Amusing comment

[PennLady]

At least it was for me. I found this today, on a story posted a few years ago, "Facing the Past."

Weird language. Crazy usage!

I quote:-

"Now, you have some and visit with Annabeth. I'm going to go see Cassie."

What on earth do you mean by "visit with" in that context?

They are in the same room, for heaven's sake - he does not have to visit her!

Surely you mean, and should have written, "Now, you have some TALK (or CONVERSATION) with Annabeth. I'm going to go see Cassie."

It always strikes me funny when I use what for me is a pretty common phrase and then someone acts like I wrote in a foreign language...

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, one of the Webster's definitions is to chat or converse with.

 

[CyranoJ]

It always strikes me funny when I use what for me is a pretty common phrase and then someone acts like I wrote in a foreign language...

Yeah, "visit with" is a perfectly commonplace colloquialism for "chat with." That comment is bizarre.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think "visit with" in the context you used it, sounds a little old fashioned for my taste, but having said that its not like I can't interpret what you mean, as you said its not a foreign language.

Sometimes readers think all characters should speak like they do and if they-or someone they know-wouldn't say something, no one should.

A comment that always makes me laugh was one I received on "That's what friend's are for" The comment called out the characters as sounding immature and shildish and questioned how old I was....

The characters were both eighteen and their dialogue exchanges was full of them busting each others balls and acting like they were....eighteen.

If they sounded like me....I would have gotten ragged on for them sounding too mature for their age

Can't win with all the people so like you...I just laugh at it.

 

[slyc_willie]

Down here in Texas, just about everybody is "visiting" with somebody. They "sit and visit," "come visit," and "have a visit." I've noticed that pretty much across the south and southwest of the country.

I'm going to assume, then, that the commenter lives in, and was raised in, the north.

 

[Swilly]

Down here in Texas, just about everybody is "visiting" with somebody. They "sit and visit," "come visit," and "have a visit." I've noticed that pretty much across the south and southwest of the country.

I'm going to assume, then, that the commenter lives in, and was raised in, the north.

Even in the north, it's not like we've never heard the expression, even if we don't use it all the time.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And I'll bet the comment was posted by...drum roll please...Anonymous.

The all seeing, the all knowing, the purveyor of all...Anonymous.

But then again...probably just a Canadian.

 

[Handley_Page]

Yeah, "visit with" is a perfectly commonplace colloquialism for "chat with." That comment is bizarre.

'Fraid not.
The phrase "visit with" may be commonplace in the continental USA, but I fear that outside the boundaries, it's complete confusion. For example, (and taking the standard of English I learned (my Grandchildren may have a different lexicon),
"Visit" is not usually qualified in that way.
"I'll visit him tomorrow" is perfectly acceptable.
"She'd love you to visit her", ditto.

Down here in Texas, just about everybody is "visiting" with somebody. They "sit and visit," "come visit," and "have a visit." I've noticed that pretty much across the south and southwest of the country.

I'm going to assume, then, that the commenter lives in, and was raised in, the north.

I suspect it's a lot further north; like, it's out of the USA.

And I'll bet the comment was posted by...drum roll please...Anonymous.

The all seeing, the all knowing, the purveyor of all...Anonymous.

But then again...probably just a Canadian.

Now come on, Zeb, don't get mean.

 

[JKendallDane]

Even in the north, it's not like we've never heard the expression, even if we don't use it all the time.

My first thirty-one years of life were spent in Ohio, so I'm definitely a northern boy. If any of them were still alive, my parents would be 105 and 101 and my four grandparents would range from 127 to 134.

The phrase "Let's go into the sitting room and visit" was even in MY vocabulary by the time I hit first grade. It was just considered proper speech, even by the farm people, for those generations.

 

[sr71plt]

'Fraid not.

True that "visit" in the connotation of "chat/converse with" isn't listed in the Collins Dictionary (UK usage), but, since it is in the U.S. lexicon and this is a U.S.-based site, "'Fraid not" is a bit over the top, I think. 'Fraid so to an American audience on a U.S.-based Web site that uses U.S. style itself on the Web site.

It's good when UK style is accommodated on Literotica, but it doesn't supersede U.S. style on a U.S.-based site.

 

[CyranoJ]

'Fraid not.
The phrase "visit with" may be commonplace in the continental USA, but I fear that outside the boundaries, it's complete confusion.

Commonplace here in Canuckistan too, actually.

But apparently it doesn't exist in UK English. So I guess that narrows it down a bit.

 

[MagicaPractica]

LOL! Isn't that interesting? Wonder where the person who commented was from. I'm from NY and all my people going back a few generations have been from NY and we "sit and visit" regularly.

 

[HoneyFortune]

Probably Canadian.

 

[sr71plt]

It could have been any nationality, including American. There is no end to readers who think they know more about something than the authors of stories do. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't.

 

[PennLady]

It could have been any nationality, including American. There is no end to readers who think they know more about something than the authors of stories do. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't.

The comment was of course from Anonymous, and no indication about where they were from, not that it matters. I'm a northerner myself, so it's not strictly a southern thing. I thought at least from context it was pretty clear what was being said.

When I had a couple of books available, my editor was stumped by a couple of phrases. One was "go to ground." I said that a character had to go to ground in the sense of being somewhere safe but hidden, and she apparently had never heard the phrase. Another which I thought was very odd was -- I think -- I used the phrase "paging through," as in someone was paging through a book or magazine and that also was something she wasn't familiar with.

So to me it's interesting to see what's common to one person is unfamiliar to another.

 

[lovecraft68]

The comment was of course from Anonymous, and no indication about where they were from, not that it matters. I'm a northerner myself, so it's not strictly a southern thing. I thought at least from context it was pretty clear what was being said.

When I had a couple of books available, my editor was stumped by a couple of phrases. One was "go to ground." I said that a character had to go to ground in the sense of being somewhere safe but hidden, and she apparently had never heard the phrase. Another which I thought was very odd was -- I think -- I used the phrase "paging through," as in someone was paging through a book or magazine and that also was something she wasn't familiar with.

So to me it's interesting to see what's common to one person is unfamiliar to another.

Paging through I've heard. Go to ground is new to me, I'd say going under ground, or going dark, but again the context can tell me what it means. I see no issue with word choices that aren't necessarily mine, but it seems others are different.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

At least it was for me. I found this today, on a story posted a few years ago, "Facing the Past."



It always strikes me funny when I use what for me is a pretty common phrase and then someone acts like I wrote in a foreign language...

you probably were writing in a foreign language to the reader?

this sometimes happens with my use of British English. some readers get hung up 'cause i spell colour with a 'U' - that kinda gig.

anyway, you should take note of the lesson and endeavour to improve as a result of the sage advice presented.

 

[DG Hear]

Paging through I've heard. Go to ground is new to me, I'd say going under ground, or going dark, but again the context can tell me what it means. I see no issue with word choices that aren't necessarily mine, but it seems others are different.

I've heard all the saying before. I lived in Ohio and Michigan. Dad was from Kentucky and Mom was from Pennsylvania. So we've heard the Jargon from all over. Maybe I'm just 'Old' that could be a factor.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm familiar with all those phrases. Bet no one else has heard a favorite of my mother's though, for being naive and/or dopey: "She doesn't know straight up from the cows come home."

 

[PennLady]

you probably were writing in a foreign language to the reader?

this sometimes happens with my use of British English. some readers get hung up 'cause i spell colour with a 'U' - that kinda gig.

anyway, you should take note of the lesson and endeavour to improve as a result of the sage advice presented.

Yes, I'll get right on that.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I'm apparently sensitive picking up accents. My wife claims she can tell who I'm speaking with on the phone by the way my accent changes. There are lots of little phrases that can stump people without diving into dialects. As a young man, I can remember being stumped trying to read Huck Finn until my Mom read it aloud and I caught on to how it was supposed to "sound."

Meanwhile, there is this BBC article offering help for what American's mean when they say such confusing things as:

• Have a nice day!
• Good job!
• You do the math!

 

[Handley_Page]

When I had a couple of books available, my editor was stumped by a couple of phrases. One was "go to ground." I said that a character had to go to ground in the sense of being somewhere safe but hidden, and she apparently had never heard the phrase. Another which I thought was very odd was -- I think -- I used the phrase "paging through," as in someone was paging through a book or magazine and that also was something she wasn't familiar with.

So to me it's interesting to see what's common to one person is unfamiliar to another.

Go to ground is of Army extraction, I believe.
Round here, it is taken to mean 'keeping a low profile' and generally not making a fuss which might make you the subject of attack.

 

[JKendallDane]

I'm apparently sensitive picking up accents. My wife claims she can tell who I'm speaking with on the phone by the way my accent changes.

The little hometown I grew up in sits right on the Ohio River in the highly rural southeastern section of Ohio. Lots of industrial plants that gave us a constant influx of people from literally every corner of the world...and their speech habits. With that setting and West Virginia only 300 yards away across the bridge, the dialect was completely doomed to wildly varied twangs, regional phrases, and a total smorgasbord of unique conversational colloquialisms.

Now add in a 2,000 student college that tends to attract affluent New England kids who couldn't get accepted at Harvard or Yale...and the Boston, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut accents...and by the time I moved 110 miles away to Columbus to finish my degrees, I spent most of the first semester answering the question, "Where the fucking hell are you from?"

 

[ishtat]

Commonplace here in Canuckistan too, actually.

But apparently it doesn't exist in UK English. So I guess that narrows it down a bit.

Mebbe it's not known in modern British English, but if you ever read any late eighteenth/early nineteenth century novels, 'ladies' would frequently invite other ladies to 'take tea with' them, ie. to visit.

I suspect, as is often the case, American usage has retained the older expression whilst the Brits have dropped it

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think "visit with" in the context you used it, sounds a little old fashioned for my taste, but having said that its not like I can't interpret what you mean, as you said its not a foreign language.

Sometimes readers think all characters should speak like they do and if they-or someone they know-wouldn't say something, no one should.

A comment that always makes me laugh was one I received on "That's what friend's are for" The comment called out the characters as sounding immature and shildish and questioned how old I was....

The characters were both eighteen and their dialogue exchanges was full of them busting each others balls and acting like they were....eighteen.

If they sounded like me....I would have gotten ragged on for them sounding too mature for their age

Can't win with all the people so like you...I just laugh at it.

VISIT WITH was common here almost 60 years ago but I haven't heard it said in over 40 years.