Welcome to the latest instalment of English in Progress, the newsletter that keeps you updated on the English language. Fresh in your inbox once a month. My name is Heddwen Newton. I am a translator and English teacher. I love discovering all the ways English is spoken, the ways in which it is used by different generations and by people from all over the world. I own the website
My first time reading you! Wow, enough to keep me amused into the middle of next week, by which time you'll probably have sent several more. Anyway, thank you. Much to enjoy and dip into.
The pawpaw is delicious, tasting like banana and mango. If picked hard (unripe), it will never ripen. Once it starts to soften, you only have a few days until it's rotten mush. It's thin skinned and easily damaged. It's basically impossible to ship on a commercial scale, which is why it's unknown not only outside of the US, but even in regions of the US where it doesn't grow.
It grows wild and abundantly in my neck of the woods.
Pawpaw (with a capital P) or Paw Paw, means Grandpa here.
Some old-timers with thicker accents here also put the r on the end of idea(r). They also put it in wa(r)sh.
Our neighbors in the Midwest (again, USA) also say yeah naw, or yeah no.
And also no yeah, which means something different.
Loved this newsletter episode (edition?)! Great stuff!
Hi Heddwen, I subscribed last Saturday from another Substack but, for the life of me, I can't remember whose. I'm a fellow translator, and I think your Substack rocks.
About the Yeah-nah: I wonder if there may have been an influence of import Saffers? Especially since the article states the expression arose out of the blue around the time that lots of people from South Africa moved to Australia (it being the end of apartheid and the enormous changes following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison). "Janee" is a very popular expression in Afrikaans with the exact same use, and the pronunciation is more or less "Yaahneah".
My first time reading you! Wow, enough to keep me amused into the middle of next week, by which time you'll probably have sent several more. Anyway, thank you. Much to enjoy and dip into.
Notes from Appalachia (USA):
The pawpaw is delicious, tasting like banana and mango. If picked hard (unripe), it will never ripen. Once it starts to soften, you only have a few days until it's rotten mush. It's thin skinned and easily damaged. It's basically impossible to ship on a commercial scale, which is why it's unknown not only outside of the US, but even in regions of the US where it doesn't grow.
It grows wild and abundantly in my neck of the woods.
Pawpaw (with a capital P) or Paw Paw, means Grandpa here.
Some old-timers with thicker accents here also put the r on the end of idea(r). They also put it in wa(r)sh.
Our neighbors in the Midwest (again, USA) also say yeah naw, or yeah no.
And also no yeah, which means something different.
Loved this newsletter episode (edition?)! Great stuff!
I’m glad to have found your newsletter. I love learning about the origins of words and phrases and about how language evolves.
"Fuddy duddy" used to be fairly common in U.S. English too. I recall hearing it quite often when I was younger.
This is the first time I’ve had this and wow! Amazing!
Hi Heddwen, I subscribed last Saturday from another Substack but, for the life of me, I can't remember whose. I'm a fellow translator, and I think your Substack rocks.
About the Yeah-nah: I wonder if there may have been an influence of import Saffers? Especially since the article states the expression arose out of the blue around the time that lots of people from South Africa moved to Australia (it being the end of apartheid and the enormous changes following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison). "Janee" is a very popular expression in Afrikaans with the exact same use, and the pronunciation is more or less "Yaahneah".