Jokes based on dialect words travel much better than I expected on Mastodon.
As a couple of people have asked, and I know you can't always see conversations with other people, as far as I know it's mainly a northern English dialect word for 'something'. Possibly specifically Yorkshire, but I'm afraid my linguistic knowledge isn't great.
@eclectech brumwards, it's summit/summat depending in which way you're facing at the time. rural lincolnshire was summat.
now wondering on the linguistic root at play here
@evilstevie yeah, I’ve just been down a huge linguistic rabbit hole while trying to find a sample of someone saying it. I know nothing of linguistics but it’s always an interesting deep dive to get diverted by.
@eclectech this IS funny! Serious question, though, from someone who loves to overanalyze English dialects and accents: how does one describe the accent of a person who pronounces "something" as "summat/summit"?
I don't think I've ever heard it. I've heard "sumtin", "sumpin", "tsumpin"...
And I've heard "summat/summit" in place of "some of it", but not in place of "something".
It's from North England generally I think, but specifically Yorkshire. I seriously thought it might be about 5 followers from northern England who would find this funny and that it would fall flat with everyone else!
@eclectech it's funny even without knowing the precise connection. At least for me anyway!
Hate to be a bother, but I'd love to hear this if you know of an example, because as we all know, our language is imperfect at spelling what we hear. For example, in the video below, they spell it "dassn't", when I hear "danced".
(Also the native says "something" around 18:00 and it doesn't sound like "summat" to me. "Sumthin", sure.)
@eclectech
Excellent photoshopping! As well as 😂 though I wondered if I ‘got it’ as a Yorkshire woman, but judging by replies, you’re right, it travels
@anamckellar Thank you! Yeah, I really thought it might fall a bit flat (and I still suspect it works more immediately for some people) but I'm assuming 'summat' as slang is common enough and close enough for it to work wider.
@sccook Heh, yeah, the reason I was concerned it wouldn't travel as a gag was because it felt a little reliant on a colloquialism / accent, but it must work further afield than I thought.
@welshtroll Heh, aye, I posted that, looked at the time and thought "bugger". I'm still drinking coffee which I only have in the morning so I've decided that it was right in spirit!
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