It's A Glottal Thing

Today I have an extremely small anecdote to share, but the linguist in me found it rather amusing. Let me take you back to a few days ago...

I had just sat down with my boyfriend on these unique benches in the local airport. They're an odd shape, almost a horizontal cross-section of a boat with a dorsal fin in the middle for back support. My boyfriend had already taken out his laptop and I was in the process of mimicking his motions, as we had an hour to kill.

In the midst of sorting through my rather large tote (brought to be used as a beach tote for towels at our destination) I hear a rather odd noise. Of course, airports are a mecca of odd noises, even a small one like this. Several languages and dialects are being spoken, plates and cups are clanging on the tables, there's pitter-pattering of small and large feet alike... so this shouldn't have been out of what I'd normally expect, especially as I've heard similar utterances before.

All I heard was " Now I thought I told you before..." What caught my attention was the extreme glottal stop usage of the man's dialogue. Or perhaps his accent made it sound harsher and more apparent in speech. I can't quite tell, but he was somewhere from the United Kingdom. Despite hearing British/ Welsh/Irish people talking before, I had never heard this much glottal-age in such a short sentence. (For those who might not be aware of what a glottal stop is, it is the 'noise' you make when saying things like 'uh-oh' or 'button', it's more prominent in British English. It's that quick "stop" you make in the middle of uh-oh. I'll post a video below to help.)  I'll attempt to transcribe it, but forgive me as it's been a year since I've transcribed anything, and vowels aren't my strong-suit. This is what it sounded like to me:

Aj  θɔʔ  aj  toʔd  ju  bifɔʔ

All I know is, I swear I heard that darn glottal stop at least 3 times. I even thought he pronounced it at the end of both 'I's too, but I left that out as it's most likely my mind on sensory overload. Either way, my inner linguist is fairly satisfied right now, despite leaving the Basque country, a linguistic paradise, for the time being. Does anyone find it amusing to hear less-common American English (or your native dialect) IPA sounds? What's your favorite IPA sound?

*Note: I'm not disrespecting British people at all, so i hope it doesn't sound like that! It's just amusing to hear accents. :)

Here's a link to the promised video: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4YZ_a3_ig     I think he does a decent job at explaining how the noise is made and giving examples.

Funny Video!

Soooo... the other day we were learning about typical speech and Autism Spectrum Disorder, especially about gaining friendship and positive association with your clients (particularly the younger crowd) to be placed in their "trusted" circle to promote willingness to participate in therapy. It also helps to get their peers involved too. The guest speaker then showed us this video, which I find pretty hilarious. This demonstrates the outside-in approach to therapy, except in a more abstract way, not necessarily therapy related. But the concept is "shown" when you get further in the video. It may possibly be a stretch, but either way, here's the video. Hope it brightens your day!