Dr Tania E. Strahan: A SMALL COLLECTION OF LINGUISTIC ODDITIES

'they' as a singular pronoun with a specific referent

1. (Coles checkout boys)
   -did helen resign or is that their signature?
   -nah she didn't resign
   -is that their signature?
2. you've got, y'know, john smith in your class, but, y'know, you haven't 'seen them for six weeks, (monash tutor induction session 2007)
3. This contains a 'yeah-nah' yeah, and a real-life example of answering the implied meaning, not the actual question.
   A: Why did we stop so close to the car in front?
   B: Yeah, they didn't go anywhere [I had expected the car to have driven forwards already].
4. (non-Australian example): I'm sure I will not be the only woman sorry they met Gadi. (Faith of the Fallen, Terry Goodkind, p424)
5. Medibank Private person calling main office to find out about my health insurance cover:
   I've got a person here who wants to travel but they don't know whether they need they they <mumbled> she's got a <end mumble> post, but they want to travel afterwards... <spoken very clearly> they'll still be overseas <end clear speech>

reflexives without antecedents

1. And it's up to yourself to decide how you're going to deal with bullying (megan spencer JJJ radio, 2.2.6 review of mining bullying film)
2. I'd like to thank my little sister for all the work she's done... For everyone... For myself in particular. (anthony atkinson @ candle gig)
3. Matt Damon and myself gave Barbara a lap dance. (Hugh Jackman, 'Jackman of all trades', interview by Andrew Fenton, p15, heidelberg weekly 20th June 2006, Review section.)
4. If it's a project, I'm sure you'd like to see *Company Name* involved, yourself and myself. (JNB in an email from iceland, to a work colleague. He actually changed it to 'you and me'. 11.10.09)

'your ass'

odd pronouns

1. The spy saluted him by touching his hat. (This sounded really quite odd the first couple of times I tried to read this!! from a tale of two cities, p996 in ebook)
2. Icelandic missing object (TES and TAT at TAT's holiday house, me trying to convince TAT that Icelanders leave out objects all over the shop)
   TES: Ég held það þurfi að vera samhengi.
   tes: I think there needs to be a.context
   TAT: Til að geta sleppt.
   tat: 'to be able to leave out (the object)'

verbs that take a 'dummy'/non-referential object (can't take 'that')

funny co-ordination

1. It's to me and joe's party and you have to dress up bogan. (WS, talking about invitations that she's handing out)

funny relative pronouns

1. I'm quite the sort of person (who) you look in my cupboard and I have all my blue sweaters in one pile, all my red sweaters in one pile, all my white sweaters in one pile, from the darkest shade to the lightest. I'm quite anal like that. (Elle McPherson, quoted in Who 27/10/2003: 32)
2. They're the two people that's getting up Mary's noses. (SM. He actually means that mary is getting up their noses. Hm, this might belong in the Word Salads below!)
3. Norwegian
   Er de nåken som eg vett kin e liksom? (HBSM)
   Is it someone RELATIVE.PRONOUN I know who is sort.of?

annoying false friends (Icelandic, Norwegian, English)

• panta - N. 'return for $'; I. 'order'
• (al)menning - N. 'public'; I. 'culture'
• rannsaka - I. 'research'; N. 'ransack'
• hugsa - I. 'think'; N. 'remember'
• henta - I. 'chuck out'; N. 'collect'
• I. sækja - 'collect'; N. søka - 'apply'; E. seek
• ha (with strongly falling intonation) - I. a neutral way of saying 'What did you say?; N . a rather impolite way of saying 'What did you say?'
• fara í sund - I. 'swim'; N. 'sin'
• drepa á dyr - I. 'knock at the door'; N. 'kill the door'

silly/funny sounding words

• bönkum 'banks.DATIVE'
• frá könnunnunum 'from the.investigations.DATIVE'

funny stress/prosody, ' precedes stressed syllable

1. (overheard)
   A: I have a whole new ca'reer planned for me. (me unstressed)
   B: for who?
   B: for me.
2. We didn't know much 'all about it, (Prof Peter Brown, hobbit lecture, 13/7/6)

non-subordinate if-clause

1. The only thing is that overflow bottle,, if it's got a crack in it. (First IP was a /\/ contour. Second IP sounded like 'there could be a crack in it.' ie very final. Mechanic in the service dept at Max Kirwan Motors.)

funny verb forms (yes, by native speakers of Australian English)

1. I haven't worned it in ages. (KB, Babayaga rehearsal, 5/4/6, v. tired!)
2. That's a good ad to be pisstaken. (linguist, ALI2006)
3. boughten biscuits
4. I usedn't buy passionfruit, now I have to... I usedn't to buy passionfruit, now I have to... Oh no, that sounds a bit clumsy. (JNB 15/7/6)
5. the whole of nunawading know. (jb, bballer Aa 16:11. strange number agreement!)
6. We'd all talken about the dog fight. (KH babayaga, 14/3/7)
7. Let us be drinkers again of the beer. (Andrew, preshil cricket club beer day 24/3/7)
8. anti-passivalised :D
9. I was reading your favourite passage john 12 the other day, it's an oft quoten passage. (mjb, 7/1/9)

language and gender

1. the next guy has put in a lot of hard work all season, we managed to get him a few minutes court time, and he didn't bitch about one thing. (arnold, coach of eltham men's youth league team 2006, ->Guys can 'bitch'.)

yeah nah

1. 
   A: They're not the kids are they?
   B: yeh, na%.
2. no:. Yeh:. But it's worth trying, right? (discussion of wensleydale/wallace & gromit, this coda by luce)
3. A Norwegian example of yeah-nah!
   tes: Eg ska bare opp å skriva inn alle kommentarane fra folk. ...
   tes: I shall just up and write in all the.comments from people
   hl: Ja:, nei:, altså, det er ingen problem å...
   hl: yeah no 'i mean', it is no problem to ...

word salads

1. I'll throw it quickly a salad together. (rjbl, after fondue night @ fish creek 9/4/7)
2. That's his sculpture who Meg went to see he's just near the swimming pool. (Luce, 2/8/8, yes, I've indicated the intonational phrasing here - it came out all together!)

verbs whose subjects are always post-verbal in English

1. carn the dons! (*The Dons carn!)
2. go girl! (but can also say 'you go girl', so this might be different)

Long-Distance Reflexives in actual, live conversation

1. Icelandic
   Hun neita ekki lata pabbi klara sig. (Jara, talking about a toddler)
   she refuses not let dad get.ready self (ie get her ready)

Dative Sickness in actual, live conversation

1. (Someone in the change room before a game. 11.10.09)
   Mér vantar búning.
   I.DATIVE lack/need a.uniform
   (Hjaltey in particular thought this was hilarious: Vantar ÞÉR búning?!)

foreigner talk that I find weird

1. German tour guide, speaking English, explaining about geysirs and hot-water springs:
   They are just bubbling up once, and then they are dead. (->why do foreigners (esp. Krauts) do this w the progressive??)
2. I was coming on Saturday. (intended: 'I came/arrived on Saturday'. Overgeneralisation? Again, a Kraut.)
3. Norwegian, captioning a photo in English:
   John throws a horseshoe. (It's so wrong! But I have no good explanation as to why it should be 'John throwing a horseshow' when it's a caption!)
4. Okay, so I'm responsible for this one:
   There's it. (TES, finding Boston place for dinner on Laugarvegi. Bloody V2, but strange that I contracted too!)
5. I'm also responsible for this one, the punchline of my story came out a bit mangled, V2 English again:
   So took I it!