sorry, this is bugging me

[northern folk]

Bonnie says I kin
the phrase is actually I ken

I assume the author of the webcomic and like Mr. Connery tried to make Scottish more Scottish. I have never heard anybody pronounce it I kin.

minor detail but it's tredding on my foot so to speak.
Damn well made web doodad though. (especially since I'm also reading BoxJam alongside it!)

[John T]

Um, I'm not sure about vowel sounds where you live, but "kin" and "ken" actually sound exactly the same here in the US. So the difference strikes me as negligable.

[northern folk]

I live in Scotland

I k - ih - n

I k - eh - n

different, see.... I seriously have never heard anybody pronounce it kin.

That'd be a different word. As in, he's his kin.

and it is negligable but the only reason I say it is it's trying to making Scottish sound more Scottish and that's weird.

Incidentally "Loike" also sounds English not Scottish (DAMN AM I PEDANTIC)
"Ride loich thes" I can't actually say in a scottish accent, certainly not easily.
CH is pronounced strangely, bit of spit being drawn up the back when you say it.... hee hee.

I'm being pedantic, but still....

[John T]

Nah, I can see what you're talking about.

Since Meaghan and I are both in America, we tend to write largely for American readers. As such, we write (well, she writes - Meaghan "translates" my normal script into a Scottish sort of speech) the dialogue as how the Scottish accent sounds to our American ears. Ergo, "ken" and "kin" sound exactly the same and are just how we hear the word "can" in a Scottish accent. That's all.

[NotoriousMEQ]

Well, okay, yeah. It's hard to phonenticize accents into text, but a lot of the choices I made weren't me just saying "okay, this is how I think Scottish sounds", I was using the same spellings as other people had used to show accents, particularily drawing from actual Scots. But my main goal was to sound Scottish and also made it legible so regular people could understand.

For American readers, "ken" sounds like Barbie and Ken, which is pronounced differently than a Scottish "can", so I went with "kin", because to most people, this would help make the word seem short and breathy, instead of the hard way Americans would pronounce "ken". Even "kith and ken" sounds different to me than "can".

It's been so long I'd have to dig up what books I used to make my choices, if you want to know.

-megs

[northern folk]

For the record, Ken is pronounced the same way as barbie and ken. Gonnae, doesn't mean going to it means Go no as in Gonnane no do that (don't do that).

The only possible dialect she could be using to sound that slurred would be Doric and I don't think it's doric on the grounds of I at least understand what you're trying to say.

[NotoriousMEQ]

For the record, Ken is pronounced the same way as barbie and ken.

For the record according to whom? Perhaps in Scotland, but not as compared to an American accent. I don't know, maybe next Sunday when I go to church I'll ask the half of the congregation that're immigrants to pronounce it for me and see what I hear. Course, a lot of them have been in Canada for a long time and they're certainly not from the late 1800's, old as they may be!

Gonnae, doesn't mean going to it means Go no as in Gonnane no do that (don't do that).

I'm familiar with the phrase "Gonnae no dae that" as a stereotypical thing, but I'm pretty sure it covers both. Yeah, pretty sure.

The only possible dialect she could be using to sound that slurred would be Doric and I don't think it's doric on the grounds of I at least understand what you're trying to say.

I'm unfortunately not terribly familiar with the dialects and the differences between them. Certainly not to the extent I can tell exactly where someone in the southern states is from , but somehow I don't think you quite understand what I'm trying to say anyway. Basically, I am writing/translating for a North American audience and I'm putting it in context of a young woman who's spent quite a lot of time in the states and been exposed to a lot of slang and different accents. I do try to use the spelling that's been most often used to phoneticize the words before, but it's phoneticizing, it's not grammatical. It's not quite like spelling y'all "ya'll". Actually, I've seen that phoneticized as "yawl", as a clue to someone having a serious drawl, by southern writers. Or this could have been from older books where there wasn't such an established spelling. Point is - there's usually no standard way to write words that are slang or heavily accented.

If "gonnae" really isn't used as "going to", that's a problem, though. That's not just spelling.

-megs

[John T]

All that said, this is perhaps a moot point if the comic never updates again anyway.

[northern folk]

I don't think gonnae means going to because
go = go
n = and
nae = not

to doesn't seem likely to be any part of that. Perhaps somebody said tae (I don't know who says tae? mad people) and dropped the t (people I know do that occasionally by accident, don't know why) and stuffed it onto Goin' which would mean they were saying
Goin' ae, different still though.

I like that I'm saying maybe Goin'ae but I doubt Gonnae.
Not that I think it's likely.

Anyway nice bit of language (not patter, that's glaswegien) I learnt in Orkney. Peedie, which means wee (this said I've only ever heard that in Orkney where they use it a lot but never on the mainland).

Anyhow... this has brief conversation has probably been drawn out more than it's worth. It was a petty annoyance that's all. no worries. Nice chatting anyhow.

Anyway how do YOU pronounce ken that's so different? If this was a voice message board it'd be so much easier. actually do voice message boards even exist? niche...