then of course there's "ya'll" from the SE states

Pronunciation is a problem and can be catching, much like a disease. I know I went to my doctor and told him that after being on so many american web sites and forums I thought I was turning american. He asked how long I'd felt like this. I said for about a YEEHARRRR!

corus

I understand that you folks in Britain have similar issues, but her from my vantage point in southwest Louisiana, USA, I can travel a hundred miles any direction and find HUGE variations in dialects of American English, fro the piney woods of East Texas to Cajun country of south central Louisiana to New Orleans.

Not complaining, you understand, just observing.

And in a recent project the factory support guy is Chinese.  His English is pretty rough under the accents, but we've worked together on several occasions and I know that I need to really hang on to his words when we talk.  One of our co-workers complained to me about the guy's English and I said "If you think that's tough, you ought to try my Chinese" (which is ZERO).

Good attitude helps.

old field guy

1) It comes from the UK, where people have been doing the same thing for a long time.

2) Mispronunciation is not intentionally taught.

Regards,

Cory

Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

I worked with an Ozzie engineer, always looking for the draw"R"ings for the Soda "R"ash system...

I've always figured that if words can have silent letters they can also have invisible letters.  One prime example is the invisible R in the middle of the name of the state to the north of Oregon.

It's all about balance - ying/yang.

All those Rs not used in Boston need to go somewhere.  Apparently some of the go to the Pacific NW.

That reminds me, on a quiz show (1 vs 100?) most people thought it was "ying/yang" but is actually "yin/yang".  I suppose that could be a pronunciation topic too...

or the second R in sherbet?

<<then of course there's "ya'll" from the SE states


and the plural form, "all y'all"

I remember an Oprah show where some one said something about "Ups".
"Ups?" queried Oprah.
"Yeah, the delivery people."
"Oh, you mean U.P.S." replied Oprah, putting in the punctuation.
But then, we are getting around to stupid corporate names rather than pronunciation I suppose.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

My wife and I ran a country convenience store and cafe for a few years and had a regular U.P.S driver for daily pickup and delivery.  Our friend, Bob, referred to her as the Oops lady.  No accent -- or accident -- just playing around.

My wife spent (or should that be invested?) her early years in Mazzurra (that's West of Illinois or Illinoise if you don't live there) where they say winder for window.  Some of them R,s from Boston apparently went there also.  And some say righchere for right here in Mazzura.

Some Boston and New York dialects take Rs from some places and put them in others.  Basically, "r" at the end of a syllable has nothing to do with how the word is spelled but rather with whether or not there is a vowel following it.

So you get:

"What career are you thinking of?"
"It was a good idea to go there."
"What have you chosen for a Korea?"  (career)
"Wasn't that a good idear I had?"


Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

just to throw this out there, but down in the south near st. louis....i have heard numerous people hold the "R" longers as if there were double "R's".

i.e.

- Right there = right thurr
- Over Here =  Ova hurr

and yes it sounded like they were using "U's" instead the noraml letters...

~~Joe

uuhhhhggghhh, I HATE that one.  There's even a song that uses it...
"shorty where's your man at?"
"who currs!"


Oh, and apparently Usher is pronounced "Urrsher."  (with a very clear annunciation of the initial Urr)

 

Kind of like "Sade" being pronounced shar-day?

 

someone buy her a glass of chardonnay, and a shar-pei!
 

Can't quite figure out why when the brits read website addresses, they say dot ko dot you kay.  Why don't they say dot ko dot uck.   

Because UK is short for United Kindgom, not sure if that technically makes it an acronymn or whatever, anyway in normal speach I've never heard someone say 'uck' for UK.  Just like you don't hear people say 'us' for US or 'ussa' for USA.

CO is short for commercial or similar I believe so it makes sense you say the sound not the letters.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

The only occasion I've heard the address being spoken like XWB mentioned is in Malaysia, where EVERYONE says "my" for the email or URL addresses, as in dot.com.my  

Oh - and they almost always say "triple W" went talking about URLs in Malaysia.

"Double-you, double-you, double-you" is longer than saying "worldwide web" but that's what Brits say.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Do people really need to add the "www" anymore?  I always just say blahblah.com or blahblah.org.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

Every once in a long while I come across a site that won't work without the "www".  I usually leave it off though.

I like the Italian:  "voovoovoo".

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

It's funny, I don't use the www in my resources site, but do use it with my related technical blog even though it's optional.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

I think most web browsers will fill in the http://www for you.  Out of habit, I still type http://www.  Just like spelling everything out when sending text messages.

Some people pronounce www as weh weh weh.  I've also heard "the ws"

oughta come up with a catchy shortening right here..  like "tray dubs" or just "dubs."  

 

Then some moron will type dubs.eng-tips.com.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the population.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

it's probably okay to exclude them from the internet.
 

There are others, a prime (made up) example being

https://abc.def.com

Not all servers are called www, although most are.

- Steve

Oops, two points mixed up as one...

1) https rather than http protocol.
2) Web servers not called www.

- Steve

So, why (in parts of the USA) is oregano o-regano, as if it was an Irish family name, when Oregon is, well, Oregon.

And why are small plants used in cooking erbs?

Bill

Because oregano is derived from a greek word and Oregon is derived from a native american word

Anthony with the "th" as in theatre, and not, as in the UK, a "t" sound as in tea.
Louis with an "s" sound at the end but the one that grates is, yes you got there first, "'erbs", but to make it worse, always with a very strong "r" sound.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

So, words with Greek roots are pronounced in Greek phrasing and other words pronounced with (US) English phrasing then?

How did the native people pronounce Oregon?

Is the 'erbs' pronounciation an affected French pronounciation?

Bill

"Anthony with the "th" as in theatre, and not, as in the UK, a "t" sound as in tea."

Or, pay a visit to Newfoundland, where 'St Anthony' is pronounced 'sinantny'

PS Newfoundland = NEWfundland,  rhymes with 'understand', not newFOUNDland.

A newlywed Newfie sailor is informed by the navy that he’s going to be stationed a long way from home on a remote island in the South Pacific for 2 years. A few weeks after he gets there he really starts to miss his new wife, so he writes her a letter.
"My darling," he writes, "it looks like we’re going to be apart for a very long time. Already I’m starting to miss you and we’re constantly surrounded by young, attractive native girls. The temptation’s terrible. I need some kind of hobby to keep my mind off them."

His wife sends him back an accordion with a note reading, "Why don’t you learn to play this?"

Eventually his tour of duty comes to an end and the Newfie sailor rushes back to his wife. "Darling" he says, "I can’t wait to get you into bed so that we can make passionate love!"

But she stops him with a wave of her hand. "First, let’s see how well you play that accordion."



 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

What happened to the "ell" in solder? In North America it's pronounced soder and a joint is soddered!

Also, the missing "s" when mathematics is shortened to math!

Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments.Somerset. UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP4.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756
 

I bought some sodder and soddered the wires with a soddering iron

yep, sounds about right
 

I've heard it pronounced sorder rather than soder but yeah, no l sound.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

I guess that if I were to drop the "ell" in a similar word it would explain why I get odder as the years pass!!

Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments.Somerset. UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP4.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756
 

Er, Soldier is such a difficult word for some (in the south) that the alternative "Army Guy" is sometimes substituted.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

GI

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Is there a Greek word for SOLDER ?

Bill

"Is the 'erbs' pronounciation an affected French pronounciation?"

No, it's the original pronunciation of a French word adopted into English.  It was the Brits who couldn't understand the concept of a silent letter (once they learned how to spell) and started adding the "h" into the pronunciation.  (Like those who pronounce the "t" in "often".)

Hg

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Ouch ! You had a bad day Hg?

Yes, it's a singularly strange language, English.
You should have adopted German.

Bill

Pointing out a linguistic fact is having a bad day?

My mantra for this forum, once again:  Why is it that everyone assumes that when English speakers scattered across the globe, that one little island was impervious to linguistic change?

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Hello again Hg.
Will you be adjusting your spoken Engrish to accommodate all adopted words in Websters (I daren't suggest the Oxford)?

Here's another. Not strictly pronunciation, but interesting.

The verb invite. Or at least it used to be a verb, now it's a noun. An Invite.
Why is it that invitations are now Invites? This is a USAism, I am sure. I hear it all the time at work (US parent company) and it's all over the TV, sadly. Often propagated by people that should know better.

As for the tiny island that I live on, yes, until the 17th century, we were profligate with out spellings, but the rise in the use of the English language as an art form and as a business communication medium did help to standardise things.
Those speakers of romance languages certainly had a head start on us, what with their academic latin ancestry.

Still, we 'Brits' (I actually prefer to be know as English if I am being criticized, as I am not Welsh, Scots or Irish) have seemingly managed to offend most of the nationalities that now use various modified forms of our language to communicate in science, engineering and business.

A list, but not exhaustive. Are you on it?
-Some residents of the USA
-French
-French Canadians
-Multiple African nations, but by no means all
-French again
-Some residents of Australia
-Residents of Louisiana, probably
-Terrorists

I enquired as to whether you'd had a bad day based on the

Quote:

It was the Brits who couldn't understand the concept of a silent letter (once they learned how to spell) and started adding the "h" into the pronunciation.  (Like those who pronounce the "t" in "often".)

as it seemed as if your mantra might have been uncomfortable to sit on today.
In the words of your(?) inimitable Bart Simpson "Don't have cow man".
 

Bill

Bill--

A lot of us Americans fail to "have a cow" at seeing a "u" inserted in to "color" or getting the last two letters backward in "theater", and we're as likely to sit down and share our beer (sad though it may be) with you on our side of the pond as your would share yours if we were over there on your side.

I find the study of the language variations to be interesting, and only a tiny hurdle in dealing with what is really a mother country for many of us, although some, like me, are rather short of English ancestry, me being 75% Cajun and 25% Swiss.

And most of the discussions on the subject, they're worth a chuckle.

old field guy

OFG - I thought that post might get the chop, it may do yet.
Thank you for you comments.

Seriously, I am aware of how some of my English countrymen take the high ground in disputes about the language, but there's certainly a case to answer re the attitude of some USA-ians.

They ought to get out more.

Anyway, having paid my dues to the cause of inter-cultural understanding this evening by eating a pizza washed down by some fine Vinho Verde (Portuguese), I shall take myself to bed.

Tomorrow, I will raise a glass to you in celebration of mutual understanding. Once more, I will be fostering cross-cultural understanding, but I haven't yet decided whether it'll be Spanish San Miguel lager, or dry Somerset cider.

Using Babelfish, it's interesting to see how many languages translate the name of that basic lead-tin alloy into similar words to the (sorry) English one of soLder. And they all have that pesky 'L' in them.

Cheers! Salute! Prost! and so on.
 

Bill

Once again:

"various modified forms of our language"

That implies that yours stayed the same and everyone else's changed.

This is simply false.  Everyone changed.  It could even be argued that in some aspects, particularly pronunciation, your dialect(s) changed more than some of your former colonies'.

The English are just one of many groups that speak various dialects of a language whose name also happens to be "English".  But just because the name matches doesn't mean that the English have not changed the way they speak or write since the 17th century.  You are as much a variant as anyone else is; you do not have higher status or more claim to correctness.  It is not "your" language; it is "your" dialect of "our" (inclusive) language.

That's not to say that there aren't American innovations both good (many of Webster's spelling simplifications) and bad (most classic managerese).  But there seems to be a continuing assumption on quite a few posters' part that any difference between American and English dialect must automatically be the Americans getting it wrong somehow.  This shows linguistic ignorance on your part, not linguistic superiority.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Here's a word that doesn't vary across the Atlantic.

Beer.

Have a couple and relax.

Bill

I disagree.  Beer here is warm and tasty.  Over there it's ice cold and tastes of nothing.

Agree with Hg about the history and future of the language called English though.

- Steve

Hello Steve.
I tend to agree, but dislike the experience of having it poked in my eye in certain fashions.

Bill

Rather to my surprise Jane Austen uses the construction "an hotel".  

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Sompting, if allowed to warm up the beer here does have a taste, a very bad one but taste none the less.

WGJ, you must learn to play nicely with these colonial types.  Having spent time in their presence I find some of them don't appreciate having it pointed out that the form of language found in the old country is the original & best.

They also get overly offended by comparisons of other things to the British (yes British, I have a fair mix of Scottish, Irish & English in me, fortunately no Welsh) original.

Questioning why they need to wear pads and helmets to play some perverse form of Rugby does not go down well.

Asking why they need a 2 handed bat and a catching glove to play rounders on steroids also seems to offend.

Oh, and pointing out that driving on the side of the road they do prevents 90% of drivers from using ones sword arm to defend against naives and ruffians falls on death ears.

As to whether English English has evolved over time, for sure it has and to argue otherwise would be churlish.

I don't know about Solder for Greek for Soldier may be Hoplite, not sure though.

Anyway, before I get lynched at the office I’m off for now.
 

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Other ways to offend (I should know, I have lived there)...

Pointing out that 4th July has no special meaning for us.  We've given away loads of colonies, so many that it's hard to remember all the dates.

Going into a bar and asking for "4/5 of a pint of ice cold horse p1ss in a frosty glass".

Pointing out that unlike the rest of the World, Americans can play the national anthem of the winning sports team BEFORE any play takes place.

Suggesting that the USA baseball team is probably the third best in the World.

Explaining that having one traceable Irish great grandparent does not constitute being Irish.

Insisting that Cheddar is a place in Somerset where they make cheese.

- Steve

'...naives and ruffians' forsooth?
Very witty KENAT, considering the discussions of silent and unnecessary letters! Perhaps you meant knaves and roughians?

I'm heading over the US to work in a couple of months time, so these lists of faux pas to avoid may be useful. Hopefully they don't get flagged!

Yeah, I knew they didn't look right but my US spell checker liked them.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

I was kidding about ruffians...

Guys, in the event you do seriously offend one of us Americans, remember that we no longer duel at dawn.  

We've since moved our dueling to high noon to take advantage of the higher light conditions that make aiming our guns easier.

Chris, what can I say.  My sense of humo(u)r isn't what it was having been out this way getting on 5 years.  It's like the Borg, they will assimilate you.

Jistre, I thought that had been replaced by the drive by.  Once again in this case driving on the other side would be handier.  However, I suppose drive bys are nothing to joke about so I'll stop there.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

They can't assimilate me. I'll be on an E3 visa, so I have to promise to leave or else I'll be shot at dawn. Or would that be done at noon now?

Chris,

Back on the subject of pronunciation...

One of the hardest things to cope with is that you need to use American phrases pronunciations if you want to be understood by the average shop/restaurant worker.  I HATE raw tomatoes in sandwiches and found I needed to say "no tomaytoes" to be understood.  Likewise my wife would completely confuse the Subway staff by asking for "A cheese roll with a litle bit of green salad please".  I had to step in and say "A six inch veggie delite, hold the mayo and pickles."

And don't bother with the English "Can I have a ... please?".  It took me ages to realise that was considered funny.

OTOH, it is often really fun to play on the accent, language and pronunciation ... specially if you are single.

- Steve

No kidding about the accent.  Cute blondes with British accents can be especially devastating.  Of course, if you don't specify WHICH British accent, it's all a crapshoot.

I've had some practice with pronunciation here in Europe lately. The Australian 'A' and 'I' sounds confuse a lot of people. The hardest thing is spelling my name to someone; I almost always have to write it.
In the telephone interview for my US job they seemed to understand me OK though.  

I'm blonde (ish & what's left) not sure about the cute but met my US citizen wife while over here on business.

I'll let you do the math(s).

Sompting, you're correct on the pronunciation.  I had to take a retail job for a while over here and had to learn to speak American or no one could understand me.  Sadly it seems to have stuck.

The lady customers, and staff for that matter, did love the accent though; although they always though I was an Aussie not a Brit.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

There, you see how tolerant Brits are?
Kenat didn't take offence at being thought an Australian but guess at Canadian when you meet an American, Australian when it is a New Zealander or any other wrong mix and a small war can break out.

Of course, being a Brit in New England states where they still remember Bunker Hill is less good than being a Brit in the South where they revile Yankees (or is that "Damn Yankees"?) more than any other nationality.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I've been revising the list of nations/peoples that the English, as opposed to "the Brits" have offended / pissed off in the last 401 years since the founding of Jamestown in the stolen (from the native peoples) territory of Virginia.

I gather from Channel 4's Time Team that some Spetics are seriously interested in digging the place up as it constitutes the time and place where the dominance of English as a language, legal system and, for a while, way of life was forced upon what might otherwise have been  a Spanish or French speaking nation.http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/2007_james.html


For some reason, I forgot to add to my original list:
-Many Scots
-The Irish republicans
-The Irish Loyalists
-The Welsh
-Libyans
-Egyptians
-Palestinians
-Argentinians / Welsh Argentinians......the list goes on.

I'm not sure whather we've ever actually offended Peru. Although I dare say there is an erudite member of the forum that will have such information right at their fingertips.

 

Bill

Ah, but they remembered to piss people off using the services of the:
-many Scots
Irish,
Welsh,
Egytians,
Sudanese,
etc.
Not sure about the Peruvian either.

Today the Brits use people like Tony Robinson to piss people off. Many reputable archaeologists are said to be less than happy with the three day "bring in a JCB" format of the show.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Thats true, nothing like a bit of regimental cameraderie and a special uniform.
I forgot to mention the Nepalese. Not sure if the English have actually pissed them off, but the Ghurkas get a raw deal when they leave the army, I think. Could do much better there.

I suppose the trouble with some modern archeology is that, primarily in towns, you don't necessarily get all the time in the word to unearth stuff as there will be a so-called 'developer' breathing down your neck so shifting bulk dirt becomes a thing you have to do?
 

Bill

Apparently, despite the rotten treatment of the Gurkhas, Britain is still popular there.

But, at least some sot of equality is rearing its head:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/29/wgurkhas129.xml
Then to there is this article with the title:
"British Empire was a Mistake"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/april08/maoistswillbangurkhas.htm

My Grandfather, like many other old soldiers, much admired the Gurkhas and used to tell the story of how, during the first world war, some "Black Adder" type (Darling?) ordered an intelligence gathering raid on the German Trenches and told them to "bring back a few heads for identification." Their's not to reason why,  that is all they brought back, a few heads.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I'm pretty sure Cochrane, at least, had a barney with the Peruvian navy at some point.

Oh, add Iceland to your list (The Cod War)



 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

I think he was the Peruvian Navy at some point.
He was busy freelancing at the time.

The Icelandics are apparently a difficult lot. At the end of the last war the Britsh loaded what they wanted from the Airport and other military installations and what was left they offered to the Icelandic people at a nominal price. Thinking the stuff would be abandoned anyway the Icelandics refused so the Brits dumped the lot in the sea.
Pissed off? I'd say so.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Peruvian^W Chilean Navy

see

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/173690/Thomas-Cochrane-10th-earl-of-Dundonald

for the voice of authority

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cochrane

for the rantings of amateurs.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Iceland has retaliated by sending out Bjork to do their dirty work

Bill

Mesapotamia !   I had forgotten that one too, or as GWB would know it, Eyerak, or even Iraq, well a lot of it anyway.

 

Bill

I didn't want to mention Bjork.... for fear of being chastised again for non PC behaviour but thanks to you Bill for taking that risk.

Ranting amateurs or not, the Wiki entry on Cochrane accords well with the Donald Thomas biography "Cochrane" and it is his exploits as a single ship commander, especially of HMS Speedy that are the basis of the Patrick O'Brien opening book Master and Commander.
Indeed, the exploits of many of the Royal Navy captains would defy belief if published purely as fiction. The great benefit of these histories is the credibility they lend to the works of fiction.

Of course, the British Navy was humbled by the USS Constitution.


 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

And don't forget Zimbabwe (or Mugabe at least).

Zimbabwe or Mugabe?
I really have problems keeping up with these name changes. The first thing any of these countries do on winning freedom is change their names.
Still, it keeps the map makers busy.

Curiosity: there are more countries in the Commonwealth than were ever in the Empire.... I imagine their meetings as being something like the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Judea (http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-09.htm) "What have the British ever done for us?......"

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

JMW Mugabe is the, some would say desptotic/dictatorial, leader of Zimbabwe, at least untill/unless they release the results of the recent election and it turns out he lost.

As to countries that England has offended in the last few hundred years, a list of countries we haven't would probably be shorter.  The current format of the middle east problem is primarily due to the Brits, Balfour declaration etc.

As regards Peru, didnt' the UK has given a lot of military kit to Chile over the years (most recently around the time of the Falklands War as payment for covert assistance) and if memory serves those 2 have had the odd disagreement so I'm sure Peru isn't a fan.  Then again Paddington came from Deepest Darkest Peru and was a fan so who can tell.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Also, don't forget Cornwall:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_National_Liberation_Army

- Steve

Kenat
I'm not being completely ignorant, I'm just being a bit facetious and I know I shouldn't but I can't help it.
Sorry. (not really)

I don't see why Good Old Bob wouldn't sometime decide to rename Zimbabwe after himself.... I was just anticipating a bit or thinking you were... take your pick.

He will release the results of the election as soon as he has finished adapting the results.

By the way, your list leaves of Australia and the USA. Oh, and of course, China. You are right. The shorter list would be those not offended and then we could leave off most of the current government and much of the population of the UK also (the English bit).
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yes, we still remember bodyline...

Speaking of cricket, I've found it's a great common bond I have with various south asian people here in Europe. And now I can pronounce 'Tendulkar' and 'Harbhajan Singh' in a way that doesn't leave them all laughing.

Zimbabwe is a rename, that's why I wasn't sure if you were joking though I suspected it.  Used to be Rhodesia as I'm sure you recal better than I.

Myanmar threw me, I'd heard it mentioned for about 2 years before realizing it was the country formally known as Burma.

The trouble with the celts is, if they aren't busy fighting for you then they're busy fighting you.  This is why the British should have kept an empire so that the Welsh, Scottish, Irish (mainly Republican) & Cornish could be off winning wars on Englands behalf.  Now we don't have any decent wars they all want independance!

I'm assuming you're using your in a general way, half the things you reference weren't from me.

Sompting, let them eat Pasties!  Just read the post, it's exactly like Live of Brian - CNLA splitters!

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Hmm Bodyline, thanks Jardine.  

Though given that Larwood moved to Aus as I recal, perhaps we need to add Enland to the list of countries England has upset.

Also NZ for sure, didnt' we do something about importing lamb that cost them $$.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

My father was a dairy farmer, and he was terribly upset when the UK joined the European Common Market. It was the end of the agricultural boom-times in Aus and NZ.

That rings a bell Chris.

As to the Brits being tolerant as JMW brought up.

I'd often point out to people when they appologized for calling me an Aussie when I corrected them that it was safer to accuse a Brit of being from a colony than accusing any colonial of being a Brit, or even probably from the wrong colony.

Call a Kiwi an Aussie and see what happens, or an Aussie a Brit (hint - you may need to duck).

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Sorry, that was Bill's list, wasn't it.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Just realized how off topic the above was.

HgTX and others, you'll have to excuse (or not) us Brit (and in Chris's case non US colonies) sense of humo(u)r.  A big part of the problem I see it is that in the UK and from what I've seen Aus, Engineers are no where near as PC as in the USA.  

This combined with the sense of humo(u)r difference and the tendancy of many American posters to forget it's a World Wide Web not a USA Wide Web can cause misunderstandings which may cause offence.

Back to the OP, metman, I was unaware that US President Kennedy had roots in the Newcastle area.  Given that he's apparantly from that area I'd say it's a miracle his pronunciation was as clear as it was.  I can't understand my own Great Uncle (or was it 2nd cousin twice removed, something like that), and had trouble with one of my teachers at college and another at uni.

My uni prof was our computer lecturer, World Wide Web became Woodwydweb.

To the uneducated ear a north eastern accent can sound almost Scottish, more so in some of the smaller towns outside of Newcastle itself.
 

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

So KENAT, where does Tony Greg, the Seth Effriken English cricket captain, fit in?

I've heard the South African English accent described as 'like an Australian with the flu'; I'm not sure who should be more insulted.

(Caucasian) South African accent is similar to (Caucasion) Zimbabwean accent (those that are left).

Or am I not helping much?

Then of course it will depend if they are of Afrikanes (not sure that's spelt right) or British extraction.

Those with a more Afrikanes accent can almost sound Dutch, not surprisingly.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Afrikaans.
The white Rhodesians (their description) that I've meet seem to take being mistaken for South Africans in fairly good grace, although they will invariably correct the mistake. As you say, the accents seem (to us) to be very similar.

Funny, I nearly said White Rhodesian but thought that may not be PC enough.

Doesn't help that in their accent most South Africans are from Sooth Arfrika or something like that.  They do sound a bit like an aussie or kiwi with nasal congestion though as your previous post hinted.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

I wondered about the PC aspect of it too, but then I figured that we should probably support oppressed minority groups, and use their own phrase.  

Well, now well off topic of course, but I am having a good time reading it all.

And.....today is:

1) Saint George's Day
2) Shakespeare's birthday

Three cheers.

That should be enough to get the Brit (aka English) haters and the spelling evolution police out in force.
I will be celebrating here in the offices of the Fraud Munter Company with a prominent display of a flag of the cross of St George.......until the PC Thought Police tell me to take it down as it's caused someone offence.

Zambia = Northern Rhodesia
Zimbabwe = Sothern Rhodeisa and the name of an ancient African civilisation, I think - I haven't looked that up so I'll leave it to someone else to put me right. It's about time he finished messing about and reinstalled himself as Lord Protector and re-named the place Mugabeland.

Now, about the Cornish Liberation Army, or whatever they call themselves this week. That was really funny to start off with but, if some halfwit managed to get onto a 'plane with his trainers stuffed with explosives, I wouldn't put it past the CNLA etc to find a similarly dozy a#se and get them to do something dumb in the name of the Celtic heritage.
One chap I used to work with did tell me that he thought they were all a bunch of celts, but he wasn't a very good speller.
As for threatening TV chefs and their patrons, well......I did hear tht there were many among the good people of Padstow that didn't warm to Rick Stein, but then just don't eat at his place.

I quite like Cornwall, it's nice. Pity there's a few nutters about that are prepared to spoil it for all.

Newcastel & Kennedy - Didn't know there was some sort of connection there.
John F and Kruschev could have settled their differences in traditional Tyneside fashion.

1) Go down the pub and get stoked up on Newcastle Brown until they're each other's best pal
2) Have a bit more to drink
3) Invite each other outside to settle some perceived insult, whereupon John F nuts Nikita on the bridge of the nose (a 'stoter on the broo' I believe) and then kicks him in the family jewels. Missile crisis over.

 "Cry God for England, Harry and St George!"

God Save The Queen, dump the rest in the sea.

Bill

When we lived in India, my daughter was at school and they started to teach about the various states in the USA.  They got to the one where LeBron James is making famous and the teacher said it was (phonetically) Oheeo (like 'knee').  My daughter raised her hand and said that it was Ohio - and was strongly told no, it was Oheeo.  Then my daughter said that her daddy grew up there and it was Ohio.  No!!  So she gave up.  Sadly, had she really been listening, she would know I pronounce it Ohia.  But then, there is always Warshington, eh?

I've only ever "celebrated" St George's day once.  In America, in an Irish pub of all places.  They were serving Double Diamond (!) in plastic half-yard glasses (like a yard glass, only 18" and made from plastic).  Customers were sipping gently from them, whilst wearing Double Diamond tee shirts.  Absolutely surreal.

Regarding the CNLA/CRA/whatever...  Let's just hope they don't get backing from the CAHS.  Now they are a scary bunch.
 

- Steve

The Cornish American Heritage Society?

Yes, very true. They'll be sending exploding pasties all over England (not to their Celtic cousins of course) funded by some 8th generation emigrant tin miners, now working in the New York financial area.

I can see road blocks springing up on all crossings of the River Dart, manned by black-clad balaclava-wearing Cornish Republicans waving Armalites and AK47s that came from Libya.

Bill

"River Dart"?  Tamar more like.  I like the idea of exploding pasties though.

I did actually join the CAHS (was missing home).  I went to a local meeting once, hoping to slip into the corner and observe.  When I got there I found to my horror that I was the guest of honour and was cosseted by a crowd of middle-aged women.  Then we watched films about the closure of Wheal Jane and what could be done to prevent it.

- Steve

All activists speaking Cornish of course though the last native speaker died long ago and it is a resurrected language.
Most will probably not be native at all but elderly, retired and liberal, supporting an oppressed minority, who probably thought they were learning Esperanto at evening classes and didn't find out until to late.

Deep in the heart of Truro, on that little road that leads to Malpas (pronounced Mowpath, I knew their was a theme to this thread), and something to do with Tristan and Isolde though mainly known for The Heron with its good beer, its views over the river and its quaint barmaids with genuine Cornish accents, (all barmaids are quaint or cute after a beer or two but not all are before that first drink) is the home of Radio Free Cornwall, or, as the BBC calls it, BBC Radio Cornwall.

http://www.enterprise-boats.co.uk/malpas.htm

You know, it is sometimes hard to take any of this seriously but with the death of Tito, it didn't take long for 800 year old bitterness to rise up and explode into a frenzy of blood-letting. No doubt, one day, the Scots and the Welsh will have their turn at it and afterwards amid the ruins, wonder what it was all about. I read somewhere that even in the Swiss Cantons there are mutterings about independence.

God help the poor English, for who do they have to rebel against? Well, there is always the other side of the channel I suppose, that has kept the English amused for a thousand years. (OK, for 944 years if you must).

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

As mentioned earlier by GregLocock; Iceland and the "Cod War".

I have a theory that when the fisheries dispute with Iceland started to get serious, feelings had been accidentally inflamed because of a mistake by a trainee Pronunciation advisor employed by the BBC World Service. This person erroniously supplied some "silent L's" to their Icelandic service's translation department who were working on a program about NATO and the UK's intention to send the RAF to Reykjavik to support Cold War operations!

Trevor Clarke. (R & D) Scientific Instruments.Somerset. UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP4.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756
 

Cornish pronunciation oddities:  The town of Liskeard

- Steve

And a Happy St Georges day to you all.

I just hung my George Cross behind me, not sure how long till I get told to take it down!

WGJ, thanks for the chuckle.

I too have images of exploding pasties, something like a claymore mine but with more pastry.

I'll bet it was that ba$tard from Camborne.

JMW, assuming you mean that having altercations with the French started in 1066 then hasn't that been keeping us amused for 942 years?

Well my boss just came over, decided he was going to respect my cultural heritage and let me leave it up.  This combined with an above average pay raise means I have a lot less excuse for being disgruntled, I'm not sure what to do.

"Cry God for England, Harry and St George!" indeed.

This has been a most enjoyable, nationalistic rant.

"And we will build Jerusalem..."

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Er, yes 942 years. But I am not allowed to say who against.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Well if you don't specify who against, and go back to Ceasars invasion of the UK then it's a lot more than 942 years too.  In fact given that even before that there had been several waives of invaders/immigrants from across the water it arguably goes back further still.

Although of course the English back then weren't English, loathed as I am to admit it since it might be construed as suggesting the English language may have changed in England, which as all of us know is crazy talk.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

KENAT - be careful, quoting that song/hymn, it's stirring stuff and should be dealt with like actors and Macbeth.

Exploding pasties - there's a pasty place in the tourist trap of Polperro that does a most unorthodox raspberry and custard filling.
I could imagine some people (say a member of Her Majesty's government)would pay good money to be blown up by a custerd filled piece of ordnance.
 

Bill

http://www.stgeorgesday.com/home

Bill

jmw,

Thanks for the link.  Reminds me of my recent (last couple of weeks) trip back "home".  Buses, beaches, rivers, pubs...

http://www.tamarcruising.com/

Couldn't persuade any of the chaps in the office that St George's day required a liquid lunch.  Oh well, I wonder what's going on in my local tonight.

- Steve

Erm. ! alas, England is no more....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/23/nmap123.xml
Those dratted Eurocrats at at it again.
Of course, the French might see this oppositely; that is, that the Black Prince's campaigns finally win the day with his European Territories being returned to control of England... dependent on where the region has its office of government... "transnational regional assembly".....in the UK?

In fact, that could start of the next 1000 years of problems. Oh goodie; the French have proved such good sports over the years, this is sure to run on and on and on.....

Let us not forget the Germans:
"German ministers claimed that the plan was about "underlying the goal of a united Europe" to "permanently overcome old borders" ....." Hmm. No comment.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

PS
The "Great" in Great Britain is a geographical term, not some ego thing. The "little" bit is composed of those parts of France, as it is now, that were claimed by the descendants of Big Bill the Norman (aka William the Conqueror).

Of course, I suspect part of the trouble was that the Normans weren't French (Franks) but Norse originally.
Notable are the omissions form this map especially Calais and there are some bits further south in modern France that really ought to be returned, finally. I'm particularly interested in some of the wine growing regions being handed over, there isn't much of interest in Calais.

Curiously, it was proposed, by the French (well, by Guy Mollet in 1956) that they should become part of the UK and accept the Queen as their sovereign.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381798-details/Britain+and+France+planned+'merger+in+1950s'/article.do
No fools, the UK government rejected the idea. I mean, who could we have fun with if that happened?

That failing, Ms. Mollet then wanted to France to be allowed to join the Commonwealth.

If this had gone ahead I have no doubt Dr Guillotines invention would have been brought out of retirement.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: "Pasties"

I understand that in one cultural context, a pastie is what we former colonials would term a "pastry", and down here in Louisiana, a "meat pie".  In the same geographic environs, a "pastie" is a small circular patch that is glued over the otherwise exposed nipplage of an exotic dancer to meet some strange legal definition of what's "totally nude" and therefore illegal, and not totally nude, except for the pasties and a vestigial crotchital covering.

I love this language stuff...

old field guy

I'm glad I watched every episode of Poldark!  All of this doesn't seem as foriegn as it would otherwise.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - Robert Hunter
 

ofg, I don't htink the legal definition is necessarily all that strange - I personally find the pastied version of that body part to be far less interesting than the clean version... although sometimes neither is as interesting as the cleverly concealed kind.   

I'm under the not-all-that-well-informed opinion that the meat pie pasty and the other pasty are not pronounced the same way.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Can't do the proper phoenetic stuff, but the meat/onion/turnip thingies from Cornwall (& I believe, the UP of MI) are pronounced: "Pahstee", spelled "Pasty".  I made a batch of them once in Chicago and nobody could pronounce them properly, even when trained.  They wanted to say Paystee.

The best ones in the world come from: http://www.ivordewdney.co.uk/

(Well, Plymouth is almost Cornwall)

- Steve

Yeah, the Cornish meat/veg/desert (yes originally one end had a fruit of similar filling) 'pie' is pronounced something like "P-ass-tea" or "Pahstee" as Sompting points out.  

OFG, a Pasty (note spelling) is not a generic term for a Pastry, it's a very specific type as hinted above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_pasty

The nurple coverage would be Pays-Tea, I guess as in it's pasted on.  Not sure if it's spelt pastie instead though.

(If at any time I spealt Pasty wrong leading to confusion, then sorry)

The best Pasty I ever had was from the newsagen in Mousehole, it was awesome.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

And Mousehole is pronounced how??  Bet you either didn't take your car or if you did, couldn't park it.

- Steve

"Mowzall", or something like that.  Definitely not Moushe-hole.

On the occasion I had the awesome pasty we took car & parked.  

However on Tom Bawcocks eve a few months later, the car got parked about a mile+ outside town! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bawcock's_Eve

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

err, Mouse-hole not Moushe-hole.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

"Moushe-hole" Is how Sean Connery might pronounce it.

- Steve

Show true

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Wikipedia has 'pasty' pronounced with the 'a' as in 'cat', but I've always used 'pars-tee' it was Wedgewood ran a TV ad years ago about the 'farst parsty'.

Not a patch on a 4 and 20 though.

I'd say somptings "Pahs-tea"  with the Pahs rhyming with as but a bit drawn out is closest to how they say it in Kurnow.  Maybe even "Pazz-tea"

pars-tee, I don't think so.  Weird colonial pronunciations indeed.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

It's obviously a different 'a' sound to the one in 'The Ashes..."  

Ouch.

Not if you have a West Indian accent.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Dewdney's pasties are nice enough things, but I was assured in my youth by two experts (my dad and my grandmother) that they are not /real/ pasties because they use a flaky pastry of some type. There were also mutterings about which vegetables are acceptable, but I can't remember the details. I have a horrible suspicion that swede (rutabaga - a much funnier name for the food of the devil(wiki can be selectively quoted to describe it as "a food of last resort") is involved.)

And they pronounced it 'par-stee'.



 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Hmm, now you've got me doubting myself Greg.

I do know that all this talk of pasties has made me hungry though!

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

http://kenanderson.net/pasties/notes.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pasty
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pasty

Can't seem to make their mind up so I'll go with:

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/pasty_1?view=uk

Which kind of matches my suggestion, I think.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Mowzle
Pastea

I am all for incorporating the Norman and Celtic areas of France into the UK - the can come to us with pleasure.
There is some terrific countryside and beautiful beaches. Northern France can stay with the Republic or be gifted to Belgium.
Then I could move to south-west Finistere (Britany). I like the Concarneau, Quimper (Kampere) and Quimperle areas. Nice.

Bill

The original proposal was worth considering more carefully.
By turning the deal down, the next step the French took was to sign a deal with Germany instead.
See where that has lead us.

Next thing you know the French will join NATO.
Oh, they did?
Bon Jour mes amis. J'aime beucoup la femme de la president de France. Bien venu ah Londres. Ici le premier pays de la Manche Region. Vous n'avait pas le priorite. Cede la passage a l'Anglaterre sil vous pays.

Spoken in a loud voice with post war English school systems French pronunciation that was noted for the total lack of comprehension engendered with any native speaker. The one phrase school children did learn well was "Voulez vous couche avec moi ce soir?", always more interesting that Sur le pont d'Avingnon, Frere Jaques etc.

At least it will be an opportunity to end that French uncertainty about roundabouts which even in the UK seem to confuse Americans so, but in France confuse everyone else, especially as the only signs are rather small and in French which seems unfriendly in the Calais region (in the UK the road signs are already in multiple languages "Tenir a droit!" (or something). The roads leading away from Calais ferry terminal or from the Calais Chunnel terminal always seem littered with right hand drive cars with GB number plates which made it so far and no further. I mean, at one roundabout the traffic on the roundabout has priority and at another the traffic joining has priority. What's that all about?

Hey, It'll be just like French Canada with all the signs in French and English. Imagine the Daily Telegraph as a dual language newspaper. Oh dear, and imagine the Sun in French....

Can we have a moment to rethink this please?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Hee haw hee haw hee haw,

Bill

LOL, nice rant JMW,
with the better Canadian Dollar, they are streaming to the US and there are alot more stores (near the borders)and ATM's with French, Spanish, and English Languages.


 

Crossing to Canada they offered me US$ to CAN$ parity. I was not amused.
Try and find a currency exchange bureau and see where it gets you.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Uh, why not amused?  A quick peek at some currency conversion web sites shows that US$/CAN$ has been hovering around the 1.0 mark for a while - sometimes slightly higher than 1, sometimes slightly lower.

- Steve

Now why, in Boston, do all the new cars have their safety labels (air bags etc.) in English and French? What happened to Spanish?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Tenir a droite/priorite a la droite

Man, are those fearsome words. We had the same (well, mirror reflected) in Victoria until surprisingly recently, and even these days a little bit of caution at intersections without lights goes a long way.

When we switched to normal priority the smash repair guys were quoted as being rubbing their hands with glee. In fact it only took one day for everyone to wake up and smell the roses.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

The one thing about Englsh, apart from not bothering with genders, on the whole, is the lack of "accents".

The exceptions include:
Cafe and café (there is a just visible accent on the "e").
Pronounced the same.
At a Cafe you can get a bacon, eggs and sausage breakfast with a nice cup of tea.
At a "Café" you get croissants and cappuccino and it will cost you an arm and a leg.
e.g. "Café Rouge" (popular with trendy types) and "The Red Arrow Cafe" surrounded by articulated lorries.

The various pronunciations of "croissants" are interesting.
My Nephew, from Georgia, says Kwai...sonts.

I can see this Transnational Region idea is going to be interesting and for that reason alone could be worth supporting.

By the way, I guess the signs at Dover probably read "Tenir a gauche". Surprised no one has picked up on that.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

This thread has moved so far beyond me I can't lurk anymore without an open dictionary and a Wiki...I'm still trying to figure out  KENAT's 'nurples'.  Purple nipples, nursing peoples???

And then I get to chrisaust's 'pasty's like in cat'.

It just so happens that I have a neurotic cat that is licking and chewing his fur off of his belly around his nipples or should I say nurples, to the point where I have considered gluing pasties to his underside.



But now I'm thinking maybe I should just put a PASTY on his belly and hope that all those carbs make him so sleepy he doesn't chew off any more fur.

And if that weren't enough, now I've got to be mindful of the type of pastry (it must be tough and made with lard) and what vegetables were used in the filling.

I just LOVE engineers.....



 

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

Nurple comes from "Purple Nurple" which as you point out comes from "Purple Nipple", otherwise known as a "ti*ty twister".

I used Nurple instead of Nipple as some people (no offence but mainly Americans from my experience) get upset by the word nipple.  Also thought the IT thought police may not like the word.

Too late now.

Suffice to say Cass, don't dwell on my nurples, you'll only come to regret it later.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Oh yeah, (being a man and an engineer I just have to suggest a solution for a problem) as for your cat, would one of those big lampshade like collars not work?

Pasties as in the photo may be more entertaining though. And if they had tassles your cat could have hours of fun chasing them.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Take a break and check this (funny):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CguX5UAK5B4

Please don't feel offended. I'm a romance lang. speaker, so any comments on this video are welcome.   

 

Pretty funny.

I don't think I sound anything like his version of a Brit though, then again I wouldn't would I.

However, I doubt most Brits would be surprised or upset if an American didn't know where England was.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

That Russel Peters is funny, I'll have to watch some more of his stuff. His English accent exists in only about 0.5% of the population but his Indian English accent is excellent.

Americans on geography:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1500363024581994906

I ws looking for the old "Ronald Reagan Map of The World" but couldn't find it.
 

Bill

Darwinism isn't proceding fast enough.
Proof:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/news/2008/04/24/nshakespeare124.xml

Bill

If you Americans out there want to see us Brits parodying ourselves, search for "Keeping up appearances" on youtube or wherever.  I can't say I like the program myself, but the stereotypes are very good.

- Steve

Oh, I enjoy Keeping Up Appearances....used to be shown on the local (Maine) PBS stations on Friday nights...even my 10 year old daughter enjoys it!

Being a bitter and twisted type, and since an earlier poster chastised me for not accomodating/acknowledging language change and development, I wonder if there could be any comment on whther the re-writing and/or re-phrasing of plays as mentioned in

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/news/2008/04/24/nshakespeare124.xml

should be wholeheartedly accepted?
 

Bill

Shakspere is a rather odd writer, in his cultural context. (Like all real Poms I am a shakespearophile). He legitimised, or invented, so much of the language. One of my favorite films is Shakespeare in Love, I find it laugh out loud funny every time I see it. There again a script by that famous old pom Tom Stoppard always helps.

I couldn't actually get to anything useful from that article, just an amazon link.







 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

Shakespeare's language is an essential part of his plays but his plots and stories are also excellent and have been transposed into other cultures sometimes with tremendous success.
"West Side Story" (Romeo and Juliet) for example, but I think one of the most masterful exponents of Shakespeare adaptations has to be Akira Kurosawa "Ran" (king Lear), "Throne of Blood" (Macbeth) and his own stories have also translated very well into other genres such as Yojimbo (Fistfull of Dollars) and of course, "The Seven Samurai" which became, with far less depth, "The Magnificent Seven".

So simply bodging the language for the youth may or may not be a good idea. Depends who is doing it and what they manage to carry over.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Yo dude

Bill

Daisy and Onslow are two of my favorite British characters.  My SO can't stand them though.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - Robert Hunter
 

I think he was trying to be Prince Charles or Phillip like you say WGJ while there certainly are Brits who talk a bit like that it's nowhere near the majority.

I find the whole concept of 'an English Accent' amusing, given the massive variation in accents across the country.  Most Americans think either plumb in the mouth 'Queens English' as Russel or else some variation of Cockney.

Considering how popular Frasier was you'd think they'd realize there's at least one other accent in England.

His English Indian was spot on though.

As to Sheakespeare, I actually think learning the language and related history is as much of the education experience as the general plot etc.  While fine, up to a point, if read/viewed in addition to the original I can't help thinking something would be lost if you just read da Alli G version.

Brits taking the pi$$ out of themselves, watch "Little England" or any of the other shows by a similar crew, they seem to all have orginated on BBC2.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

Onslow, hilarious.  Which was Daisy, his chubby wife or the trampy sister, I can't recall.

Hyacinth (not sure spelling) always reminded me of my Aunt & Uncle although with the roles slightly reversed.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

In England they speak the Queens English so in the US they must speak the presidents english - yes it is pronounced 'nukular'.

Daisey was the wife, Rose was the tramp.
When ever I meet someone a bit too "proper", I tend to gauge them against Hyacinth.  No one has yet to come close.

While I realize that there are many variations of accent, both British and American, Daphne and her brother's (on Frasier) cockney is the first British accent that I think of.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - Robert Hunter
 

Yeah, I never understood why Daphne had a mild Yorkshire (or was it Lancashire) accent while her brothers was more of a London accent.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

The producers didn't budget for a proper speech coach, that's why, Kenat.

Plus, there probably aren't that many Americans that can pick out the fine gradations of the accents of England, so the producers figured 'why bother?'.  It's a bit like me asking a non-American to differentiate an accent from the American South from that of the Midwest.  That's pretty easy, but then if I ask 'Chicago or Indianapolis' or 'Mississippi or Georgia', it gets harder.

Most of us in the US can't differentiate like that, jistre.

On a slight tangent, I have noticed posts pointing out that those of us from the states will refer to ourselves as "american" even though we are far from alone in the americas.  I agree, but am at a loss as to how to we should refer to ourselves.  "Unites States of American" just doesn't flow off of the tongue easily.  U.S. of A.'n?  United Statesian?  I am open to suggestions.

Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare. - Robert Hunter
 

Ha!  I have a choice.  I can be "British" or "English", (depending on my current jingoism levels).  But we don't have a real national term either.  We live in the UK of GB and NI ... really rolls off the tongue.

- Steve

"I'm from the USA"

Then again, why don't people get upset about South Africans calling themselves such?  There are many other countries in the south of Africa!  
 

I believe Daphne is mancunian, or perhaps scouse, it's a while since I've seen the show.

Yes, I think Daphne is from somewhere in the Manchester area, and that alone probably encompasses half a dozen distinct accents.

Yoo-Ess-Aians

Bill

I'm pretty sure that geneticists, when watching TV or films, must get pretty worked up about supposed families mad eup of people that couldn't possibly be genetically related to each other. Exception, the Ted Danson Whoopie Goldberg film about test tube babies (or maybe they just relied on the obvious differences and geneticists still get worked up).

So I suppose we just have to accept TV families with different regional accents as if they all grew up in different parts of the country/world.

A visit to any Imdb page for any particular film will show that some people spend there lives looking for anachronisms, roman soldiuers wearing wrist watches, trucks climbing the hill in the background of Ben Hur etc. and I guess that at some point worrying about accents falls into the same sad category.

Still, I'm a sad grumpy git and accents give me a pain when out of context. Like Newcastle dialect on BBC radio southern. Or that bloke that announces the Channel 4 films. Every thing in its place, say I.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Do you mean "the Channel Faw Fillums"?

Grumpy Old Gits For Ever

Bill

Yeah, and thanks, friends, for not jumping on my spelling in this post.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Jistre, my phrasing was obviously off.  I did understand why their accents weren't more similar, most of the primary target audience wouldn't' notice/care so they didn't put the time/money/effort into matching it.

I probably should have said I thought it a shame they didn't try and more closely match the accents or something similar.  I was basically just trying to point out that their accents came from completely different parts of the country so it would be unlikely in reality for siblings to have such different accents.

As to what Daphnes accent was, per the ever reliable wikipedia it's meant to be Mancunian, but is more realisitically an amalgamation of North Western accents.

My point was that accents within England, let along rest of UK, vary a lot.  I'd go so far as to say that variation in accents within England is as much in some instances as much as between countries.  It's a shame that most residents of USA aren't even aware of this, and that the media normally only shows Queens English or Cockney.  (In this respect at least Daphne had something going for her, even though most of her audience didn't notice.)

EWH, how about Yank, or Septic  (I know technically that's only a resident of the North Eastern part of the USA but for most Brits it's a generic term.)

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

I was going to argue with your description of Yankee, but went on Wikipedia and found the following.

A humorous aphorism attributed to E.B. White summarizes these distinctions:

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
 

I remember seeing that somewhere before, I aimed mid list with my description!

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

And the Damn Yankees is an OK group.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

What sort of pie? Cherry? With a good hot cup of damn fine coffee?

Bill

And what do non-Yankee Vermonters have for breakfast?

 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

A foot-high pile of 10" pancakes covered in US maple syrup with a strawberry on the top.

Bill

Ahh, Vermont, the land of maple syrup and coats.  

God bless the maple syrup.