Do You Speak Strine?

A discussion of the peculiarities of languages and the differences between them.
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Slava
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Do You Speak Strine?

Postby Slava » Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:25 am

Here's a nice piece on dialects from The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero ... l-dialects

Does anyone know what a "dog's breakfast" means?
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David Myer
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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby David Myer » Tue Oct 22, 2013 7:33 pm

I'm afraid my Pommy background precludes any pretensions to talking Strine. But after years of practice I can be mistaken for an Australian by the English. But I had been here in Australia only six weeks when my Mother on the telephone from England exclaimed "Really David, you sound like an Australian!" And she wasn't pleased.

My dog's breakfast is an ugly mess, if that is anything to go by.

Excellent article from the Economist, by the way.

Philip Hudson
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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby Philip Hudson » Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:59 am

Dr. Heibel, my old German professor, was from Munich. He went to university somewhere in northern Germany and stayed there for four years. When he returned, his mother cried in anguish at his speech. " Fritz, has become a PRUSSIAN!" she wailed in her best Hochdeutsch.
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Perry Lassiter
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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby Perry Lassiter » Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:35 pm

Shucks, y'all, I ain't got no idee whut y'all is tawkin' about heer. We' uns don' no much 'bout fancy tawk.
pl

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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby bnjtokyo » Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:12 am

I support Mr. Meyer's definition above. If we enter "dog's breakfast" into the lookup box on the top page of this website, the resulting definition is "a poor job; a mess"
The link to the Phrase Finder gets
"This is a 20th century phrase. Eric Partridge, in the 1937 edition of his A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English lists it as "a mess: low Glasgow"."
The link to Dictonarydotcom says
"Chiefly Canadian Slang. a disorderly mixture; hodgepodge. 1935-40"
Wikipedia says there was a Canadian movie with this title in 2006
The Free Dictionary says "dog's breakfast" and "dog's dinner" are synonyms and speculates on the concept underlying the phrase:
"Meaning a mess or muddle, a dog's breakfast or dog's dinner originally may have referred to a cooking mishap with results fit only for a dog's consumption."
Finally, if the phrase exists in Strine, it would be something like "bitzer's brekkie" (nice alliteration, eh?)

Philip Hudson
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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby Philip Hudson » Sun Nov 03, 2013 3:39 pm

With phrases like "bitzer's brekkie", Strine gives red-neckisms a run for the money.
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Slava
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Re: Do You Speak Strine?

Postby Slava » Sun Nov 03, 2013 3:58 pm

It is interesting that one source says "dog's breakfast" is Glaswegian, and the other says it's Canadian. Hmm. :?

Here's the IMDb page for the movie.
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