SteveStrummerUK
 
 Cirencester 
 
 

Possibly the first time my birthplace has been mentioned on these here fori.
 
We always referred to it as 'Soyrun'.

 
 

jamesg1213

SteveStrummerUK
 
 Cirencester 
 
 

Possibly the first time my birthplace has been mentioned on these here fori.
 
We always referred to it as 'Soyrun'.

I do believe the plural of 'forum' is 'forums', or possible 'fora'.
 
But not 'fori'....
 
I may be wrong though.
 
I will cogitate on the matter as I play my guitar with a variety of plectri. A real treat for my eardri that
 
 

bitflipper
Oddly, it's the normally enunciation-lazy Americans who retain all the letters and the normally more-precise Brits who run them all together and/or drop them entirely.

 
I found it interesting that the Americans tend to speak correctly and that those over in the UK are the ones who changed sometime after the Americans got their independence.  In other words, we speak like they used to.  The change started in the UK when some wanted to exaggerate the class differences, but soon the new way of speaking was being done by just about everyone.  I'll have to see if I can find the article about this, it was very interesting.
 

craigb

bitflipper
Oddly, it's the normally enunciation-lazy Americans who retain all the letters and the normally more-precise Brits who run them all together and/or drop them entirely.

 
I found it interesting that the Americans tend to speak correctly and that those over in the UK are the ones who changed sometime after the Americans got their independence.  In other words, we speak like they used to.  The change started in the UK when some wanted to exaggerate the class differences, but soon the new way of speaking was being done by just about everyone.  I'll have to see if I can find the article about this, it was very interesting.
 

It's probably not quite that straightforward...as usual. Within this tiny island there are many, many different dialects and accents, each with their own peculiar pronunciations. Blame the Romans, the Saxons, The Vikings, The Hugenots, The Beaker People, etc etc...It goes back a long time before the US was born.

sharke

I'm going to say with 99% certainty that Dorchester is pronounced exactly how it looks. 

I don't know how Dorchester looks. Never been there.

Since the locals only sometimes pronounce R's. Like Cah vs, truck. I'm going with Doow-chest-uh. Doow is like door with a wuh instead of the r.
 
Rawkey
 

The British way of spelling is very much Anglo-French. Words like colour were originally spelled color and originated of course from the Latin, in this case color or colorare.  The French influence came about, unsurprisingly, from the Norman conquest of Britain. The Renaissance saw a revival of the Latin spellings in Britain, and things were pretty much confused until spelling became standardized - in Britain via the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, and in the US by the dictionary of Noah Webster, who believed that words should be shortened where possible. 
 
--- Professor Sharke. 

sharke
The British way of spelling is very much Anglo-French. Words like colour were originally spelled color and originated of course from the Latin, in this case color or colorare.  The French influence came about, unsurprisingly, from the Norman conquest of Britain. The Renaissance saw a revival of the Latin spellings in Britain, and things were pretty much confused until spelling became standardized - in Britain via the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, and in the US by the dictionary of Noah Webster, who believed that words should be shortened where possible. 
 
--- Professor Sharke. 

Wye aye man, that's reet interesting that ya know all that language bollocks man. Ah Divven't realise that you was all educated an that, like.

jamesg1213

craigb

bitflipper
Oddly, it's the normally enunciation-lazy Americans who retain all the letters and the normally more-precise Brits who run them all together and/or drop them entirely.

 
I found it interesting that the Americans tend to speak correctly and that those over in the UK are the ones who changed sometime after the Americans got their independence.  In other words, we speak like they used to.  The change started in the UK when some wanted to exaggerate the class differences, but soon the new way of speaking was being done by just about everyone.  I'll have to see if I can find the article about this, it was very interesting.
 

It's probably not quite that straightforward...as usual. Within this tiny island there are many, many different dialects and accents, each with their own peculiar pronunciations. Blame the Romans, the Saxons, The Vikings, The Hugenots, The Beaker People, etc etc...It goes back a long time before the US was born.

English dialect is a funny thing. My own Geordie dialect borrows heavily from the Vikings who settled first in Northumbria. You'll see a lot of place names which end in -by or -thorpe in the North East. This came from the Vikings. We have words which are similar to the Norwegian equivalent, for example bairns for 'children,' similar to the Norwegian barns. And hyem for 'home,' same as the Norwegians. We also say oot for 'out,' similar to the Norwegian ut, and hoose for 'house,' similar to the Norwegian hus. The Scottish dialect also has this influence of course. 
 
Back in Newcastle I had a Norwegian friend who told me that when he first came to the UK and lived in London, he had trouble understanding what in the hell anyone was saying. It was only when he moved to Newcastle that he felt at home linguistically. Indeed listening to him talk to his mother on the phone in Norwegian, I was struck by the similarly in sound, lilt and rhythm. 
 
Of course it didn't stop there and it's interesting to trace the spread of language and culture elsewhere. I hear a lot of similarities between my Geordie dialect and the Jamaican dialect for example - especially in the way we say words like "go" and "ball." I met Jamaicans when I lived in Nantucket who noticed the same similarities. Of course the reason for this spread is a touchy subject - it no doubt had something to do with colonization, in much the same way as a lot of African Americans have Scottish sounding surnames from Scottish slave owners, who also brought with them the gospel style of music (amazingly enough). 

paulo

sharke
The British way of spelling is very much Anglo-French. Words like colour were originally spelled color and originated of course from the Latin, in this case color or colorare.  The French influence came about, unsurprisingly, from the Norman conquest of Britain. The Renaissance saw a revival of the Latin spellings in Britain, and things were pretty much confused until spelling became standardized - in Britain via the dictionary of Samuel Johnson, and in the US by the dictionary of Noah Webster, who believed that words should be shortened where possible. 
 
--- Professor Sharke. 

Wye aye man, that's reet interesting that ya know all that language bollocks man. Ah Divven't realise that you was all educated an that, like.

Whey av been at me fancy fawa-eyed lornin' books like.