ISSUE 21
Linguistic Research
Rewrite - Johanne Bisgaard
The Bricks of Manchester
Linguistic Research
Sometimes I pronounce too many of the letters in a word
ÆRINDE
I slay LIGGE and LÆGGE and LÅ and LAGT, but I still cannot say ÆRINDE
Well, I can, but not without being conscious about it
ÆRINDE
Sometimes I just pronounce words wrongly
BÆGER
Or at least some people think
Apparently, most people say BÆGER
I cannot say it without concentrating
I VAFFEL ELLER BÆGER?
I worked in an ice cream shop
The customers never said anything, but the other girls laughed at me
They thought I sounded like a farmer
BÆGER
BÆGER
I stand firm on this one
This is not a bakery or a bike shop
It is not a BAGAGEBÆRER
There are no bakers here
When I say weird stuff, I often go home and ask my parents to say the same thing
And they say the same thing
And I feel relieved
It is not only me
I was brainwashed to say this
Like HUNGET
It is not grammatically correct to say HUNGET
SUNGET is fine
But HUNGET is not, dad
We pass on linguistic errors like traits and traumas
At home, we have three different ways of saying ÆG, though
My mum says ÆG
My dad says ÆG
And I say ÆG
I find it fascinating
They taught me to speak, and yet I found my pronunciation elsewhere
Some words are so hard to say that it is acceptable not to use them correctly
AUTEN(TI)CITET
The other day my boyfriend said BEFALME
He just stood there in the living room without correcting himself
I was amazed
He meant BEFAMLE
It is not just a small error
The vowel sound changes completely
A typing mistake in real life speech
I fight so hard to say AVOCADO and not ADVOCADO that I sometimes say AVOKAT
I also say LAGRET instead of LAGRET
The other day, when the girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted
MELLEMLAGRET or MODNET Havarti on my bread, my brain luckily just copied her
MELLEMLAGRET, please
I once sat on the passenger seat in my boss’s car
We worked in a kitchen in AARHUS
She was from AARS, and I am from GEDSTED
That is only 15 minutes apart
I asked her if she could tell that I was from NORDJYLLAND
And she said yes
Without a doubt
And I asked her to point it out, when I said something that gave me away
And I said one sentence
And she pointed it out
And I listened to my sentence again
With new ears
And I heard it
It was right there all along
Then there are the words that are regional
KAVT
GRAT
TOVLIG
My grandmother used to say that
My other grandmother used to say RØV instead of RÆV
We laughed a lot about that
She was from SØNDERJYLLAND
Some words are so local that I sometimes suspect they only work within my own family
I know that PIPZA and SMAGHETTI are childhood mistakes of my sister that we still
like to use from time to time
PIV and GUMMILASTISK are words that are still part of an ongoing research of mine
GUMMILASTISK is randomly used on blogs and websites
So I guess it thrives outside of the dictionary
I have found absolutely nothing on PIV
I think it may be slang of PIG
That is
Not a pig
(And definitely not a PIK)
It refers to the tiny piece of plant material that pierces your skin and rests
(un)comfortably in your flesh
One of my childhood friends knows exactly what I mean
Another of my childhood friends has no idea what I mean
I say these things in my native language
And I explain them to you in another language
Mistakes could be everywhere
Intentional or not
Please read this text out loud and make your own
(Hint: Pronouncing the D in GEDSTED is a no-go
It makes you sound like a snob
There are absolutely no goats in GEDSTED
So don’t jump into that one)