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?

  • JungleJim
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    1 year ago

    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!

    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • JungleJim
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        1 year ago

        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?

        • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • JungleJim
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            1 year ago

            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.