robert_e_bone


I'm still trying to figure out why it's school instead of skool.

My response to the original post was certainly not intended to rip on anyone - I did not know of the alternate meaning, and some of the folks who post do not have the best grasp of either English OR American English.

I just thought he was mistaken, and suggested he might have meant the other.  Anything after that has just been in good fun - pointing out and EMBRACING the differences between the 2 Englishes. 

Soooooo, wank off, ya poofter!  :) (kidding)

Bob Bone

"Wank" is actually a class B swear word in Britain, I get the feeling that it's not so serious in the US though. "Poofter" is more politically incorrect than anything (therefore A-OK in my book). It was funny to come to the US and discover the difference in swear word ranking. For instance the "c" word is waaaay more serious in the US. I used it pretty much as soon as I got off the plane and someone told me it was a big no-no. I remember that Curb Your Enthusiasm scene where Larry David used it during a game of poker and the whole room just went into meltdown. Walk around London and you'll hear adults use it freely in front of their children (well the lower class of adult anyway). 

Ha ha, by the way the first word is the "f" word, and the last one is the "c" word. 

robert_e_bone


At least you are not from Iceland.  I think they have a 32-letter alphabet with no 
'H' sound.  :)

When I first moved to New York I made some extra cash by teaching English pronunciation for a while (the irony of a Geordie teaching pronunciation is off the scale, but nonetheless....)


One of my first pupils was a girl from Finland. They have no "J" sound and she dearly wanted to learn how to pronounce the letter J. She had no concept at all of how you make that sound. Teaching her to say J was perhaps one of the hardest things I've ever done. How do you explain it? She just could not do it. I spend hours online researching the mechanics of it and printing out diagrams of the mouth and sitting in coffee shops with her engaged in the following endless exchange:


"G....G....G"
"No it's more like J...J...J"
"G....G....G"
"No no, not the back of the mouth, the front of the mouth....J....J.....J"
"G....G....G"
"More coffee?"

Sharke I hate to break it to ya but NYers don't know how to speak English anyway. If you do run across someone that does I'll bet they're from somewhere else.

Yep the Geordie accident is a language in itself. The problem is it's not just an accent, we use different words too. And a lot of them are derived from Norwegian. I have a Norwegian friend back home who understood broad Geordie as soon as he got off the boat. 

You'd probably be OK with the Welsh......unless they spoke Welsh. 

Just to stir things up a bit, I remember some academics who revealed that modern American more accurately reflects old English than modern English does.  So who's really bastardizzing the language?

(did you see what I did with the zeds there!?)

LOL....peterhead.....Who names their city Peterhead?....Might as well call it di....Nevermind

I recall a standup comic saying that the Scots were the only humans who can communicate directly with dialup modems. True dat. 

Dya' loike dags?

My apologise gentlemen, I have sent Mike a private message apologising for my outburst on this thread. I just had a bad day and was tired of reading negative comments and just just consumed me at that moment. Mike, check your messages and to everyone else, if I offended you I am truly sorry... We are all here to build a helpful community! Happy music making boys and girls and again, my bad on the pointless post of mine!

SuperG

heh... mid 18th century - limey's started to get serious about using accents as class differentiation... There's never been a hereditary nobility in the US, and most regional accents are based on the initial immigrants in a particular area...

I hear some elements of regional British accents in certain parts of America, I've never heard traces of the Geordie accent though. I've learned to tone mine down for an international audience but when I first got here I did have people wondering where in the hell I was from at first. Some thought Irish (although I sometimes get the feeling some Americans think that any regional UK accent is Irish), and the closest anyone got was Scottish (I guess we're about 100 miles from Scotland). I did however have a few people ask me if I was Eastern European (can't hear that myself) and even Australian (exsqueeze me?)


For anyone curious about what the Geordie accent is, here's smash-faced Geordie actor Jimmy nail in a scene from the classic 80's TV show "Auf Weidersehen Pet." I think this was the first time a real Geordie accent had really been on TV. Prior to that, if there was anyone from the North East on TV it would be a really toned down version or some bizarre generic northern accent that didn't come close. Therefore, this show created quite a stir on Tyneside. But even this is toned down from the kind of thing you'd hear in Newcastle City Center on a Friday night. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNpqA_8UZAA

Lol.. yeah Trawlers and a Branston Pickle factory, oh... and the prison of course. (No I wasn't living there)

Anyway just to prove it here's a bit of lingo phoentically that is...

Fit like n fa' d'ya keem fa'?

There is a user on here (who's user name escapes me now) based around Aberdeen. I'm sure he'll understand. When I had relatives come to visit I had to go to the local shops with them to translate for them - I'm not kidding.

I passed through on a tour of Scotland trip about 10 years ago with my (now ex) wife and had a "pass the time of day" conversation with a checkout girl in B & Q, when we got outside my wife asked what on earth we'd been talking about, she hadn't understood a word.

It is such a strong dialect it's almost another language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNpqA_8UZAA

Darnit, sharke!!! I just watched part of an ep in the sidebar and now I think I'm addicted. lol

Hej Gutter

Sjov snik snak I har om hvem der taler bedst - mest korrekt - engelsk. Men I kan jo tygge lidt på den her udgave af sprog. Det er ikke så langt væk fra England

mvh
Jan