yinz."
While I'm thinking about this, I'd like to explain the phrase "all y'all." This is not some cute phrase that Southerners say while they're trying to imitate Stage Southerners. It has a precise meaning. It's the intensified 2nd person plural, and means "every damn one of you, I'm not kidding."
As in the sentence, "ALL y'all shut up back there, or I will come whop your butts!" as has been spoken by Brannen-type parental units -- my dad or his sister, either one -- during various cousinly get-togethers, while we were all lying on pallets on the floor in the back bedroom at our grandpappy's house in East Texas, waiting for Christmas and pinching each other, whacking each other, and terrifying the littlest ones with Terrible Stories about the Ghost Down the Road.
(All my love, cousins. Miss you. ALL y'all.)
I'm not too fond of the Chariot anyway, these days; it's all about mastery of opposing forces and bringing things into line, and I've been feeling more rebellious than that. I admire its translation into "blocking," which is also about Making Things Behave -- brilliant move. Amber says, about it, "Blocking is a step or two beyond 'persuasion'; it's domination."
Well. Appropriate sometimes -- and especially appropriate for anybody who wants to actually create, and shape the world.
Reversed? -- Let go. Hand it over. (I'm not planning on giving a reverse for all your cards, Amber -- but sometimes the reading's Right There.)
*************
Natalie, the wild woman over at Pickle Juice, has found a dialect survey which can easily, for some of us at least, eat up a morning, so be careful. But if you do click on it, you can go to the state you grew up in, if indeed you grew up in the States, and discover something about how people talk there, and see if you fit in. If, like me, for instance, your Mother Tongue is Texan but you were raised, after the age of 8, in New Mexico, you can find out that the reason you didn't know what a "cruller" was until you got to New Mexico is that Texans, apparently, have no idea what one is; that the reason you call the act of throwing toilet paper over a house "tp'ing" instead of "wrapping" is that you left Texas before it occurred to you to do it; and also you can see hard data for what you already knew, that New Mexicans do not say "y'all," but "you guys."
But I do, and I'll go to my grave saying it, even in professional situations, because it irks me no end to have been raised with a perfectly good 2nd person plural that then other people want me to lose just cause their ancestors did, in some moment of insanity, and then didn't think another one up. "You guys," which is what New Mexicans say, will not do. And don't get me started on "yinz."
While I'm thinking about this, I'd like to explain the phrase "all y'all." This is not some cute phrase that Southerners say while they're trying to imitate Stage Southerners. It has a precise meaning. It's the intensified 2nd person plural, and means "every damn one of you, I'm not kidding."
As in the sentence, "ALL y'all shut up back there, or I will come whop your butts!" as has been spoken by Brannen-type parental units -- my dad or his sister, either one -- during various cousinly get-togethers, while we were all lying on pallets on the floor in the back bedroom at our grandpappy's house in East Texas, waiting for Christmas and pinching each other, whacking each other, and terrifying the littlest ones with Terrible Stories about the Ghost Down the Road.
(All my love, cousins. Miss you. ALL y'all.)
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