british english | Imamother

chaylizi

Thu, Dec 11 2008, 3:21 pm

shosh wrote:

Well, I'm very honoured to speak the Queen's English, and I have not lost my London accent one little bit! I've been in Israel 17 years, and I sound like I just got off the boat. And I taught my children to say "lorry," "nappy," "rubbish," and pronounce "water" as "water" and not "warder." Shall I go on?

who says warder? not I.

hila

Fri, Dec 12 2008, 12:36 am

A few more spellings to add..
metre, theatre, centre...

And as for sports .... they took rounders and made it a man's game !

And took football, squashed the ball, added protection because they dont want to feel a bruise or two, and make a fortune out of it.

I dont think rugby or soccer ever made that much (maybe soccer) and then they try to show they are not wimps by giving the team names of animals (tigers etc - though how red socks fits in I dont know)

baschabad

Fri, Dec 12 2008, 1:31 am

chaylizi wrote:

shosh wrote:

who says warder? not I.

Same here. Apparently the British think we Americans add extra "r"s into our words. (Just because they drop every last "R" doesn't mean we add extras!) I read it in some Enid Blyton book when the little British children have an awfully rude and disgraceful American visitor who goes calling for her "Marmeeeee!!!" whenever someone says "boo!" My English mother explained to me that it was making fun of the American pronunciation of "Mommy!"
I don't say "Marmee" either... Rolling Eyes

merelyme

Wed, Oct 06 2010, 10:10 pm

yo'ma wrote:

Another question for all you brits out there. How do you say the letter "z"? My sons english teacher, not the same one from last time, told him it's not pronounced zee, but zed. I never even heard of zed, so I know it can't be american because I know all things american Rolling Eyes

bubby wrote:

"zee" ("zed")

auntie_em

Wed, Oct 06 2010, 10:52 pm

morkush wrote:

What is the language called??? ENGLISH- for people in ENGLAND! Your Americans go and make up another language alltogether and then steal the name. Why don't you call it AMERICAN for people who live in AMERICA??? And then no one will be so upset when you butcher the language. After all, if it's yours, I don't really care if you kill it Smile

For a moment, I was wondering if my DH was here on imamother! lol
He is a Brit, and I am an American. I am becoming quite bilingual, he is not. But he says (with a smile) "I speak English, as I am English, from England, where we invented the language. I do not know what language you speak dear, but I do my best to understand it."

The last letter of the alphabet is zed. The white lines that mark where a pedestrian is to cross the street is apparently not a crosswalk. It's a zebra crossing.

He speaks what I think is referred to as the Queen's English, and from the start I had no problems understanding his accent. However, when we go out, without exception when he speaks to a shop clerk or waiter, they have no idea what he is asking for and either guess totally random things, or simply look to me and say "Huh?"
So I go along most of the time to translate the Queen's English into Chicago-ese. lol

Whilst he does ask for wa-ter, most Americans (at least around here) pronounce it wadder.

I have told him just yesterday, when I am writing things that are going to be sent to the UK, if I'm not sure exactly how it's meant to be spelled, I just toss in a random u, here and there! lol He was aghast until he realised I was only joking. LOL

Chana Miriam S

Wed, Oct 06 2010, 11:13 pm

100% Canadian.

We use couch but plenty of people call their couches, sofas, etc..... chesterfields here in the great, white north.

I spell the following things in ways my american spell check does not get... centre, theatre, metre, catalogue, neighbour, and lieutenant is pronounced 'leftenant' and the letter 'z' is pronounced 'zed'.

Anyways, it is what it is. When I lived in the states, I learned to say 'zee' and then I learned to say 'zed' again when I moved home. Nishkefiddle, really.

Every other language (or almost) has dialects and colloquial use. I agree that scholarly essays should not include colloquialism, but a child in America should spell 'American' and a Canadian child should spell 'Canadian.' A British teacher in North America should get over themselves and teach what is proper where they are teaching. It is preposterous to dock a child marks just because you are from somewhere they do things differently. Oh yeah, and my kids have learned to spell both American and Canadian.
That is all..

morah

Wed, Oct 06 2010, 11:25 pm

I went to a seminary with a lot of Brits, S. Africans, and Aussies. There were somethings I knew beforehand- flat, jumper, lift, I even knew that the trunk of a car was a boot, because my father used to drive a Jaguar and the trunk button said "boot". Unfortunately, what I didn't know led to some really awkward moments. Like the time one of the Brits asked me if I had a rubber. I stared at her like shock

and even though she didn't know what, exactly, she had said, she knew something had gone horribly wrong in translation; the next question she asked was "So what dirty word did I just say in American?"

auntie_em

Wed, Oct 06 2010, 11:33 pm

I just spoke to DH and told him about this thread. He told me to tell all the "Mercan Mothers" to go ahead and have a laugh. Then he reminded me of these two shopping experiences we had. He wanted me to point out they happened in the shops, not the stores. He wonders why we shop in stores. Wouldn't it be more consistent if we went "storing in stores?" lol

Anyhow...
Experience #1-
We needed packing foam to cushion a suitcase that would transport some delicate electronics overseas. So off we go to purchase "foam". I figured it would be easy enough, so I left him to it and went to look at clothes. I went back to find him in the hardware area which is where the sheets of "foam" would be. No DH there. So I began to wander the aisles looking for him. I found him being led through the aisles with a selection of walkie-talkies. Why? Yeah, the store didn't sell phones! LOL

Experience #2-
We were out for the day and it got very chilly suddenly. He didn't have a jacket or anything so we thought we would pop into Sears and he would pick out a sweater. Again, thinking this would be easy-peasy..I went to look at shoes for a bit. This time I found the poor man being led to automotive. Why? He asked for a jumper and they thought his car battery had died.

My poor DH. He is polite and everything. Smile

yo'ma

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 7:22 am

chanamiriam wrote:

A British teacher in North America should get over themselves and teach what is proper where they are teaching. It is preposterous to dock a child marks just because you are from somewhere they do things differently.

We're actually in South America and she's from here and learnt english in school.

merelyme, thanks, I didn't look through the whole thread again and I posted it awhile back.

hila

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 8:03 am

We also have a mixed marriage (my h is from the US and I am a Brit) and currently visiting in teh US. My inlaws cannot understand me too well - I let dh do most of the taking especially on the phone.

They think we come from another planet anyway..
(they are not frum and have no idea about anything Jewish) so we have a communication problem in any case. Add my accent and it is a polite smile and "that's nice" from their side.

PinkFridge

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 8:04 am

yo'ma wrote:

Yes, zed is English but interestingly my American born grandfather (born in early 1900s) apparently learned zed.

smilethere

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 8:10 am

I love this thread!
My american (displaced) husband just loves saying 'twenty' with an English accent!

I found I could not understand american radio and got a massive headache when listening to it as they spoke so quickly and unclearly.

- one of my pet peeves = jewish books and magazine articles that have been written by English people (that I know of) using americanisms. Can't they stick up for real spelling and grammar? Very Happy

geemum

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 8:52 am

smilethere wrote:

They do that because the American market is bigger than the British one, so they cater for the Americans rather than the English. Makes more sense for less English to learn to understand the American way of speaking, than all those Americans to figure out the Queen's English.

Raisin

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 11:02 am

geemum wrote:

smilethere wrote:

my peeve: childrens books being translated from american english to english english and vice versa. (because kids are not clever enough to understand that mom=mum) the harry potter books are translated into american for the american market. Even the title of the first one was changed.

At least the movies feature not one american accent! (perhaps in was in revenge for the title beign changed that jk rowling excluded any americans out of the series Exploding anger

)

DefyGravity

Thu, Oct 07 2010, 11:12 am

Raisin, ITA. People are smart enough to figure out the few language differences. I remember when I was a little kid I read a book that (I now realize) was written in The Queen's English, and although the word "crisps", "ice lolly" and several others threw me for a loop, I understood them in context and was able to figure out the plot of the book with very little difficulty!

I assume people just like to pretend to be confused because they think it's charming. I love British Chick Lit and don't have problems understanding anything they say. I do admit that sometimes I watch Torchwood and Doctor Who with subtitles, but I also do the same with many American shows Smile