Lie vs. lay is one of my (many) pet peeves.
It just seems so natural and obvious to me. I can excuse non-native speakers but it seems that native speakers are at least as bad or sometimes worse.
Yeah? Well, pbbbt!
Not every British person has escaped from a PG Woodhouse novel "pip pip old chap" or from East London "right you are gov, we best get this sorted before it goes all pear shaped".
Of course not. Some British people are Scottish or Welsh. It's just all the English who speak those two ways. (Well, except in Cornwall, where the English pretend to be Welsh.)
British dialects can be used, for those who know how, to find where the person grew up to the number on the street, what hir parents did for a living, and so on. This is just a slight exaggeration. As I understand it, Americans really don't have a concept of this.
Not every British person has escaped from a PG Woodhouse novel "pip pip old chap" or from East London "right you are gov, we best get this sorted before it goes all pear shaped".Of course not. Some British people are Scottish or Welsh. It's just all the English who speak those two ways. (Well, except in Cornwall, where the English pretend to be Welsh.)
I would like to see you say that to a Scouser, Geordie, Yorkshireman, or somebody from Essex. ;-)
I'm hoping that see was being sarcastic, because... Well, 8th and Byorn have the right of it.
I'm from Gloucester, by way of North Yorkshire, Wales, Oxfordshire, and London, with strong family ties to Cheshire, and I can flat-out guarantee you that local dialects and accents are really varied.
Showing it in text is well-nigh impossible, but here's a stab:
I were angin ou wai'in for'bus, mairbe arf our while clock struck three.
What time did I arrive, and where am I from?
Or Gloucestershire.
The gun fight in that movie has to be one of the top 10 movie gun fights of all time.
My girlfriend who isn't a native English speaker gets mad when I say "I want to lay down"
She says It is LIE down
Oddly she has trouble with such phrases as "Why is it wrong to run people over with a tank?"
British dialects can be used, for those who know how, to find where the person grew up to the number on the street, what hir parents did for a living, and so on. This is just a slight exaggeration. As I understand it, Americans really don't have a concept of this.
Except for us army children who may have lived in 6 or more different places before we reached 6 years old (which was when my father left the army - my sister was 12 and I have no idea how many places she'd lived in by then).
British dialects can be used, for those who know how, to find where the person grew up to the number on the street, what hir parents did for a living, and so on. This is just a slight exaggeration. As I understand it, Americans really don't have a concept of this.
One can certainly undertand intellectually that there is a difference in regional dialect, even if one isn't familiar with the specific examples. Until the success of Doctor Who and BBC America, Americans haven't had all that much exposure to the various British accents, save for the patrician accents of Hollywood villains. (Well, unless you were a fan of PBS or foreign films.) The occasional British character in American TV shows always tended to speak like a BBC news announcer. (Unless they were a petty criminal, in which case they always spoke Cockney.)
I'm not sure how much Brits or other Europeans understand that North America also has a diversity of dialects. Every time I've asked a Brit to affect an American accent, they all sound like they're from Brooklyn.
Unless it's an oddball character, (i.e. the Redneck; the professor from Harvard; the plumber from Bronx) everyone on TV or in the movies speaks with the same generic "network standard" American accent.
In reality, unless they've taken steps to cover it up, people from Maine have a different accent than those from Manhattan, which are all different from the regional accents of Boston, Chicago, Texas, the Carolinas, Alabama, Minnesota, Toronto, Pittsburgh, or New Orleans. (Californians actually do have the "network standard" accent.) There are dozens of American regional dialects.
I grew up in northern New England, and still speak with hints of that accent. While I don't "pahk my cah neah the supamahket" any more, I still pronounce "cot" and "caught" exactly the same. I still tend to chop, if not fully drop, the unstressed Rs in words. In my head at least, I still call a submarnie sandwich a "grinder," a can of soda a "tonic," and a water fountain a "bubbler."
Ain't that a pissah? Go Sawx!
I think my all-time favorite "accent moment" was when I was in Germany back in 1987 (before the wall fell) and a group of Germans started trying to place my accent. After several minutes of fruitless guesses, I told them I was American. Their immediate response: "That's impossible! Americans don't speak German!"
They spent another couple of minutes asking where I was REALLY from before concluding that the reason they hadn't pegged the accent was because they'd never heard it before.
(For those too young to remember, from 1945-1989 there was a heavy U.S. military presence in West Germany, and the U.S. soldiers were infamous for refusing to learn German and expecting all the locals to speak English.)
I think the late great Kate Hepburn would be the perfect example of the accent Haladir used to have...am I right?
I think the late great Kate Hepburn would be the perfect example of the accent Haladir used to have...am I right?
Actually, you're thinking of the Hollywood Mid-Atlantic Dialect from the 1930s and 40s. That was an affected nonexistent American accent created by voice coaches to strip away any regional sense of place. It was kind of a generic upper-class Northeastern American accent. Here's an example.
My natural accent is more or less like the guys from the NPR radio program Car Talk. Or, this guy's. I slip into it if I'm stressed, or if I'm back in New England.
(Note: The local politican video I linked has a Boston accent. Mine's a New Hampshire accent-- it's subtly different.)
I can spot a native Californian accent pretty quickly. The "newscaster" accent is the Midwestern Flat, and it's associated with the city of Omaha, Nebraska. I'm not making that up.
(Californians actually do have the "network standard"
I stand corrected.
Living on the East Coast, I don't interact with too many native Californians...
I can spot a native Californian accent pretty quickly. The "newscaster" accent is the Midwestern Flat, and it's associated with the city of Omaha, Nebraska. I'm not making that up.
(Californians actually do have the "network standard"
We'll have to take you up on that some time -- my group is:
- Detroit- Northern California
- Northern California
- Everywhere (army brat)
I can't tell any difference except the Detroiter always says, "Al-bany" instead of "All-bany"...
I'm from Minnesota, except for the rare and occasional extended 'o' I have Midwestern Flat.
Oddly enough, I pick up on speech habits of people I'm around fairly quickly. My fastest was 3 hours, I was on a plane sitting next to a British couple and by the end of the flight I was speaking with about 1/2 of their accent, though that's unusual for me. If I spend a week some place and only speak to locals I tend to develop all the superficial aspects of the accent.
It's not just accents though, I also fall into local idioms and speech patterns very quickly. My sentence structure changes to reflect the people around me.
Three days in Thailand and I was basically speaking their version of pigdin English, though when I talked to an American I'd drop out of it immediately without thinking about it.
I had a super fun job once ringing up power stations in the US and asking them stupid questions about their filtration systems. My accent (when not drunk or angry) is not particularly strong and I can posh things up when necessary so most of the time it was fine, but I found people in the South could not understand me at all. Not sure why.
Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
I always thought William F. Buckley was the poster boy for Mid-Atlantic.
Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.
Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Or "Oh, yes, that place. Where we sent all the convicts."
Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Or "Oh, yes, that place. Where we sent all the convicts."
Soccer... A sport that nobody is interested in and yet we keep getting into the World Cup, imagine if we thought it was worth putting some effort into.
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Soccer... A sport that nobody is interested in and yet we keep getting into the World Cup, imagine if we thought it was worth putting some effort into.Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Or "Oh, yes, that place. Where we sent all the convicts."
Football. I know you Aussies, like the Yanks, have your own game you call football, but, really, we all know that's just because you're so poor at the real thing. As to getting to the World Cup, even France managed that and their team is, well, French.
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Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Over here for me, too! It's just that caught, bought, cot, and lot all rhyme.
(actually, that's just for where I grew up. I'm in New Jersey now...
Over here for me, too! It's just that caught, bought, cot, and lot all rhyme.Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Was going to say that exact thing.
(actually, that's just for where I grew up. I'm in New Jersey now...
Poor soul.
Football. I know you Aussies, like the Yanks, have your own game you call football, but, really, we all know that's just because you're so poor at the real thing. As to getting to the World Cup, even France managed that and their team is, well, French.Soccer... A sport that nobody is interested in and yet we keep getting into the World Cup, imagine if we thought it was worth putting some effort into.Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Or "Oh, yes, that place. Where we sent all the convicts."
Do you keep inventing sports in the hope of winning something or is it that you like former colonies and the Jerrys and Frogs flogging you at them...
I would like to see you say that to a Scouser, Geordie, Yorkshireman, or somebody from Essex. ;-)Not every British person has escaped from a PG Woodhouse novel "pip pip old chap" or from East London "right you are gov, we best get this sorted before it goes all pear shaped".Of course not. Some British people are Scottish or Welsh. It's just all the English who speak those two ways. (Well, except in Cornwall, where the English pretend to be Welsh.)
My family is from Yorkshire and my brother speaks fluent Italian (which is useful as he married one!). He used to regale me with tales of the fact that Italy is scattered with regional dialects and someone from one region would find it difficult to understand someone from another. He then proceeded to say that we don't have anything like it in this country. I disagreed and, in front of his Italian wife (who speaks English), proceeded to utter complete phrases in Yorkshire, to which she said "What on Earth was that?". :)
Language, and dialect, is great, and I'm glad the media are beginning to drift away from this "English like what is spoken proper" nonsense.
A Yorkshireman claimed that England didn't have regional accents/dialects that are difficult for people from other regions to understand?
Huh?
Yeah, I was taken aback as well. I think it came from the fact that as a native speaker it didn't feel like a dialect and, in fairness, we speak more about accents than dialects.
Football. I know you Aussies, like the Yanks, have your own game you call football, but, really, we all know that's just because you're so poor at the real thing. As to getting to the World Cup, even France managed that and their team is, well, French.Soccer... A sport that nobody is interested in and yet we keep getting into the World Cup, imagine if we thought it was worth putting some effort into.Over here Caught rhymes with bought and Cot rhymes with lot.Btw, "caught" and "cot" are pronounced exactly the same.
Same in Australia
Although pronouncing Australia can range from Awestraya, to Straya, to oshstraya.
Or "Oh, yes, that place. Where we sent all the convicts."
Do you keep inventing sports in the hope of winning something or is it that you like former colonies and the Jerrys and Frogs flogging you at them...
For one, such a scandalous statement should at least end with a question mark. However, I know the Australian vocal inflection renders every sentence a question, so you can be somewhat forgiven for not knowing this.
For two, inventing new sports? Which ones did you have in mind, old chap? I don't think the British invented Aussie Rules Football, after all. Have you heard of the term 'projection', by any chance?
Is there an American equivalent to "Lie back and think of England"?
That one is pretty well known here.
Less literally, there is the phrase, "Take one for the team."
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The other huge one for me is actually apropos for the original post: British folk don't pronounce the initial 'h' for words like 'historic' and 'hysterical', so "an historic event" is correct in British English.
In the U.S. the 'h' gets pronounced, yet people who wish to appear highbrow still say, "An historic" while pronouncing the 'h'. Ouch! Ouch! Nooooooo!
You have been misinformed.
A few British dialects drop their aitches but most do not.
The misuse of 'an' before aitch seems to date from a fashion among the wealthy for French accents during the late Victorian period.
It stuck in publishing and some branches of education but never really took hold in conversational English at all. It is, and always has been, an affectation to say 'an' and then pronounce the aitch.
We all think Americans are weird because they drop the aitch on herb.
I now live in Oxfordshire which has loads of accents: City, West Oxon, North Oxon, Uni, Yummy, Cowley...
- City is very BBC with estuary vowels and is something Northerners would think is posh.
- West Oxon is a soft, quite lilting variation on West Country rural.
- North Oxon is harder with shorter vowels (similar to Warwickshire, which is just north of Oxon)
- Uni is affectedly highbrow and home to the an+H phenomenon. Think 1980s Radio 4.
- Yummy is... Nigella Lawson, basically. Spoken by a major subset of Oxford women and their daughters. A lot of small private schools for aspirational types in Oxfrodshire, which seem to host this accent.
- Cowley has watched too much 'gritty' TV from the US and UK but mangles street slang with too many soft consonants: instead of "I ain't dun nuthin'" they say "I haven't done nothing."
Is there an American equivalent to "Lie back and think of England"?Particularly nasty weather.
Well, we do get bored... :P
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I figured the fist meant something like that. The one about the cow was not so obvious. Either American cows are smarter than Swedish ones or the latter are depressed by the long dark winters to the point of attempting suicide by walking on thin ice. It's a coin-toss, probably.They call Finland the land of a thousand lakes. Sweden has that outnumbered about 10:1. This country is full of water, drizzled with it, slathered in it. Every other or so swedish summer is "rainy", that means heavy rains a significant part of the majority of the days. If there is a dry week in August, we get headlines saying "Acute danger of drought!" We get a very large part of our energy from dams.
Ice is... a very frequent concept in winter, and cows don't need to be suicidal to end up on it.
Yes, Finland is known as the Land of a Thousand Lakes, but the are actually over 187 000 of them. There are approximately 97 500 lakes in Sweden, so your numbers are a bit off, and the name is justified. ;)
*sticks tongue out at Asgetrion*
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And this is brilliant, because it has a mix of modern and old British speech. And she has a very modern London accent.
These are great, thank you!
(Although I've always enjoyed "knackered," because I always enjoy words that sound dirtier than they actually are.)
"I'm so knackered after working on the Wankel engine, I'm going to sit down with a pinotage and do a sudoku."