I just want to clear up that although my husband can be useless at spelling (especially when he is in a hurry) I proof read the comic before it gets posted, and since I am a wannabe English Major (how lame is that?) I am pretty good at spotting the misspellings. But it does open a whole can of worms because I try to spell things in American while (whilst) he spells them in English English.
I didn't even know that the English Z is called a zed. It's useless for the alphabet song; it just throws the whole thing off.
Many words spelled the English way are obvious, like 'colour' and 'tyre'; although 'tyre' is a bit rare around here in preference for black rubber thingy. While the English think they are superior to be calling an elevator a 'lift' (it's a short easy word) then why do they call a blinker an 'indicator'? How labored (laboured) is that?
'Travelling' as used in recent post (49, The Journey) is a perfectly acceptable English English spelling of the word meaning to traverse, or travel. Sometimes the English put in an extra 'L' where the Americans leave it off. Other examples less known to us Yanks may be: 'modelling' or 'counselling'. The English also like to take away the 'L' sometimes, such as in the words 'enrolment' and 'fulfilment.'
The English are afraid of their zeds, so use them sparingly. They tend to replace them in the end of words with the letter 'S', as in 'energise', memorise.' Elizabeth is more commonly spelled as 'Elisabeth.'
And if you thought all that was strange, imagine how Zebra is pronounced?
Not Zee-bra, but Zeh-bra (it makes the same sound as zed, not the sound our zee makes!)
Nuff said! (Translation: I am done speaking and therefore require a cup of tea!)
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A Word With Mrs Vast
English English vs. American Honky Tonk
It's called silliness. The scientists, or whoever brought these words to common use, wanted to say it a certain way. When we went to America we could not listen to the frilly, fancy fops flout their flagrant fallacies in person, so we just made it up as we went along. We are more like a REAL language than the Brits! Why? Because we say so, see?
I suspect that the Alphabet Song was composed purely for the purpose of instilling zedism and hatred of the British in the American colonies, leading ultimately to the war of independence!
Our rule for the use of the Z is simple. DON'T USE Z! Thus, it only features in situations where the use of S has already been established for a similar word with different meaning, i.e
"Quickly, call the fire brigade, I am blase!" would likely not elicit the desired response and so becomes:
"Quickly, call the fire brigade, I am ablaze!"
Keep up the good work.
I suspect that the Alphabet Song was composed purely for the purpose of instilling zedism and hatred of the British in the American colonies, leading ultimately to the war of independence!
You should see my inlaws. I am raising their little grandson who can speak quite well in English and American. He is very good at pleasing the both of us, though he tends to correct me more than he should! He is American after all! When we sing the alphabet song, he declares a Zed is not a Zee. He corrects me in calling trucks 'lorries'.
I can see how wars could be raged because I feel I am constantly being corrected by my inlaws on the proper use of words in the language: rubbish vs. trash, dinner vs. lunch, skips vs. dumpsters, and the toilet vs. bathroom. My mother tried to correct Daniel's words when he lived in America, so it's tit for tat I guess, but in the end we all know what we are talking about and keeping our own dialects is what makes us unique! When I see certain differences in our two languages I would be compelled to think some of it was invented to antagonize the other. (I used a Z there, did you see?)
The words aren't even English or American, but French.
Fillet vs. fil-lay
Herbs vs. urbs
So, in the spirit of the thread, I have a question.
Here in America, there are maybe ten or so dialects of American English, some of which are arguably only accents but whatever. I mean, you've got New York (and its peripheries which could be 10 or so by themselves), the midwest, the the upper west, southern west, country, the south, the DEEP south, Texan, and ghetto ie: street (these are only the most notable ones I can think of right off). And then you have your non-regional diction which is normally only used by newscasters (and my own version tarnished by living in the south). Depending on where you are, you might call that metal/plastic thing you push around at the grocery store a buggy, cart, basket or even a wagon. I think I heard one gentleman call it a trolley. That one threw me.
Despite all that we can all speak what would amount to "proper" English. No matter how far in the boonies or high in the condos someone lives, we can all speak proper English if we so desire. But that's quite irrelevant. My question is how many different dialects are you aware of over there?
Hakoshen, dialects schmialects.
I am not an expert on English dialects but I can only comment from my experience of living here for almost three years and by iggling it out of my husband who doesn't pay that much attention to it to notice very much. (He lives in his cartoon head.)
On a map one would think by looking at England with cities and towns being so close to one another that there may not be any variance in speech. According to the map, it's only one hundred and twenty miles to London from here, a mere two hour American drive on a straight road. However the roads are windy, make you sick going round those roundabouts all the time, up hills, down hills, in and out of bottlenecks, traffic jams. It takes twice as long to drive to London than the map says.
I can only comment on the local South Yorkshire dialect as I am living with it and can say it's definately different than other English accents. Daniel informs me that England has more regional accents per square mile than any other country. (Just as London has more rats per square mile than…)
If anybody lives somewhere besides Rotherham, South Yorkshire, please list the differences here. I will point them out later as they are revealed to me.
Here, in Rotherham, little babies are called lickle babbies, nowt means not (I have nowt for tea.) Owt means anything. They transfer lend and borrow, example 'borrow me your shirt' 'I'll lend it ya.' They say 'fetch' instead of bring, such as 'I'm fetching the buns for the party.' (Buns are actually cupcakes, or in some cases rice crispies or other cereal treats made with melted chocolate and put in a cupcake case.) They don't use the word 'the' in front of much. They instead kind of make a gluttaral pause, or none at all. 'I'm going ta ' hospital to get ' scan.' (Most English say 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital.') When someone from Rotherham can't think of the word to say, or can't be asked (is too lazy) to say it, they say things such as 'Did you ask thingie if he could go to ' pub?' Thingie being used to replace name, you just fill in blank. They also love to shorten their place names such as 'I'm going to Skeggie.' (Skegness) Donnie (Doncaster), Wilko (Wilkinson, the shop).
People here are very fond of pet names, of which I really find endearing. Everyone calls everyone else these and I just don't think we would get away with it in America. (Sexual harassment?) People call eachother 'luvvie', 'duck', 'love', 'flower'. People on the street say it, though it is gender specific. Men call women and men 'duck' but only women are called 'flower'. Women are not called 'mate'. An example of the pet names would be 'Here you go, flower.' at a shop, or 'thanks, mate' when getting off the bus.
When two people meet here they say 'ayyy up?', or 'all right?'
'Ta' means thanks.
Thanks for your inquiry. I am sure someone else can give you more insight to other regions.
Hakoshen, dialects schmialects.
I am not an expert on English dialects but I can only comment from my experience of living here for almost three years and by iggling it out of my husband who doesn't pay that much attention to it to notice very much. (He lives in his cartoon head.)
On a map one would think by looking at England with cities and towns being so close to one another that there may not be any variance in speech. According to the map, it's only one hundred and twenty miles to London from here, a mere two hour American drive on a straight road. However the roads are windy, make you sick going round those roundabouts all the time, up hills, down hills, in and out of bottlenecks, traffic jams. It takes twice as long to drive to London than the map says.
I can only comment on the local South Yorkshire dialect as I am living with it and can say it's definately different than other English accents. Daniel informs me that England has more regional accents per square mile than any other country. (Just as London has more rats per square mile than…)
If anybody lives somewhere besides Rotherham, South Yorkshire, please list the differences here. I will point them out later as they are revealed to me.
Here, in Rotherham, little babies are called lickle babbies, nowt means not (I have nowt for tea.) Owt means anything. They transfer lend and borrow, example 'borrow me your shirt' 'I'll lend it ya.' They say 'fetch' instead of bring, such as 'I'm fetching the buns for the party.' (Buns are actually cupcakes, or in some cases rice crispies or other cereal treats made with melted chocolate and put in a cupcake case.) They don't use the word 'the' in front of much. They instead kind of make a gluttaral pause, or none at all. 'I'm going ta ' hospital to get ' scan.' (Most English say 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital.') When someone from Rotherham can't think of the word to say, or can't be asked (is too lazy) to say it, they say things such as 'Did you ask thingie if he could go to ' pub?' Thingie being used to replace name, you just fill in blank. They also love to shorten their place names such as 'I'm going to Skeggie.' (Skegness) Donnie (Doncaster), Wilko (Wilkinson, the shop).
People here are very fond of pet names, of which I really find endearing. Everyone calls everyone else these and I just don't think we would get away with it in America. (Sexual harassment?) People call eachother 'luvvie', 'duck', 'love', 'flower'. People on the street say it, though it is gender specific. Men call women and men 'duck' but only women are called 'flower'. Women are not called 'mate'. An example of the pet names would be 'Here you go, flower.' at a shop, or 'thanks, mate' when getting off the bus.
When two people meet here they say 'ayyy up?', or 'all right?'
'Ta' means thanks.
Thanks for your inquiry. I am sure someone else can give you more insight to other regions.
One American accent I've always liked is the 1950's news reporter accent. I had to listen to it repeatedly doing a Roswell transcript, so it grew on me.
I'm surprised on the amount of accents. I've heard of Texan and Deep South, but most variations on American Dialects seem to be done for the purpose of charicature, rather like the English West Country accent or Upper class plummy. What accent is it Hillbillies seem to always have?
I like the pet name greetings, I always feel happier being referred to as something like "sweet heart" rather then "young lady". It just seems friendlier.
There's Old Cockney, which sounds nothing like Dick Van Dyke, I can assure you. There's several types of Cockney, I think. I don't know how much rhyming slang is used in circulation nowadays.
Liverpool has a unique accent. Might be scouse, but I'm not sure. It has a high pitched intonation at the end of a sentence, and they pronounce words like "book" as…er…."buuk". It's hard to write phonetically.
Devon and Cornwall both have different accents, commonly associated with farmers and peasentry in films. People from up country normally do a devon west country accent for bumpkins (i.e, Hot Fuzz is pretty Somerset accent wise, considering the towns meant to be further north than that). Saying that, most of the accent is from the old gaelic language, so it's a lot of rrrrrrrrrrrr in the sentences.
Dialects seem to be done for the purpose of charicature, rather like the English West Country accent or Upper class plummy. What accent is it Hillbillies seem to always have?
I think the English are guilty of stereotyping the 'hillbilly' accent as the Americans are. Only the English hillbilly is a 'farmer' and farmers always always always speak with the English West Country accent. I listen to Radio 4 when doing the washing up and if it's not too late and I'm stuck with the damned shipping forecast, they play the Archers (which I thought was 'the Arches' for simply ages till my mother in law cleared that one up) and the farmers speak in such West Country (Norfolk) it is almost caricatured and goofy sounding. How do I describe this accent? This is nearly like a stereotypical pirate voice, for some reason. Lots of hmming and arghhhing.
I would think the hillbilly accent in America is meant to represent ANYBODY from a southern state, ie. Georgia, Louisiana, etc. Though George W. Bush seems to have a reputation in England as being a hillbilly; he is from Texas, which isn't normally characterised as being hillbilly, and only backwards when it comes to racism and homophobia. But then Bush hasn't done a whole lot to improve the image; he reversed the impressions we had of Texas from 'Dallas.' I knew someone from Georgia who had a really thick Southern drawl but I think it's what is said and done that defines you as hillbilly. Though it was 20 years ago, he spoke as if the Civil War was still being fought…things may have improved since then. If you saw 'Overboard' with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell then you have a good example of what people think hillbillies are. I have to remind my husband that country music is not hillbilly music. My impression is that 'bluegrass' is hillbilly music, this being done with dulcimer, banjo. etc. Alison Krauss, the world's best singer on the planet (most haunting and beautiful) is famous for her song on 'O Brother Where Art Thou?'—good hillbilly example—'Let's Go Down to the River and Pray'. Country music, being different from hillbilly or bluegrass is all about American pride and Jesus nowdays, and mainly just sounds like toned down rock. I think the truest example of hillbilly is Dolly Parton, as she speaks as one and has a great accent. She was raised in a shack, wore a rag coat of many colours, etc etc.
And then there is redneck, and almost anyone from any state (Northern California, Oregon, Kentucky, Alaska) can speak in that dialect, which uses double negatives 'I haven't done nothing' and involves lots of speech about Nascar. Talladega Nights takes the piss but managed to thrill the hell out of my ex-husband (redneck) as it was pretty darn accurate. They also have a redneck dress code, which may have changed in the three years I have been away from America. Goatee beard, baseball cap (brim slightly rolled) T-shirt with American flag/Nascar/NRA statement, tight button up fly blue jeans, sunglasses.
So hillbilly, redneck, and country Western are all very different.
His way of spelling? Taking the u's out of words that end in "our."seems rather childish if you ask me.
Australian English is, I guess, a combination of American and English but with a much much higher concentration of English. We say "blinker" where I live in Australia, not "indicator", but I lived in NY for a while and everyone said "indicator" there. And we don't say lorry and all that other English slang. We have our own slang!
The words aren't even English or American, but French.
Fillet vs. fil-lay
Herbs vs. urbs
Yes, but then why do you spell "catalogue" with no "ue"?
ParkerFarker….(not sure how to highlight your quote with my husband away, he helps me.)
'Yes, but then why do you spell "catalogue" with no "ue"?'
English or American? I thought Americans spelled it with 'ue' at the end too. I am getting more and more confused I have to tell you as school is starting and I have learned the children in England learn all the sounds the letters make before they know what it's called. So B is called 'buh', A 'uh', etc.
Didn't know that about New York having indicators instead of blinkers but there have been some indications the further East you go, the closer the two cultures seem to collide. They have knicker bocker glories there (parfaits of cream, jelly and pudding/fruit). At least that's what I heard anyway, and I only thought they were from the seaside here in England.
Cotton Candy is 'candy floss' here, and yarn is always called 'wool.' Cotton wool is the stuffing you put in stuffed animals…what we call 'batting' in America. Q-tips are 'cotton buds.'
I would love to know more terms of phrase in Australia, as there are many similarities like U.S. to English. Nursery rhymes are different…The wheels on the bus go round and round 'all day long' rather than 'all through the town' and when you're a little tea pot short and stout, you 'see the tea cups' and shout tip me over and pour me out rather than 'when I get all steamed up'. I noticed they sing it 'when I get all steamed up' in Australia too if Bananas in Pyjamas is any slice of cannon. Yeah, in America, we spell them 'pajamas' not pyjamas. Thanks for your comments. It has been really nutty around here taking kids to and fro nursery school so I haven't had time to kick Hark off to look at my forum topics!
Heh, this is amusing.
I am from the south of of england, right in the middle on the coast near the isle of wight.
I have a fairly generic southern accent, you wouldn't here me speak and say… he's from dorset, devon, london or wherever.
The worst thing that slips my lips is, innit! roughly translated "isn't it"
I hate the expression so when it slips out I feel cheap.
My pet hate, which is mostly american but some english public speakers do it is…
"To mark AN historic occassion we…." Terrible english, really bugs me. wouldn't be so bad if they dropped the H but it just makes them sound like idiots.
Oh and how do you explain Aluminum?
Hakoshen, dialects schmialects.
I am not an expert on English dialects but I can only comment from my experience of living here for almost three years and by iggling it out of my husband who doesn't pay that much attention to it to notice very much. (He lives in his cartoon head.)
On a map one would think by looking at England with cities and towns being so close to one another that there may not be any variance in speech. According to the map, it's only one hundred and twenty miles to London from here, a mere two hour American drive on a straight road. However the roads are windy, make you sick going round those roundabouts all the time, up hills, down hills, in and out of bottlenecks, traffic jams. It takes twice as long to drive to London than the map says.
I can only comment on the local South Yorkshire dialect as I am living with it and can say it's definately different than other English accents. Daniel informs me that England has more regional accents per square mile than any other country. (Just as London has more rats per square mile than…)
If anybody lives somewhere besides Rotherham, South Yorkshire, please list the differences here. I will point them out later as they are revealed to me.
Here, in Rotherham, little babies are called lickle babbies, nowt means not (I have nowt for tea.) Owt means anything. They transfer lend and borrow, example 'borrow me your shirt' 'I'll lend it ya.' They say 'fetch' instead of bring, such as 'I'm fetching the buns for the party.' (Buns are actually cupcakes, or in some cases rice crispies or other cereal treats made with melted chocolate and put in a cupcake case.) They don't use the word 'the' in front of much. They instead kind of make a gluttaral pause, or none at all. 'I'm going ta ' hospital to get ' scan.' (Most English say 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital.') When someone from Rotherham can't think of the word to say, or can't be asked (is too lazy) to say it, they say things such as 'Did you ask thingie if he could go to ' pub?' Thingie being used to replace name, you just fill in blank. They also love to shorten their place names such as 'I'm going to Skeggie.' (Skegness) Donnie (Doncaster), Wilko (Wilkinson, the shop).
People here are very fond of pet names, of which I really find endearing. Everyone calls everyone else these and I just don't think we would get away with it in America. (Sexual harassment?) People call eachother 'luvvie', 'duck', 'love', 'flower'. People on the street say it, though it is gender specific. Men call women and men 'duck' but only women are called 'flower'. Women are not called 'mate'. An example of the pet names would be 'Here you go, flower.' at a shop, or 'thanks, mate' when getting off the bus.
When two people meet here they say 'ayyy up?', or 'all right?'
'Ta' means thanks.
Thanks for your inquiry. I am sure someone else can give you more insight to other regions.
One American accent I've always liked is the 1950's news reporter accent. I had to listen to it repeatedly doing a Roswell transcript, so it grew on me.
I'm surprised on the amount of accents. I've heard of Texan and Deep South, but most variations on American Dialects seem to be done for the purpose of charicature, rather like the English West Country accent or Upper class plummy. What accent is it Hillbillies seem to always have?
I like the pet name greetings, I always feel happier being referred to as something like "sweet heart" rather then "young lady". It just seems friendlier.
There's Old Cockney, which sounds nothing like Dick Van Dyke, I can assure you. There's several types of Cockney, I think. I don't know how much rhyming slang is used in circulation nowadays.
Liverpool has a unique accent. Might be scouse, but I'm not sure. It has a high pitched intonation at the end of a sentence, and they pronounce words like "book" as…er…."buuk". It's hard to write phonetically.
Devon and Cornwall both have different accents, commonly associated with farmers and peasentry in films. People from up country normally do a devon west country accent for bumpkins (i.e, Hot Fuzz is pretty Somerset accent wise, considering the towns meant to be further north than that). Saying that, most of the accent is from the old gaelic language, so it's a lot of rrrrrrrrrrrr in the sentences.
Pretty sure hot fuzz is set in somerset.
thanks for the comments regarding accents. this is mrs. vast here trying to gain her own identity but can't upload a photo yet till mister comes back. Not that I need him to help me with too many things but I tried reformatting to 100x100 and it's still not working. I will give it one more go.
I guess all countries make fun of their own people with stupid accents. The west country farmer accent is by far the hokiest. I imagine there must be farmers out there that don't live there. There's a dairy farm up the road and I would hope he sounds Yorkshire, not pirate.
Julie
I think the scouse accent is possibly the worst accent in the world, well when it's really thick and gutteral anyway. Like nails on a chalk board. That said when it's softer it sounds okay, well bearable maybe.
In the DD comic Deathboy the main character has a broad yorkshire accent, well thats how it reads to me anyway, but people accused it of having terrible dialogue because of how well it got the accent across. shame.
genejoke, are you english? I wondered if scouse is anything like Manc, and I watched Big Brother recently and Corin had a voice like that you would consider grating, but it may have been her personality instead. Big Brother 2010=guilty pleasure. It's over now so I can get back to fooling everyone I don't like it.
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