I use a particular style for my English characters, but that doesn't really qualify as patois; it's more the way individual characters use the King's (or, in Ringan's case, John Knox's) English.
I see exactly what you mean. If I were to write a character from New England (specifically, Cape Cod), I wouldn't try to spell out the magical migrating "R" to convey locale. I'd try to rely on things like "go get me a couple cans of tuna from down cellar" or "don't touch them boxes neither" to get across the local flavor.
Um?
It may just be a Cape thing, but my family there uses "neither" almost as an emphatic negative at the end of a sentence.
Oh. It might be. It might even be a family thing, or social circle sort of thing. I was caught short by both the "neither" and the "them boxes".
Can we talk regionalisms for a minute? Does anyone outside of Somerville say "So don't I" when they mean "So do I"?
I've heard that. . . but where?
That's just crazy talk.
I know it. But there it is. "I want to go to the mall." "Yeah, so don't I."
Can we talk regionalisms for a minute? Does anyone outside of Somerville say "So don't I" when they mean "So do I"?
Maybe. I don't think I say it, but it doesn't sound out of place in my imagination. Granted, I'm still in general vicinity. I think it might be passing away, though.
Oh, here's another stupid accent-ish example -- Dennis Lehane doesn't write out dialogue phonetically, but when Patrick is making a filler sound, he says "ahm," not "um," which is just so right.
