A question

[kelliem]

Do any of you who are Americans say 'meant to' instead of 'supposed to' (as in "You were meant to be at work" rather than "You were supposed to be at work.") and if so, what part of the country are you from? I'm just curious because I keep running across the phrase in Avengers fanfic and every time I read it I hear the phrase in a suspension-of-disbelief-breaking British accent in my head. I've run across a quite a few Avengers fic which badly needed US-picking (just as I've read a lot of Sherlock stories that really needed Brit-picking) but 'meant to' keeps appearing in stories which don't otherwise appear to need it so I am wondering if there are places in the US where that's common usage. 

Also, as long as I'm here- I have a sort of mini-rant: when did the word "important" lose it's first "T"?  Lately it seems like about 90% of the time I hear it pronounced on (US) TV, the person saying it says "impor'ant" not "imporTant". It drives me nucking futz.

Comments

[aithine]

Britishism, methinks. I say supposed to and meant to sounds odd in that phrasing to me (raised in Colorado, lived in the midwest/west all my life). I was just ranting about this to a friend the other day--the need to have non-American writers have their dialogue picked just like we do for fandoms from other countries. (Well, the way good fic writers do, at any rate. *g*)

And right there with you on missing letters.

[kelliem]

I agree about the Britpicking/USpicking thing. The thing that struck me as odd about this particular one was that in at least a couple of stories I've read it's the only Britishism I noticed in the whole story.

[raine]

I've heard it more on the East Coast. There's also "fixin' to", which is a redneck-ism. ;-)

[annezo]

I can't tell you how disconcerting. it is to run across a character "fixin' to" do something in a story set in the UK.

Kids these days. No respect for language. :)