Why do brits say "aluminium" instead of...

[sytaylor]

]So what about "thru" and "through"? Is "thru" only word for the lazy ones? Google gave me 767 000 000 hits for "through" and only 12 500 000 hits for "thru".

Not to mention the countless people who seem to spell it as "threw".

OUCH!! That hurt.

Like when people use "of" instead of "have", like "I should of done that"... It physically hurts.

Thing is whilst I don't type like that, I do speak like that. This is a subject I absolutley adore, because yanks seem to have such a passion for learning about the differences but actually have no clue. They're so innocent and sheltered.

Take for example yorkshire. I say "york-shur", it sounds nothing like the shire from lotr. One of the most amusing things however is that modern english people language is litered with americanisms, the only difference is we notice the ones we don't use. There is a great book by bill bryson on the subject, I forget the name, its not even listed on his site... hmm.

 

[London Geezer]

]So what about "thru" and "through"? Is "thru" only word for the lazy ones? Google gave me 767 000 000 hits for "through" and only 12 500 000 hits for "thru".

Not to mention the countless people who seem to spell it as "threw".

OUCH!! That hurt.

Like when people use "of" instead of "have", like "I should of done that"... It physically hurts.

Thing is whilst I don't type like that, I do speak like that. This is a subject I absolutley adore, because yanks seem to have such a passion for learning about the differences but actually have no clue. They're so innocent and sheltered.

Take for example yorkshire. I say "york-shur", it sounds nothing like the shire from lotr. One of the most amusing things however is that modern english people language is litered with americanisms, the only difference is we notice the ones we don't use. There is a great book by bill bryson on the subject, I forget the name, its not even listed on his site... hmm.

Yeah that's because u're northern SCUM!

 

[sytaylor]

DIRRRRRTY SOUTHERN BASTID

 

[London Geezer]

DIRRRRRTY SOUTHERN BASTID

Dirty?!?! At least i don't fuck sheep.

 

[Druga Runda]

aluminium in Croatian too (at least IIRC)

 

[sytaylor]

DIRRRRRTY SOUTHERN BASTID

Dirty?!?! At least i don't fuck sheep.

Everything but

Besides I may live near the farmers that do that, even peddle the video smut... but doesnt mean I have to take part

 

[ndoogoo]

The English language has too many rules, exceptions to the rules and words sounding the same. It is about time the world had a universal language with easy and logical rules.

I think a good language is one were you can kind of guess what a word means, even if you have never seen that word before. The actual build up of the word describes the object or action. This means the classification of everything.

I want a logical scientific language with built in music (words that sound great in songs) and creative section.

 

[Reverend]

BTW, here's a secret :

The correct way to say "Beyond3D" is "Beyonded". You know Dave Barron, Kristof and Marco... being g33ks and all...

 

[MuFu]

BTW, here's a secret :

The correct way to say "Beyond3D" is "Beyonded". You know Dave Barron, Kristof and Marco... being g33ks and all...

 

[ndoogoo]

BTW, here's a secret :

The correct way to say "Beyond3D" is "Beyonded". You know Dave Barron, Kristof and Marco... being g33ks and all...

Ah well, that's not to bad. "Beyond3D 0ws3 j0 in rl tbh m7". I really that online gaming slang.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Lieutenant: This derives from a French word. Literally, it refers to the man who becomes the tenant of command in lieu of the captain - lieutenant. One could assume a French accent, I suppose, and pronounce it as would the snail-chewing scoundrels from the Land of Garlic. However, we Brits have adopted our own way of saying the word, and this refers to the meaning of it. The man who is left as tenant of command when the captain is away is the “left-tenantâ€￾, and that is how the word is pronounced. The Americans manage an interesting double, and pronounce it in a way that reflects neither its meaning nor its origins, and they say “loo-tenanâ€￾. I know of no reason to copy them.

CC

Thanks Capt, that does explain it rather nicely.

 

[London Geezer]

Well i always thought it came from Dave's perversity... I mean the 3D has a funny shape when you actually look at it horizontally. And Beyond 3D would look like on of those S&M sites around the web.

 

[Mariner]

There is a great book by bill bryson on the subject, I forget the name, its not even listed on his site... hmm.

Bryson's book is called "Mother Tongue" - a reasonable and interesting read.

There is nothing too wrong with speaking in dialect, I suppose but there are exceptions: where I live, some people ask to "borry" things instead of borrowing and people aren't treated badly, they are "tret badly" - both these get on my nerves.

A note for Americans: Worcestershire Sauce is pronounced "Wuster" Sauce.

 

[London Geezer]

There is a great book by bill bryson on the subject, I forget the name, its not even listed on his site... hmm.

Bryson's book is called "Mother Tongue" - a reasonable and interesting read.

There is nothing too wrong with speaking in dialect, I suppose but there are exceptions: where I live, some people ask to "borry" things instead of borrowing and people aren't treated badly, they are "tret badly" - both these get on my nerves.

A note for Americans: Worcestershire Sauce is pronounced "Wuster" Sauce.

In the Americans' defense, all foreigners pronounce Leicester and all the "-cester's" the wrong way, until they discover how to say it and go "BUT WHYYYY!!?!?!", understandably.

 

[Kanyamagufa]

Ehm, nox / noctis

Hey i did say i'm rusty!! Where di i get Noctem from?!

Complete declination (not plural), as I recall it:
nox
noctis
nocti
noctem
nox
nocte

Rocking the 3rd Declension!!

Gotta love the Latin.

 

[digitalwanderer]

A note for Americans: Worcestershire Sauce is pronounced "Wuster" Sauce.

Really? I've always just sort of mangled out "worst-eh-shire".

Thanks for setting me straight.

Any other good terms I'm lacking on? Do brits pronounce "cache" as "cash" or "cash-ay"?

 

[London Geezer]

A note for Americans: Worcestershire Sauce is pronounced "Wuster" Sauce.

Really? I've always just sort of mangled out "worst-eh-shire".

Thanks for setting me straight.

Any other good terms I'm lacking on? Do brits pronounce "cache" as "cash" or "cash-ay"?

Cash.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Nuts. I guess I'm the only one then who thinks it should be pronounced "cash-ay".

 

[Mariner]

My personal favourite was a couple of years back when the Queen and Phil the Greek were introduced to Congress (or possibly the Senate) as:

"Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and the Dook of Edinberg".

I almost feel as though I'm picking on our American cousins here until I remember how we English are represented in American movies and TV programmes!

Do brits pronounce "cache" as "cash" or "cash-ay"?

Well, I pronounce it "cash" which I believe is correct. Surely the word cachet would be pronounced "cash-ay"? Unfortunately, I don't have my OED with me to check the phonetics.

Can you think of any American words which we British pronounce in an amusingly bad way? Place names would be the oddest, I expect.

 

[RussSchultz]

Can you think of any American words which we British pronounce in an amusingly bad way? Place names would be the oddest, I expect.

Anything that ends in 'a'.

Chiner, for example, is the one that irritates me the most when listening to BBC news.