Unpopular opinions
-
James, I don't think anyone had issues understanding what I was saying, but I did get quite a few comments on having an accent. I grew up in Seattle, which is pretty mild in the accent department. I know one example is I pronounce "cot" and "caught" exactly the same. Same for "don" and "dawn." Supposedly, there is a clearer distinction in the eastern side of the country.
California accents are the easiest, though. Just say "like" every three words.
-
You guys would have a ball learning Dutch in Belgium… I don't understand the people living 40 km from me in either effin direction (East, West)... In the North we have The Netherlands. Huge difference language-wise... And in the South of Belgium they speak French... Well: some kind of French... And some of the hillbillies in the mountains speak German...
I'm glad I live where I do, where the dialect is juicy and I understand everything... :-\
-
James, "Vakka" is bad, and I can't recall hearing that one. Although, I guess I could see how someone could drop the "d" if speaking swiftly. People do it all the time with Antarctica and dropping the first "c."
Sounds wild, Seul. Although, if I had daily access to all of the wonderful beer in Belgium, I would be one sloppy, slurred mess.
Okay, last one and I'm done. The word "hella" is hella popular in Seattle. Every time I hear it I cringe, and I kind of hate myself for just using it as an example. It gets worse, though. Some people have adapted it to "hecka" to avoid an extremely-mild swear. If you ever hear someone use that word, do the person a favor and fatten their upper lip.
-
I pronounce comfortable as kom - for - ta - ble and believe it to be right
and not
komf - ter- ble (hate this for some reason)I second what seanocono says
In my speech class, this girl kept saying "like" every god damn sentence for 3 minutes. It was not fun.Here in LA, I think most people go to the gym for the sake of telling others they go to one.
-
Giles, I've heard the same said of continental versus Canadian French. Those cunning linguists and their counterintuitive conjectures.
"Aluminum" actually predates "aluminium," in England and abroad; it's not our fault that crazy Limey couldn't settle on a spelling for the element he discovered.
-
Oh you crazy Brits and Yanks - hassling each other over accents and pronunciation.
In Australia we like to pile shit on both of you! (in a charming, loving way, of course). We amuse ourselves by sending shitty things overseas to see if you like them….Fosters Lager, Savage Garden, et. al.... -
Giles, I've heard the same said of continental versus Canadian French. Those cunning linguists and their counterintuitive conjectures.
"Aluminum" actually predates "aluminium," in England and abroad; it's not our fault that crazy Limey couldn't settle on a spelling for the element he discovered.
Yes, but once Humphry Davy settled on a name trust you Yanks to keep using the wrong name
-
It's a shame what the Limeys have done to the language…
What about some of these proper name suffixes y'all struggle to phoneticize?
-borough and -burg
-bury
-cester
-ham
-shire
-quay and quay (discovered the latter in Australia when I talked about "circular kway"
)
-wich
-wick
-mouthI get a kick out of the slang too, "tosser," "arse," "sod," "bloody," "bugger," and so forth.
I really do love English accents and vocabulary, all in good fun mates.
Cheerio then you blokes!
-
Americans who say 'erbs' or 'urbs', instead of 'herbs.'
Angers me to no end…Read "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson. One of his assertions in that book, is that American pronunciation of English is truer to the way English used to be spoken by the English than the way the English themselves now speak
Thanks Giles, I needed a new book to read. Gonna pick it up today!
-
While we're talking linguistics, I'd be interested to hear if y'all can understand this man's speech. Famously, much of the international audience could not. This is how we talk in my home state.
-
Yup, easy. In the UK we have some pretty wild regional dialect, my family is from Newcastle which has one of the strongest accents in the UK (Geordie), I was born in Nottinghamshire so I do not suffer the affliction, I have more family from Glasgow in Scotland, and from Southern Ireland so I am more than familiar with some of the tougher regional vernaculars out there.
Giles is also from one of the places in the UK with the strongest accents, Birmingham, but he does not carry the accent either.
