Something that my American visitors often find surprising about British English is the copious use of the verb reckon, as in:
Well, here's what I reckon. I reckon that Rowling wasn't a fat teenager herself. And I reckon that her older daughter (the baby is too young to be considered) isn't remotely fat herself.
I reckon these things because, when I was 10, I ballooned almost overnight from being quite a slim child into a very fat one."
Last 3 in the house are never the ones I want there, so I reckon it'll be Craig, Derek and Kemal.
Since my American visitors have all, like me, come from the Northeast, the use of reckon is noticeable because it's a word we associate with the Southern US or with rural dialects. Americans tend to think of the British as speaking "better" English, and Americans from the North tend to think of the English of Southerners as being "worse" English. So, if one has those attitudes as background, hearing the word in a British accent can be a little disorient(at)ing.
In a Voice of America interview, Dileri Borunda Johnston, author of Speak American: A Survival Guide to the Language and Culture of the U-S-A, seems to express that surprise:
JOHNSTON: You know, like in England, it's quite common to say 'reckon,' which in American English is quite unusual, or you might here it in the South perhaps or in more old-fashioned contexts."
AA: "Like, 'I reckon I'll go in when the sun gets too hot.'"
JOHNSTON: "Yeah, and people in England say it sort of quite seriously, without meaning it to be funny or ironic or anything like that."
(Johnston goes on to discuss the perils of being an American parent in the UK: "A lot of the grammar is slightly different, so you would have things in British English that perhaps you wouldn't want an American child to learn because it might sound slightly incorrect. Like you wouldn't say 'I haven't got any more.' You would rather an American kid would learn to say 'I don't have any more.'" Gosh, it's hard to be a parent these days, what with drugs and internet porn and variant auxillary verbs...)
The nearest US equivalent to reckon, in most contexts, is figure, as in I figure I'll go for a walk soon. Better Half says: "That sounds sooo American."
Well, here's what I reckon. I reckon that Rowling wasn't a fat teenager herself. And I reckon that her older daughter (the baby is too young to be considered) isn't remotely fat herself.
I reckon these things because, when I was 10, I ballooned almost overnight from being quite a slim child into a very fat one."
Last 3 in the house are never the ones I want there, so I reckon it'll be Craig, Derek and Kemal.
Since my American visitors have all, like me, come from the Northeast, the use of reckon is noticeable because it's a word we associate with the Southern US or with rural dialects. Americans tend to think of the British as speaking "better" English, and Americans from the North tend to think of the English of Southerners as being "worse" English. So, if one has those attitudes as background, hearing the word in a British accent can be a little disorient(at)ing.
In a Voice of America interview, Dileri Borunda Johnston, author of Speak American: A Survival Guide to the Language and Culture of the U-S-A, seems to express that surprise:
JOHNSTON: You know, like in England, it's quite common to say 'reckon,' which in American English is quite unusual, or you might here it in the South perhaps or in more old-fashioned contexts."
AA: "Like, 'I reckon I'll go in when the sun gets too hot.'"
JOHNSTON: "Yeah, and people in England say it sort of quite seriously, without meaning it to be funny or ironic or anything like that."
(Johnston goes on to discuss the perils of being an American parent in the UK: "A lot of the grammar is slightly different, so you would have things in British English that perhaps you wouldn't want an American child to learn because it might sound slightly incorrect. Like you wouldn't say 'I haven't got any more.' You would rather an American kid would learn to say 'I don't have any more.'" Gosh, it's hard to be a parent these days, what with drugs and internet porn and variant auxillary verbs...)
The nearest US equivalent to reckon, in most contexts, is figure, as in I figure I'll go for a walk soon. Better Half says: "That sounds sooo American."
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In Finland, when I was a child back in the seventies and the eighties, we learnt a rather bland or sanitized variety of British English. However, I never heard or read the word "reckon" at school. I picked it up from Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", when I took the great pains of reading it in the original, at the advanced age of seventeen years. At that time, I thought it was a fine archaism.
ReplyDeleteNot an archaism at all, I reckon!
ReplyDeleteAn alternative to figure is the verb "think", which works in most cases.
ReplyDelete"I think I'll take a walk tonight."
"You know what I think? I think she's out to get me."
Although I do use reckon quite a bit (Brit), I used to go out with an Aussie girl and she "reckoned" far more - e.g. using "I reckon!" in the style of "Ya-huh!"
ReplyDeleteIn my dialect of American English (coastal North Carolina), "reckon" means either "think" or "guess", as in.
ReplyDeleteI reckon/guess/think I'll go on home now.
I reckon/guess/think so.
I don't think we would ever use "reckon" in a question as it is used in BrE. I never heard anybody say "Do you reckon...?" until I met British people. We would say "Do you think...?"
Also from rural NC, but closer to the Piedmont, and we have used "reckon" in a question format (closer to how you would sarcastically use "you think?") "you reckon?"
DeleteOh, and when I moved to the city (still in NC) I got weird looks when using "reckon" in normal conversation...
DeleteI saw this post linked from the (h)erbs and (h)aitches post.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that Americans thought this about the word "reckon".
I just assumed Americans didn't use "reckon", not that they thought it had connotations of being unsophisticated.
The comment from the fellow with the Australian girlfriend made me laugh. You still hear people saying "D'ya reckon?!" as a way of saying "Really?!" -- sort of like the American "Ya think?!" we seem to hear a lot on TV.
My impression, based unscientifically on English novels of the first part of the 20th century, was that English people believed that Americans used "guess" in every third sentence, incidentally displacing any possible use of "reckon."
ReplyDeleteSo I'm assuming that you don't get American financial modelling tools and tables referred to as 'ready reckoners' either - where the reckoning is actually a calculation? In fact, that leads on to what such things ARE called in the US?
ReplyDeleteSome US dictionaries have 'ready reckoner', but at least one marks it as 'U.K.' I can't think of an AmE equivalent.
ReplyDeletehanging out with people from australia, i hear "reckon" a lot, and i think it is more frequent in aussie english than in is in british english. just like it is more common to hear "mate" in the UK but way more in Oz (to american ears).
ReplyDeletelove your blog btw, much love from italy.
I'm late to this...
ReplyDeleteCome to Western Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle... We say 'reckon' all day.
Was only when I moved to Boston that I discovered how many words I use that are practically never heard outside my old stopping ground. A few big ones: 'savvy' for 'do you understand' .... 'divan' instead of 'couch' or 'sofa' .... And ' breakfast, dinner, supper' instead of ' breakfast, lunch, dinner'
I am even later to this post, but I post anyway.
ReplyDeleteIn the Midwest you tend to her reckon or figure from the older people like my grandparents who would be in their 70's. But to my ears it sounds very more hickish, or low class whe said wit a southern accent, but just old fashioned when said by my Grandparents.
I'm from Ireland. I live in Texas. I am friendly with a couple from NY city. I used the word Reckon, and they were shocked. They said it was a word used by southern hicks.
ReplyDeleteI've been to Flordia. I was born and raised in the midwest (suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska), been to S. Dakota .... I've lived in California. I've lived in Texas (the ye old south where the suburbs of Houston are). I've met people from all over including a Brit girl. I've heard 'reckon' very few times. SOME Brit Porn....some brit videos. The Brit girl I knew never said it. And rarely do you hear the word on Brit tv shows/movies. Very few Americans actually use that word and that includes the south (even lived on a farm before-no one ever said that word)- I believe "reckon" is a word used more often by very small communities that are relatively more country than city in America- very Archaic. Hell all the Boston boys I've met never used or wrote that word in any context. Yet people are writing as if an entire city or state says it. They are wrong. Their perception is based on a preset knowledge of their own experiences.
ReplyDeleteLike here in Houston, Texas I tell people there is hardly anything Asian here. Yet they tell me there's so many. Oh yeah...a whole lot. I tell them...take one step into San Francisco, CA. Get on the BART or get off MUNI on Sunset. Houston, Texas in comparison has nothing. NOTHING. And it is a lot of Asians in SF. However to a Japanese person who comes from Japan, they feel like SF is nothing asian in comparison to Japan.
But I've watched a lot of Brit shows and movies since I was a kid. First time I heard an actual Brit say it was in a porn. And that was only twice. For a word that is so frequently used in the UK, it's relatively nothing in their media. I do believe that everyone is exaggerating their use of 'reckon'. While more wide-spread than America, I don't think Brits are using it everywhere nor every damn second like people are exaggerating on these posts. Saying it in infrequent sentences does not mean they say it a lot or in every region. Like the term "wotcher" as an equivalent to "how are you" being more frequent in LONDON and the south of England than say Newcastle or Sunderland. Heck, go to youtube with those brit kids testing their accents. Two girls (friends) on the same video from the same area (wiltshire). One was extremely posh and the other not at all, yet neither one used reckon nor did they agree on the term 'trolley' for a certain carry-basket. It depends on their upbringing and the general area of whether or not they use 'reckon' a lot or at all. In British English, it is not associated with the lower class (rather more of the common class cause I doubt Royalty use it in such abundance), but it is obviously not as common as an American believes otherwise it would be in brit media as much as "can't be pissed/arsed" or "are you taking the piss/mickey" is.
Sorry...what was your point?
ReplyDeleteReading Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynly mysteries and she uses reckon constantly. Every single character is reckoning this or that. It was driving me crazy because although I have spent a good amount of time in the UK, I never heard the word actually spoken by a Brit.
ReplyDeleteI detect a difference between my BrE use of reckon and the AmE that I hear in recordings. (Probably all Southern singers/speakers, though my British ears never detected this difference.)
ReplyDeleteI sometimes use it to mean 'roughly calculate' as in this thread quoting Natalie Haynes I reckon I see about one production of it every year. More often I use I reckon to mean 'I believe' or 'I suggest the probability that...' or even 'I suggest this explanation, namely that...'
Either way, reckon is followed by a finite clause with or without preceding that. The only way I'm sure i could reduce this is the question What do you reckon? I don't believe I could say I reckon so (though I'm not so sure about this). What I'm sure of is that I could never reduce it in a way I've heard from some AmE speakers.
A: Is X the case?
B: I reckon.
I personally always thought the words was mostly used by Australian/New Zealand folks...
ReplyDeleteI think it's those Aussie soaps ("Home and Away", or "Neighbors") that I heard it the most and the Aussie accent stuck with the word for me...
Pretty much like the word "Mate"... (almost always preceded by "Oy!")
Reckon is still quite common in the US south. It seems to slowly be losing ground to guess and figure and all the other synonyms, especially around metropolitan areas, though none of the meanings overlap completely with all the meanings reckon has. This is especially the case with the meaning of to come to a conclusion based on some evidence or calculation, e.g. "I reckon he'll be late since he missed the bus." No other synonyms sound as good to me in that sentence, though I get the feeling my fellow non-southern Americans would say guess there.
ReplyDeleteI live in Richmond, VA and ive always heard "I reckon" as i suppose..or i guess. No one in the cities seem to use it. But I've also never heard it when I've travelled..anywhere. I've only heard it in the south or in westerns. Some people say commode instead of toilet.. Or warsh instead of wash. I agree with the person who said they've never heard it spoken as a question.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Piedmont, NC here. I've personally used "reckon" as a question, like you would sarcastically use "you think?" "you reckon?"
DeleteI think I picked it up from my grandpa, but it is getting harder and harder to find people who use it regularly
From Coastal Virginia here, my dad was from West Virginia (Upshire County area) and he would use the term reckon as both a question and a statement. In the South I still hear people use the word in both ways too. Even my sister and I do from time to time. Though we have noticed the Virginia accent is starting to sound less southern and we are hearing certain phrases less and less now but that could be from the influx of military in the area.
ReplyDelete