tolerated or objected to?

Hi ;)
Why is that, the same construction/expression is tolerated in one country/region but objected to in another country/region?Isn't it funny?

ANYWAYS
tolerated in Canada
objected to in the USA

IF I WAS YOU
tolerated in the UK
objected to in the USA

AIN'T
tolerated in the SouthernUS states
objected to in the rest of the English-speaking world

Could you give some more examples?
thanks

Um, anyways and If I was you are not objected to in common speech in the U.S. and as far as I know ain't is tolerated in London-speek too.

"Anyways" is tolerated in the Milwaukee area...at least Travis says so.

(No irony was intended...I just don't know it for sure.)

<<IF I WAS YOU
tolerated in the UK
objected to in the USA>>

That's true. It is tolerated in the UK but only in informal speech.
I don't have first-hand experience of how it is in the US but I've heard that it wasn't widely used there.

<<AIN'T
tolerated in the SouthernUS states
objected to in the rest of the English-speaking world>>

It is widely used by speakers of AAVE as well.
This usage is also common in non-standard British regional dialects (especially Cockney), and is frequentlly used by Jamaican immigrants, too.

Besides, some people with upper-class, middle-class or upper-middle-class background use it in order to sound "cool" and "streetwise". The effect is the most horrible if such a person speaks with an accent which is not even Mockney, just a vague approximation of it. And these poor guys / girls think they really do speak Cockney and sound pretty authentic. (Sorry for the rant.)

Ain't ain't a word you should use in formal contexts, it is only appropriate in informal stituations. ;-)

"Ain't" is associated with ghetto blacks in the US.

<<"Ain't" is associated with ghetto blacks in the US.>>

Not really. It's common in amost all non-standard varieties.

Maybe it is in Canada.

> Um, anyways and If I was you are not objected to in common speech in the U.S.

"If I was you" is definitely rejected by some U.S. speakers. Some people who reject it might accept other grammatically equivalent phrases (like "I wish I was..." or "If I was President..."), but "If I were you" is something of a fixed phrase whether or not you normally use the subjunctive.

- Kef

I agree with the Kef. I would never use, "If I was you..." That sounds wrong to me. I would only say, "If I were you..." or, "Were I you..."

But, then again, that's just me...

Come to think of it, If I were you is probably what I would use, sorry for the brain fart there. I have an uncle who uses ain't all the time, but other than that I don't here it that often.

but other than that I don't hEAR it that often.

>>> Um, anyways and If I was you are not objected to in common speech in the U.S.

"If I was you" is definitely rejected by some U.S. speakers. Some people who reject it might accept other grammatically equivalent phrases (like "I wish I was..." or "If I was President..."), but "If I were you" is something of a fixed phrase whether or not you normally use the subjunctive.<<

I hear this not too infrequently, particularly in music, but it definitely rubs me the wrong way except when it is used to truly express the past tense, which can be approximated with "If I had been you", rather than counterfactuality.

Note that for me, though, this is not a learned usage at all but rather simply a native feature of my dialect; I use "were" with "if" in my everyday speech except when specifically trying to emphasize pastness rather than counterfactuality, where I will use "was". This is unlike some dialects where "were" has just become a frozen usage with "if" without truly expressing counterfactuality in and of itself.

Also note that this is not merely a frozen usage with "if" for me, either; in speech that is not very informal, I will readily use "were" and "had" alone in a past subjunctive fashion without any "if" to express conditionality. In more formal speech I will also use modal verbs in a past subjunctive fashion even though they are not morphologically marked for the past subjunctive. Also, my dialect largely preserves the present subjunctive, with it being used readily in many subordinate clauses and even by itself int he case of the verb "be".

Of course, though, my dialect is not really that strange in this regard; the matter is that in the case of North American English, the subjunctive's demise has been greatly exaggerated, and it is still very much alive in many dialects.

>><<"Ain't" is associated with ghetto blacks in the US.>>

Not really. It's common in amost all non-standard varieties.<<

At least here, this is definitely the case. My particular dialect lacks the use of "ain't", but there are dialects within southeastern Wisconsin aside from just AAVE which definitely have it. Note that here this is a feature that is somewhat linked to social class, as as nonstandard as many features of my own dialect are, it still does not have it due to being from a very middle class suburb.

There are other things like this here, such as the use of "them" as a demonstrative - it is commonly used by working class people here in general, both AAVE-speakers and speakers of dialects other than AAVE, but it is largely absent from the speech of most middle class individuals here, even though the same individuals will readily say things like "ja" (pronounced [ja:]) and often pronounce "the" as [d@:] or [di:].

>>Note that for me, though, this is not a learned usage at all but rather simply a native feature of my dialect; I use "were" with "if" in my everyday speech except when specifically trying to emphasize pastness rather than counterfactuality, where I will use "was". This is unlike some dialects where "were" has just become a frozen usage with "if" without truly expressing counterfactuality in and of itself.<<

On that note, I wonder how widespread having it is for a dialect to truly have a productive semantic distinction between "were" and "was" when used with "if", with the former being counterfactual and the latter being past tense, as opposed to having fixed upon using one usage or the other.

Do you mean that you say things like "If I were you, I would [do something]." and "If I was you, I would have [done something]."? I believe I do the same thing. I use "were" to express to counterfactuality in the present, but pretty muich only in conjunction with "if". I use "was" to express counterfactuality in the past. I don't think I use "were" instead of "was" aside from with "if" while speaking, although maybe I do in writing sometimes. For example, I pretty much always say "I wish I was ..." rather than "I wish I were ..."

>>Do you mean that you say things like "If I were you, I would [do something]." and "If I was you, I would have [done something]."? I believe I do the same thing. I use "were" to express to counterfactuality in the present, but pretty muich only in conjunction with "if". I use "was" to express counterfactuality in the past.

That sounds somewhat similar to the distinction that I make, even though the exact usage my differ somewhat; for instance, I would still very likely say "If I were you, I would have [done something]," as the counterfactualilty of "if I were you" applies just as much to the present as to the past even though the events referred to would have occurred in the past.

I rather tend to use "was" with "if" in cases like "If I was here yesterday, I would have [done something]", with "If I were here yesterday, I would have [done something]" sounding vaguely wrong to me. At the same time, I would normally say "If I were here today, I would [do something]", with "If I was here today, I would [do something]" sounding even more wrong to me.

>>I don't think I use "were" instead of "was" aside from with "if" while speaking, although maybe I do in writing sometimes. For example, I pretty much always say "I wish I was ..." rather than "I wish I were ..."<<

I myself normally use "I wish I were" almost exclusively, aside from using "I wish I was" in cases like those in which I would use "was" rather than "were" with "if". Like the cases I outlined earlier, I would normally say "I wish I were here today" but I would normally say "I wish I was here yesterday" rather than "I wish I were here yesterday".