footnote

Agreed, Good Omens is a fabulous read.

Good Omens is a marvelous, marvelous book. The Bartimaeus Trilogy also has some wonderfully hilarious footnotes, particularly for a young adult/children's series.

Thanks for the link winks, Vanished One. Fictional footnotes are also ranked high in me head. Also poems with footnotes are quite an adventure.

On the subject of footnotes I recommend David Langford's essay and a response with comments at Crooked Timber—especially the Borgesian plot idea.

Funny footnotes are pearls! The most enjoyable ones that I have encountered with were in the book called Good Omens.

I did find the following delightful notes at the end of "Deconstructing Astronomy's Holy Grail" by Steve Nadis (AIR May/June 2006).

2. I can't cite any official "source" for this statement, but trust me, it's true.

3. Hinted at (though not explicitly detailed) in the aforementioned "In Search of the Holy Grail," Annals of Improbable Research, March/April 1996, pp. 4-6...

21. Reference unknown; lost by the editor of this journal (though he is certain to deny it and cast blame elsewhere--on a surrogate, perhaps).

22. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote this mystery but surely would have had there been an additional installment in the Sherlock Holmes saga.

23. You can be sure I have much more to say on this subject, but my editor is kind of stingy when it comes to "word count." Fortunately, he tends to get tired by the end of a wearying article like this and, as a result, inattentive. If you are reading this note, you can be sure he never got this far. His loss is our gain.

Tee-hee. There were other footnotes, but they weren't funny.

On the first test I got 46% Dixie. On the advanced test I got 16% Dixie.

That is all.

Trivet, I think I've read about that island, too. And John, same goes with the TV assumption (although I don't recall where I heard/read it either). U, I think you're right about the effect the Internet is having on the spread of the English language--and I certainly didn't mean to imply you're a big fat hypocrite (if so, you're in good and plentiful company!). I think it's fascinating to see what has happened with language since the Internet has allowed people from far-flung places to communicate easily--and how it usually confounds our predictions and expectations. :-)

Jennarenn, some of those answer choices annoyed me too (I don't pronounce "oil" in ANY of the ways provided, for example). It's just good fun, I guess....

I think that people tend to hold onto regionalisms as defense against the homogenization of the world. I remember reading about some island on the east coast that had a distinctive accent. Somehow, a bridge was built or something connected it more easily to the mainland and more people started to move there (and more islanders commuted to the mainland to work...)

In response, island accents thickened, especially for the younger generation who spend more time on the mainland - a badge of belonging/"I was here first"

It's hard to say. I only speak English; I know a little Spanish but even getting that much was miserable and I have no desire to learn more. So there's some cruelty in my suggesting that the rest of the world ought to be like me when I won't extend the same courtesy. I'm a big fat hypocrite. (Typical American, right?)

All the same, there seem to be a lot of people doing just that, in surprising corners of the world, and I'm always astounded to hear where the faceless avatars I talk with online are actually from. I admit I tend to be Ameri-centric. But surely it means something when I'm communicating with Koreans and Indians and Moroccans on the web, and never even suspect a thing. I don't believe that was nearly as common (or nearly as possible) before the internet.

Sure, a monolingual world is unlikely and will probably never happen. But we're getting closer, for better or worse. Cultures far apart are merging in unnatural ways (for example, Japan's assimilation of the West) and English is becoming more widespread. And as it gets harder and harder for people to avoid the internet, I think these trends will only grow more common. I won't claim to know the future, but it should be interesting to watch regardless.

I remember reading years ago that pundits predicted the demise of regional accents and variations in language after the advent of television, but that contrary to expectations, regional differences actually increased. So maybe fears that the interweb will homogenize language are unfounded.

No idea where I read that about TV, though. Maybe I made it up :-)

I think that the test itself is slightly biased, because it won't let you give more than one answer. I use tennis shoes and sneakers interchangeably.

Seen on the advanced test:

Answer: My spouse packs for me.
Reply: Mine does too.

I wonder that too at times, but...hmm. Wouldn't that depend on *how* people learn language, on who teaches them? I'm not a linguistics expert, but I'd imagine that direct human interaction would still have to be important. As for the world becoming monolingual--eesh, I hope not! What fun would that be?

Seriously, though, I suspect that those of us whose first language is English may not completely appreciate the concept of adapting to a standard language that's not ours.

Yeah, it makes me wonder: as the internet grows more and more ubiquitous, will these sorts of tests even be relevant anymore? In, say, 20 years, will regional dialects even exist? On the larger scale of maybe 50 to 100 years, I wonder if the whole world might become monolingual. It seems that in the digital age, the ability to communicate on a global scale is more important than ever. And from the looks of things, English is already pretty much the standard online.

Yep, it's an interesting test, all right. I've lived in the Northeast my whole life, but apparently have picked up Midwest and Southern speech patterns and phrases. I suppose it's not all that surprising when you consider how easy it is to interact with people worldwide these days while still sitting on your butt in your own chair. :-)

By the way, when I took the "advanced" test on that page, I came up only 1% Dixie. Go figure.

The funny thing is, I grew up in Southwest Florida. One of few places in the U.S. that's actually further south than the Deep South. In my stomping grounds, everybody's a transplant from the North, retired or snowbirding for the most part. So even though my speech pinpoints me to the midwest or New England, I'm really from the Sunshine State.

(In fairness, I was born in Michigan but my family moved when I was a tyke. I'm sure I picked up a lot of speech tendencies from the parents though.)

5% Dixie. Need help digging out of the snow?

I love the "tonic" one. Answer: Massachusetts!

You're 1% more Dixie than I am. Must have had a Coke for breakfast. ;-)

38% Dixie. I am definitely a Yankee. :-)

Ouch. Ow. That hurts my ears! I live too far north! ;-)

While youz guys are at it, you might want to test yourselves here:

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html

Ah's jezt gon t'say yew h'aint done finched writing¹ t'other pawrt o'yer quotayshun, hun.

¹To clarify: the word writing refers in this instance to the act of transcribing words for the sake of communication.

There h'aint nothin' wrawng wit' uh Deep South ak sent.

I used to get a chuckle out of some of Mark Twain's footnotes. You'd have a story's dialogue written in a thick, nearly unreadable Deep South accent, and then instead of clarifying what any of it means, he chooses the most standard words you already know to footnote with definitions.

I once ran across an article with hilarious footnotes. The first twenty were completely serious, then the author started testing his luck. The editor either never caught them, or thought that they were too funny to cut. I need to see if I can find that one....