I have noticed lately that a lot of users on Lemmy spell whining as “whinging” what’s up with that? I could understand if it was misspelled “wining” or somthing but that extra g really confuses me. Is this a misspelling specific for some region or is it lingo of some sort?
It’s whinge, pronounced winj.
UK / Australian English thing. It has a slightly different connotation.
Whine is what a dog does when it wants to go out.
Whinge is what a 14yo does when they don’t get their way. It’s salty whining.
I feel as though in the US these are seen as the same sort of behavior, though perhaps to different degrees. The dog may be whining to go out, and the teenager is whining about having to take out the dog. Very interesting, the differences that have cropped up in such a short time between our dialects. Have a nice day!
Whining is usually general and not actionable, while whinging is specific and can be remedied.
My kid has spent the last few weeks whining about how hard it is to be a teenager. This morning they had a whinge about always being the one to let the dog out.
It sounds like “Whinge/ing” is equivalent to a tantrum or “hissy fit”.
It’s a step or two before the hissy fit, probably a step up from whining 👍
So in TheBananaKing’s example of the dog wanting to go out, that’s actionable, because the dog can be let out, and would therefore actually be whinging and not whining?
Perhaps. I’ve definitely heard whinge applied to animals, like when people talk to their dogs, “are you having a whinge mate? Didn’t anyone let you out?”.
In that context whine is the sound and whinge is the message.
Thank you, that makes sense of it. I suppose I see why the US dropped the “g” in whinge and just went with whine. There’s a lot context in the differences, but they’re also so similar that things could be more confusing when made more specific, to the point where the two are used almost, but not quite, interchangeably.
Fair enough. I had never seen the word before, but saw it used in comments in the same way that people usually use whine so I assumed it was a misspelling. My bad. Thank you for teaching me something new.
Don’t ever be ashamed for asking to know more
It’s a different word. To have a whinge. Whinging. The G is pronounced like a J.
Google says it’s more common in British English. I’m Aussie and we use it too. Mostly to hang shit on the English lol. I.e. whinging poms.
It started getting used in the US a lot more after it was said by The Hound in an episode of Game of Thrones
“So what are you whinging about?”
“I’m not whinging!”
“Your lips are moving and you’re complaining about something. That’s whinging.”
This is actually a great insight.
I’m American but I like a lot of British TV so I was already familiar with it but I definitely noticed the uptick. It’s not the most famous scene but people like it enough to have it clipped on YouTube
Same here with British TV. I hadn’t noticed any uptick, but I’d be happy if the term was adopted.
Are you a language statistician or something? How could you possibly make that claim lol
Seems like a fair assessment, even if it’s unprovable. Not a bad heuristic to assume things get adopted from the biggest show to have ever aired.
You got a counter claim?
Yes.
Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon. They heard it on the show and started hearing it everywhere. It wasn’t mass adopted after the fact.
Not bad, both easily plausible. Next time you disagree, offer a civil counterclaim and it’s more likely to go down well.
How hard was that?
But then you wouldn’t get all worked up about it
“But then you wouldn’t get all worked up about it”
READ: “You’re right”
Take care mate, it’s only a post. Peace
This is probably closer to the truth, as I first heard it in Firefly in 2002 before I started hearing it everywhere.
Not so sure about the first part of your name
I just saw it getting used by non-british people after the show when I didn’t before. It’s an anecdote. I don’t have statistics and if you care enough to prove me wrong I’ll accept it’s confirmation bias
Stop whinging you dozy lummox
Love it
“whinging poms”
unpleasant ashes memories dragged kicking and screaming to the surface
Different word mate.
It’s just British English
English (Traditional) over English (Simplified)
I feel this comment got too many pedants and not enough appreciation.
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Is it? Considering Webster ripped through a tonne of spellings it’s not really conservative in that regard. Maybe in pronunciation?
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Tell that to color and aluminum.
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American English tried to change many spellings (ie not conservative).
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Much more complex, too, with all the extra loanwords from Native languages, Spanish, and German.
Aussie’s like a whinge too
Just having a bit of a flap
I know this is “no stupid questions”, but can you not google?
It blows my mind that so many questions in this community could be instantly answered by Google. Just typing “whinging” gives its definition and identifies it as British.
The question wasn’t stupid. But OP was too lazy to even try and do their own research. Which ironically resulted in more work for them.
Your question is pretty stupid, honestly, but it’s not alone.
Not really there’s an added g to make a word that means exactly the same. I can understand how that might be confusing if you haven’t heard it spoken.
Whining and whinging are definitely not the same thing, but I’m struggling to articulate why. Just something British (and I guess Australian, judging by this thread) folks grow up with and intuitively understand.
I know what you mean as a Brit. In my head whining is more high pitch haha
But technically they have the same definition.
