I woke up to about a half a dozen slack-jawed yokels guffawing in the hallway outside my apartment. Having lived here all my life, I have no patience left for the country-bumpkin way of life, and especially not for its proponents. The offending accents sounded of Montague or somewhere else on the East end, but it's hard to be sure because I don't speak Islander very well. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Maritime accents are sort of like the Pikey accent (Brad Pitt's character in Snatch) except more nasally and slower. Here are some examples of fairly common Islanderisms, complete with translations.
"He's roight ettuv'er, can't get the car etta the g'rage."
"Roight ettuv'er" = "Right out of her"
"Etta the g'rage" = "Out of the garage"
Contrary to American belief, not all Canadians say oot and aboot, here in the East Coast it's more like "ewt". In conjunction with "of", it becomes a shorter "ett". The f in "of" is usually dropped unless "her" is added, in which case you get the contraction of'er; out of'er = "ettuv'er". Garage here is not "gah-RAHJ", the g and r have no vowel in-between and the last syllable becomes the harsh, nasally "readge".
"She's a slippy one today, I was drivin' wide-open and slid a fair piece on the ice."
Islanders almost never say slippery, it is always slippy, and in this case "she" means the weather or outdoor conditions. "Wide-open" is kind of like full-throttle, except only hicks say it. One can play music wide-open, drive down the highway wide-open, probably even projectile vomit wide-open. I'm unsure of the origins or limits of this yokel-ism. A "fair piece" is an indefinite unit of measurement. Just how far is a fair piece? Usually the speaker doesn't even know.
"Okay there buddy, I could care less. Fuckin' do somethin'!"
Little do you know, this guy wants to fight you! "Buddy" is something an Islander will only call you when you are not his buddy, i.e. he doesn't know your name and doesn't like you much.
To confuse matters, Islanders think "could" and "couldn't" mean the same thing, as the proper expression is "couldn't care less"; if one could care less, then one still cares a little bit, even though the expression is meant to express a lack of caring.
And finally, the overall uselessness of Islanders is summed up with the way they ask you to fight: "Do somethin'!", usually shouted with one fist raised above the head as though they were taught how to punch by the Notre Dame "Fightin' Irish" logo. They don't want to start anything of course and often take back their (poor excuses for) words, regardless how many people they have with them. Just act like you're from Trawna (Toronto) and they'll shit their over-alls.
So that about sums it up, I absolutely cannot stand hearing people from this Island in the adjacent hallway hahah, and so Slayer is my savior this morning. I may post some more Islanderisms some day, for now I'm off to clean and shower. I'm going to a friend's New Year's Eve party so I'll have plenty of pictures to post another time!
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