Words that exist almost entirely in spoken, not written language?

[traductio]

Not a word, but a word-form-- in the mountain west (and maybe elsewhere, I don't know) you still sometimes hear "store boughten" (rather than "bought) as the opposite of home-made. It's not the sort of things you'd normally see written, except maybe as dialog, and I've never heard the archaic form boughten used anywhere except in that phrase.

I grew up an Air Force brat with North Dakotan parents, and "boughten" was what we said. I had to train it out of my vocabulary (just like I had to learn to pronounce "bag" or "flag" with a short 'a' rather than "bay-g" or "flay-g"). I suspect there's a correlation between people who use "boughten" and those who put "with" at the end of sentences with "come" ("you gonna stay here, or are you gonna come with?").

Is there anything wrong with "come with?" I use it frequently as short for "come with us?" where the "us" is implied.

I certainly don't think so! To be honest, my guess is it's a calque on German or Norwegian, the main languages spoken by European immigrants in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc. (well, those I'm related to at least). But it always got me strange looks in New Mexico, where I went to high school. My friends would stare at me and ask, "Come with what?" as if I meant to follow the preposition with an object ("come with a pencil," for instance).

[dismalist]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

Now that was fun! It precisely placed me in the Bermuda Triangle of Jersey City, New York City, and Yonkers. I indeed grew up in NYC, but haven't lived there for decades. Amazing how language sticks with one from childhood and adolescence.

[RatGuy]

I've always thought that "wanna come with?" was Whedon-speak.

[Vkw10]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html

Now that was fun! It precisely placed me in the Bermuda Triangle of Jersey City, New York City, and Yonkers. I indeed grew up in NYC, but haven't lived there for decades. Amazing how language sticks with one from childhood and adolescence.

Fun, indeed. The first time I took this quiz, I didn't recognize many of the words. This time, I was identifying words from each region I've lived in as I responded with the words I use from childhood.

[Hegemony]

"Come with" is normal in my dialect (midwestern, German-influenced), but not in a lot of others. Same with "want out," as in "The cat wants out."  An acquaintance of mine called that construction "more objectionable than ain't."  But we have wandered from the topic of words so informal that they have no official spelling.

[mamselle]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

[jimbogumbo]

I remember a PBS show years ago titled "The Story of English" (maybe?). It was wonderful, and really opened my eyes to the joy of regional variation. For example the use of gumband instead of rubber band in NW Pennsylvania.

[Puget]

"Come with" is normal in my dialect (midwestern, German-influenced), but not in a lot of others. Same with "want out," as in "The cat wants out."  An acquaintance of mine called that construction "more objectionable than ain't."  But we have wandered from the topic of words so informal that they have no official spelling.

Both of those sound completely  normal to me, and I grew up in Washington state.
Interestingly the "most similar to" map on the dialect quiz for me spanned from there across the northern tier of the mountain west and planes as far as Minnesota. I suspect this may be a remnant of very old migration patterns, maybe even including the northern route of the Oregon trial.

[cathwen]

I grew up in northern Delaware, and we always said "The cat wants out."  (We had two cats, so we were saying this a lot.)

[traductio]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

And seen -- the puffing of the cheeks is very important. (ETA: I'd say "In France" rather than "In French," as that specific expression is absent from French-speaking Canada, at least in my experience.)

[mamselle]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

And seen -- the puffing of the cheeks is very important. (ETA: I'd say "In France" rather than "In French," as that specific expression is absent from French-speaking Canada, at least in my experience.)

Yes...toss of the head and Gallic shrug are add-on features, of course, if you want to indicate really elaborate disdain...

[traductio]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

And seen -- the puffing of the cheeks is very important. (ETA: I'd say "In France" rather than "In French," as that specific expression is absent from French-speaking Canada, at least in my experience.)

Yes...toss of the head and Gallic shrug are add-on features, of course, if you want to indicate really elaborate disdain...

I worked hard to learn that -- "expression" seems such an inadequate term -- anyway, to express myself that way. I am too much of a North American, and it always rang false. There's an elegance to the movement's semiotic denseness that I could not reproduce.

[mamselle]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

And seen -- the puffing of the cheeks is very important. (ETA: I'd say "In France" rather than "In French," as that specific expression is absent from French-speaking Canada, at least in my experience.)

Yes...toss of the head and Gallic shrug are add-on features, of course, if you want to indicate really elaborate disdain...

I worked hard to learn that -- "expression" seems such an inadequate term -- anyway, to express myself that way. I am too much of a North American, and it always rang false. There's an elegance to the movement's semiotic denseness that I could not reproduce.

No. 1 on this instructional video, in fact...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uroIA8Za3M

:--}

M.

[ergative]

In French, there's that "Boouf" sound, said with a pout, that has to be heard to be understood.

M.

And seen -- the puffing of the cheeks is very important. (ETA: I'd say "In France" rather than "In French," as that specific expression is absent from French-speaking Canada, at least in my experience.)

Yes...toss of the head and Gallic shrug are add-on features, of course, if you want to indicate really elaborate disdain...

I worked hard to learn that -- "expression" seems such an inadequate term -- anyway, to express myself that way. I am too much of a North American, and it always rang false. There's an elegance to the movement's semiotic denseness that I could not reproduce.

No. 1 on this instructional video, in fact...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uroIA8Za3M

:--}

M.

I learned that my first year in French class! We were learning how to talk about how we were, and one of the possible responses to 'Ca va?' was 'Bof, pas terrible'. So I learned to spell that before I ever heard it spoken. I remember wondering whether it was possible to omit the 'bof' or not.

[marshwiggle]

I realized that I think I have one from Quebequois French.

"Bain non" or "bain oui".  (Then vowel sound is basically a short "e", and it helps if you kind of draw it out, and maybe even do a bit of a shrug to indicate that it's kind of obvious.)

In trying to look it up, here's what I found.

Sample usage:

"Aimez vous les choix pour President?"

"Bain, non!"