iheartmaytag
Well-known member
My grandmother also "wrenched" her clothes.
Do you Wash, or Worsh
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Don't recall "worsh" but I heard someone say "wrench" some years ago. Maybe "warsh" or "wawrsh."
Recall a customer years ago say in reference to her Whirlpool with a bad wigwag ... "The dasher won't dash."
I "wash", but I remember my dad always said warsh or worsh.
Growing up in the East I learned to was "Warsh", it seems to be part of the dialect. The other one I remember well was "Sawl" in place of "Saw".
After moving to the Midwest I had friends tease me about it. It isn't a common pronunciation here in MN. After a few years of being conscious of it, I have dropped the "R" and now say wash. Sometimes I think I even over pronounce it just to be sure.
Dialects are interesting. Spending enough time chatting with people around the world on the shortwave ham radio bands, I have got a good ear for it. Sometimes I feel as if I can tell different states apart based on the dialects!
After moving to the Midwest I had friends tease me about it. It isn't a common pronunciation here in MN. After a few years of being conscious of it, I have dropped the "R" and now say wash. Sometimes I think I even over pronounce it just to be sure.
Dialects are interesting. Spending enough time chatting with people around the world on the shortwave ham radio bands, I have got a good ear for it. Sometimes I feel as if I can tell different states apart based on the dialects!
iheartmaytag
Well-known member
My Aunt in Arkansas
Used to Arn her clothes too.
Used to Arn her clothes too.
firedome
Well-known member
Warsh/worsh...
is definitely a Eastern mid-Atlantic dialect, the Balto-Philly area in particular, possibly due to the heavy German immigrant influence in that area.
SWMBO is 100% Baltimore German ancestry and everyone in her family says it that way.
Toe-let for the "water closet" is another classic one.
Payment = pavement and zinc = sink were also classic Bawlmer-isms
We're both natives, or as the Shoremen like to say, Baltimorons.
is definitely a Eastern mid-Atlantic dialect, the Balto-Philly area in particular, possibly due to the heavy German immigrant influence in that area.
SWMBO is 100% Baltimore German ancestry and everyone in her family says it that way.
Toe-let for the "water closet" is another classic one.
Payment = pavement and zinc = sink were also classic Bawlmer-isms
We're both natives, or as the Shoremen like to say, Baltimorons.
I wash and had to consciously train myself to pronounce it this way when it was pointed out to me many years ago that there's no "R" in wash. I can't even recall you told me this. And I don't say Warshington either, its Washington.
Eddie
Eddie
I have a few friends who "warsh", and some that "wrench" their clothes. A couple also say that the brick thing that come up out of their roof is their "chimley".
brucelucenta
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Them peoples prolly has speed queens
cehalstead
Well-known member
wash or "worsh"
Say what you want about Speed Queens, but don't judge us unless you own one or have owned one..but...back to the Queen's English...and that's exactly what it is...many of the pronunciations that folks make fun of are simply carryovers from the Elizabethan Era. Many people who came here in the early days of our country were isolated due to lack of convenient travel methods and didn't venture far from home for generations and didn't lose their 17th century dialects. With the advent of better travel methods and radio and television, some, but not all of us have homogenized our speech. I, for one, am quite content with my southern accent/drawl. What I have posted here is not meant to be an "attack" on anyone's post......just one of the explanations for our diverse country. I hope we never lose the uniqueness of our dialects. I also love to hear the differences in our speech patterns.
Say what you want about Speed Queens, but don't judge us unless you own one or have owned one..but...back to the Queen's English...and that's exactly what it is...many of the pronunciations that folks make fun of are simply carryovers from the Elizabethan Era. Many people who came here in the early days of our country were isolated due to lack of convenient travel methods and didn't venture far from home for generations and didn't lose their 17th century dialects. With the advent of better travel methods and radio and television, some, but not all of us have homogenized our speech. I, for one, am quite content with my southern accent/drawl. What I have posted here is not meant to be an "attack" on anyone's post......just one of the explanations for our diverse country. I hope we never lose the uniqueness of our dialects. I also love to hear the differences in our speech patterns.
My Grandmother used to say wrench referring to rinse. Cant recall if she said wash or worsh. I do hear some people use prolly in place of probably. I never thought of people from my area of NYS as having any accent like would be evident of people who live in NYC or the southern states. I always though of us as pronouncing words very plainly. Then I spoke with people from different areas of the U.S. and Canada and they would tell me I had an accent. I found that amusing. Guess it's a matter of what you're used to hearing.
My grandmother always said "zinc" for sink, and to put it in the "frigidaire" meaning refrigerator.
My mom always said she was "putting in a tub of clothes" for doing the wash.
Me... doing the laundry......sometimes wash......never ... warsh
My mom always said she was "putting in a tub of clothes" for doing the wash.
Me... doing the laundry......sometimes wash......never ... warsh
angus
Well-known member
I don't ever recall hearing "worsh", rench or anything like that in the five boroughs of NYC. But some Brooklynites did "eye-ron" their clothes. Seems to be a common misconception that the typical Brooklynite speaks like the character of Archie Bunker on All in the Family - "goil for "girl", "berl" for "boil" and "terlet" for toilet, "terty" for "thirty". That did exist in some pockets and I am not sure where that came from. Some believe it is a holdover influence from a time when Brooklyn was a Dutch settlement .
Whatever it was, my parents never spoke like that - they did have a very rapid speech pattern and did drop the final "r" in some words and pronounced coffee as "cauwfee", frankfurters as "frankfooters" and dog as "dauwg".
The only laundry related pronunciations I recall were "Clorex" for Clorox - the term "Aqua Lina" was also used interchangeably with bleach. Some think it was an Italian term for bleach but it actually was a local brand, long gone. Some also used "Javelle" to define bleach. "Sta-Puf" was used to define any kind of fabric softener (also called "water softener"). And of course, Cheer was always "blue Cheer" (i.e., "run up the corner to the A&P and get me a box of blue Cheer."
Whatever it was, my parents never spoke like that - they did have a very rapid speech pattern and did drop the final "r" in some words and pronounced coffee as "cauwfee", frankfurters as "frankfooters" and dog as "dauwg".
The only laundry related pronunciations I recall were "Clorex" for Clorox - the term "Aqua Lina" was also used interchangeably with bleach. Some think it was an Italian term for bleach but it actually was a local brand, long gone. Some also used "Javelle" to define bleach. "Sta-Puf" was used to define any kind of fabric softener (also called "water softener"). And of course, Cheer was always "blue Cheer" (i.e., "run up the corner to the A&P and get me a box of blue Cheer."
laundromat
Well-known member
Mom s side of the family says "warsh"
Dad s says "wash"
Dad s says "wash"
Brooklyn
Angus's post reminds me of the saying that in Brooklyn, oil is pronounced "earl" and earl is pronounced "oil."
Angus's post reminds me of the saying that in Brooklyn, oil is pronounced "earl" and earl is pronounced "oil."
I read once that there was a baseball player, perhaps a Brooklyn Dodger, with the last name of Hoyt. He was somehow injured on the field and cries from the stands were, "Hurt is hoyt!"
