How do Brits learn to speak and spell??

[JohndeFresno]

I know that this is totally off-topic; but I have been haunted for years with this question. It came back to me again as I watch the science fiction series, "Revolution," with its host of English actors:

How do British kids ever learn to spell? It cahn't be using phonetics!

Our British ancestors gave North Americans their language, yet either they changed it or we did. I have been told that there are places in the American South where the original English pronunciation is closest to the original. But here are some examples:
"Cop" for the word cup
"Muthah" for mother
"Idear" for idea
...yet, they drop the "r" at the end of the word, like -
"wuhd" for word
"wuld" for world
and of course "al-yew-minium" (would be spelled aluminium) for aluminum!

So, the way they mangle the vowels and ignore or add the "r's", how in the wuhld do they evah luhn to spell theyah language correctly?

Maybe some of of owah British brothahs can help me understand - ?

[Nath]

Wot it is see, wees lets anybodee in n giv m this benifit and that benifit init, well you gets a rite ole mix ov lingo's don't ya, init, now wota meen!

Britain takes some understanding friend, when I work it out you'll be the first to know!

N.

[gamekeeper]

I was born and raised in Birmingham (England) and boy if you think English actors talk funny you should hear the way we "Brummies" abuse the English language....

[Old Ironsights]

Did you realize that "talking like a pirate" actually identifies a specific point in time where English was undergoing something called "the great vowel shift"?

Think about how a "pirate" says:

A, E, I, O, U, & "R"

That is actually the "old" method of vowel enunciation. Various isolated groups of speakers either adopted, or not, linguistic shifts that otherwise affected the "general population".

And don't even try to get into Rhyming Slang...

[JohndeFresno]

Hahaha!

Henry Higgins: "Why can't the English learn how to speak?....the Americans haven't spoken it for years!"

[bdhold]

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
George Bernard Shaw

and where do they get bespoke out of benchmade?


Now, let me hear you say wisKAHNsin.
The problem is clearly universal - no one speaks English.

[gamekeeper]

POETRY
Real Ale an' Fittle by Gary Westwood

Goo ter The Crispin ower kid,
Yo'll be ever s' glad as yo did,
They've got Real Ale in bottles an kegs,
Sum ov it go's straight ter y'legs.

They 'ave darts an quizzes,
Yo con 'ide from yer missis.
They mek Bostin' Fittle,
Big meals an' little.

'T' Boons ter chicken an' scampi,
Try it ode mate,
If yo doh, yo'm bloody well yampy!

[Old Ironsights]

Now, let me hear you say wisKAHNsin. ...

Ess der plass ver Luterens haff Beer mitt Communion, Jah?

[JohndeFresno]

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
George Bernard Shaw

and where do they get bespoke out of benchmade?


Now, let me hear you say wisKAHNsin.
The problem is clearly universal - no one speaks English.

I'm a Californian - Wisconsin. See?

The way I see it, the settlers spoke proper English. Then, there was a little disagreement between the Colonies and Mother England, and around that time some Frenchmen got into the battle and perverted some of our language with their strange sounds - probably over several bottles of wine.

Then, the North and the South had a few differences, took things personally, and the South decided to create their own code language to confuse the Yankees.

Well, there was so much disagreement on the East coast that some reasonable folks decided to jump into funny looking wagons and head West. But they met so many Indians that they started talking funny, so you have that weird Midwest language - like Wis-Cahn-sin.

The smart and energetic ones moved to California (this was before the invention of "welfare"); but they were so confused by the way the language was perverted that they started over by learning from tapes that their relatives had carried over on the Mayflower.

And that's it.

[Ji in Hawaii]

I have an Electrician friend from Scotland but he's lived in the US for 40 years so his accent it faint. That is until he gets angry then the Scottish accent comes on thick and strong and I can hardly understand him. He once hired a guy from Manchester, England and during a lunch break this guy was carry on a conversation with me like I was his long lost pal, only thing is I could not understand a single word he was saying. I glanced over at my Scottish friend and he just smiled an d shrugged knowing exactly what I was thinking. I think the UK has more accents than the US.

[bdhold]

so Californians get the monopoly on English?
Really? Fer Sure Man.

[Nath]

POETRY
Real Ale an' Fittle by Gary Westwood

Goo ter The Crispin ower kid,
Yo'll be ever s' glad as yo did,
They've got Real Ale in bottles an kegs,
Sum ov it go's straight ter y'legs.

They 'ave darts an quizzes,
Yo con 'ide from yer missis.
They mek Bostin' Fittle,
Big meals an' little.

'T' Boons ter chicken an' scampi,
Try it ode mate,
If yo doh, yo'm bloody well yampy!

You old Brummie you

(Think it went straight over them GK )

N

[awp101]

I've explained the difference this way: We do not speak the King's English and they don't speak American.

boy if you think English actors talk funny you should hear the way we "Brummies" abuse the English language....

I'm reminded of a sign that allegedly hung on the dressing room door of Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo): English Broken Here

Mom watched a lot of Brit-Coms when I was young so I picked up on a lot of the slang and pronunciation. Then as I got older I listened to a lot of interviews with English rock bands and watched a bunch of F1 racing which usually had an Englishman or two in the announcing booth (or a Scot in the case of Jackie Stewart). I even worked with a guy from Rhodesia for a couple of months (and he was astounded and ecstatic when I said I knew it as Rhodesia instead of Zimbabwe ).

All of that made it easier to understand the guys on Top Gear and I can almost make out most of what Chibs says on Sons of Anarchy...

[awp101]

POETRY
Real Ale an' Fittle by Gary Westwood

Goo ter The Crispin ower kid,
Yo'll be ever s' glad as yo did,
They've got Real Ale in bottles an kegs,
Sum ov it go's straight ter y'legs.

They 'ave darts an quizzes,
Yo con 'ide from yer missis.
They mek Bostin' Fittle,
Big meals an' little.

'T' Boons ter chicken an' scampi,
Try it ode mate,
If yo doh, yo'm bloody well yampy!

My wife went to Jamaica.
D'yer maker?
Nah, she went on her own.

And that's the joke that gave Led Zeppelin's Dyer Maker it's name. "D'yer maker" would be pronounced "Jermaker".

[Sean Connery]And thus endeth the lesson[/Sean Connery]

[Bruce Scott]

and of course "al-yew-minium" (would be spelled aluminium) for aluminum!

Well, it was a Brit discovery and, after some dithering, they settled on aluminium in 1812 . The US spelling/pronunciation came later.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm

[DixieBoy]

I had to take 2 semesters of a foreign language before they'd let me go to grad school. Figured that I'd rely on the French I had in high school (up north), because I didn't want to get sidelined over not passing these 2 classes. I was still awful, so I used to do all kinds of stuff to make my professor laugh ... anything to get me through those 2 classes. I still remember this one:

Comparison of three languages:

English: My dog ate my homework.

French: Mon chien manges mes devoirs.

Southern: Mah dawg et mah humwuk.

Stupid ? Yes. But it got me into grad school. - DixieBoy

[gundownunder]

G'day mates, ow ya doin. ya wanna get th Aussie perspective on th queschun?
Dun madder if ya do or not cos I'm gunna give it to ya anyway.
(phonetically written for your benefit, we actually write English in the traditional British fashion)

A teacher once named all the states in the USA for me and among them was one called Arkansaw, I've been searching for 40 years but I'm buggered if I can find it on any map.

I have heard that the Kiwis (AKA, south sea island poms) speak the clearest form of English in the world, I might agree but for the fact that fush & chups is a dish of seafood and potato, and sex is a number (reminds me of a woman I knew, but for her the number was zero ).

We all have ways of doing the same thing differently but at the end of the day we can get together and communicate in a reasonably fluent fashion with ease. Compare that to Indonesia, 2000 islands each with it's own language, many of which are unique and distinct from each other. Then you have the National language, Bahasa Indonesia which is a modern dialect of Malay. Indonesian is made up from a bunch of other languages including Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese and Austronesian languages. It is estimated that there are some 750 Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indonesian, 1,000 Arabic loans, some of Persian and Hebrew origin, some 125 words of Portuguese (also Spanish and Italian) origin and 10,000 loanwords from Dutch. Many Indonesians are also learning 3rd, 4th, and even 5th languages to cope with tourism, these include Japanese, Russian, English, and German.

[Griff]

I have heard that the Kiwis (AKA, south sea island poms) speak the clearest form of English in the world,.

Me Grandmum would've agrreed with that! Except, she'd have taken a croquet mallet handle to yer dags if some wonky bludge called her a pom!

I remember gettin' my "back-up" several times when one of my cousins asked if I was "that Yank..."

[KWK]

and where do they get bespoke out of benchmade?

I've never heard the word "benchmade" used. Bespoke is just the past tense of bespeak, an old way of saying "to hire."

[7.62 Precision]

I have heard that the Kiwis (AKA, south sea island poms) speak the clearest form of English in the world . . .

I don't know - I remember once when all the press guys at this printing company were out back having their smoko, and I went out to ask about dot gain - I was setting up their prepress department and making sure everything was right for their process.

My question led to blank stares, head scratching, and really strange answers, none of which seemed to have anything to do with the spreading of a dot of ink on paper. It was almost like I was speaking a different language, so I tried to break it down for them. Suddenly the head pressman exclaimed, "Oh! You mean doowt giane! We all thought you were asking about a Dot Giame, mate!" Seeing my confusion, he added, with a throwing motion, You know, dots?

[piller]

Then there is the Boston accent. My Aunt, whom my Uncle met and married while he was going to Hah Vahd, typically kept her Khakis in her pahket. Here in Texas, they keep their Kyar Kees in their Pokit. In Georgia, they Pious the fude to the layeft or raht. In North Carolina they say Rat Cheer or Over Char when asked where something is. But, no matter how confusing it is, the Irish and Welsh have the most confusing languages in the world. Red is Ruadh, pronounced roo-ahh. Siobhan is pronounced Shuh-vonn. Aiofe is pronounced Ee-fuh.

I truly laughed until I cried at Arthur English as the maintenance man on Are You Being Served, and I did understand him. On Father Ted, I had a hard time understanding Father Dougal, played by a great stand-up comedian.

[Gobblerforge]

And yet when a Brit sings, I can't tell an accent..............
Gobbler

[bdhold]

Terry Gilliam was hired by Monty Python as an American dialect/accent coach (and of course stuck as their cartoon artist and a writer/comedian in his own).

Some British actors do great with their American accents, some are pretty lousy, but I can't think of any as bad as Kevin Costner playing Robin Hood.

Every region has its dialect. Once you spend three years there, you acquire permanent idioms that will be recognized as different by people in your home town. Not too many Bostonians or Ohioans survive their driving habits in Texas...

[Canuck Bob]

You have all missed the fact that Canadians speak the clearest form of the English language. We dropped the pretentious accents from the home country and avoided the painful drawl of our southern neighbour.

Sadly TV has altered our vocabulary far too much. When I was young I was a lad, now children are kids.

Actually spoken language is a fluid thing and hearing others speak is always a joy. There is no dodging the fact we all hear our little dialect as normal or proper and everyone else just seems a little odd. I grew up around Scots, now there is a challenge for a North American to decipher.

[bdhold]

eh? hoser.

though I will admit Canadian rednecks are the scariest, since you can't tell by their accent.

[JohndeFresno]

so Californians get the monopoly on English?
Really? Fer Sure Man.

I think our their pronunciation is usually the most correct, but on the other hand our vocabulary, constant use of idiotic cliches and various subculture lingos, at least in the more urban areas, counteracts any pluses in our pronunciation; we speak English correctly, but nonetheless incoherently!

If I were King, I'd levy heavy fines on anyone caught saying such things as "Oh my G--" or, "Now THAT's what I'm talkin' about!" more than once a month!

[JohndeFresno]

and of course "al-yew-minium" (would be spelled aluminium) for aluminum!

Well, it was a Brit discovery and, after some dithering, they settled on aluminium in 1812 . The US spelling/pronunciation came later.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm

Didn't know that! Score a point for the Isles!

[JohndeFresno]

You have all missed the fact that Canadians speak the clearest form of the English language. We dropped the pretentious accents from the home country and avoided the painful drawl of our southern neighbour.

Sadly TV has altered our vocabulary far too much. When I was young I was a lad, now children are kids.

Actually spoken language is a fluid thing and hearing others speak is always a joy. There is no dodging the fact we all hear our little dialect as normal or proper and everyone else just seems a little odd. I grew up around Scots, now there is a challenge for a North American to decipher.

Not sure about that - you can spot a Canadian by pointing to the number 0 on a piece of paper. Zed - eh???

[7.62 Precision]

Sadly TV has altered our vocabulary far too much. When I was young I was a lad, now children are kids.

Unfortunately, TV is leveling the language across the world, reducing vocabulary, and generally destroying culture. It seems that everywhere I go - overseas, any bush village, wherever - the young people are trying to talk and act like the American TV portrayal of black inner-city gangs. Everywhere else in the world, people see this as American culture, when it is such a small subculture when you look at the different cultures in America. It is not American culture, not even black American culture, it is ridiculous that it is pushed so strongly by the media, let alone even acknowledged. When people worldwide think about American culture, they think of what they see on TV, and it's not a pretty picture.

Oh, and as far as I know, we are about the only ones who say "zee" to describe the last letter of the english alphabet. Everyone else says "zed."

[bdhold]

and of course "al-yew-minium" (would be spelled aluminium) for aluminum!

Well, it was a Brit discovery and, after some dithering, they settled on aluminium in 1812 . The US spelling/pronunciation came later.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm

Didn't know that! Score a point for the Isles!

yeah, but when they were making it, it was four times the price of silver - 4th most abundant element on the planet.
My freshman Chem teacher at Vanderbilt was Dr. Hall - he used to talk about Uncle Charlie (founder of Alcoa)

[bdhold]

so Californians get the monopoly on English?
Really? Fer Sure Man.

I think our their pronunciation is usually the most correct, but on the other hand our vocabulary, constant use of idiotic cliches and various subculture lingos, at least in the more urban areas, counteracts any pluses in our pronunciation; we speak English correctly, but nonetheless incoherently!

If I were King, I'd levy heavy fines on anyone caught saying such things as "Oh my G--" or, "Now THAT's what I'm talkin' about!" more than once a month!

since most kids grow up with the televsion, CA English is the most common - doesn't make it the rightest.
One of my best fishing buddies is from Manhattan (though he naturalized to the TX hill country very quickly). I guess it's good everyone doesn't talk like him.

and some examples of why Texans do it right

• She could talk the legs off a chair.
  He's all hat and no horse.
  So dry the catfish are carrying canteens.
  He's so busy, you'd think he was twins.
  It's so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs.
  Cold as a cast iron commode.
  She's two sandwiches short of a picnic.
  Ugly? Why she's so ugly that she needs to sneak up on a glass of water else the glass breaks.
  Confused as a goat on astro-turf.
  Handy as hip pockets on a hog.
  So ugly that his mama takes him everywhere she goes so she doesn't have to kiss him goodbye.
  Looks like he sorts bobcats for a living.
  So buck-toothed that he could eat corn-on-the-cob through a picket fence.
  If brains were leather, he couldn't saddle a fly.

[COSteve]

After a month in England recently, my wife and I got and gave plenty of good-natured ribbing with our English and Welsh hosts. Sandie, the English wife couldn't understand why we wouldn't talk like they did as we were obviously pronouncing things wrong. When I tried to explain that English english is a different language from American english she just couldn't grasp the concept. (Her superiority complex was causing her a major headlock.) However, her Welsh husband (also a Steve) got a kick out of the differences and we ended up making a list of them which ran to the hundreds.

Some words we could understand the variance between the languages and some baffled all of us. One such difference is in American english we describe the act of sliding down a cliff on a rope as 'Rappelling', however, the British english word for that act is 'Abseiling'. Another difference is the phrase, 'to table a discussion'. In American english it means we are putting that topic on the table to put it aside and will discuss a different topic. In British english it means the exact opposite, we are putting the topic on the table to discuss that topic now.

Finally, the rear storage space in an automobile got it's name from the fact that some early autos had a steamer trunk bolted behind the body for storage space. When auto makers started to build autos with a built-in storage space, the natural name for it was a 'trunk'. This was done in the US and in Britain, however, the British word for the rear storage space in an auto is 'boot'.

We have no idea why the differences between the languages.

[bdhold]

just don't say you're stuffed at the end of a meal...

[COSteve]

just don't say you're stuffed at the end of a meal...

Yep, we talked about that one too.

[2571]

"That is until he gets angry then the Scottish accent comes on thick and strong and I can hardly understand him. "

Linguists studying dialect will ask a participant to tell a joke or a sad story. Anything that evokes emotion will cause a person to revert to a primary accent/dialect.

My wife, born in TN, but in MI for 40 years has no accent I can hear (others can, though). When she talks to her family on the phone, I can quite clearly hear her accent.

Berfore the 'net, I used to like doing Christmas shopping on the phone. I'd hear several accents in a day, placing orders with companies all over the USA.

[flatnose]

After all these years here in the USA, it still seems strange to me that the terms bring and take are often confused.
Why is the herb that is grown in the garden pronounced as 'erb', yet Herb as in Herbert is ponounced Herb?
Cordon bleu is most often pronounced cordon blue. The cordon part is pronounced with the french accent, yet the bleu part is pronounced as blue in english.
Momentarily. Another term which seems to be often misused. '' I will be with you momentarily". It appears that in some dictionaries that it is now acceptable to use the term instead of moment.

[gundownunder]

Here in Oz a cars trunk is a boot and a cars hood is a bonnet and yet if some sod on a bicycle won't get out of your way he is likely to become a hood ornament.
I still don't understand why we don't use the English translations for the french words that have been slotted into our language.
As to abseiling and rappelling, abseiling is German and rappelling is french so neither is correct English.

[JohndeFresno]

Okay, just for sake of entertainment, not to be insulting, let's take a serious look at my claim that California English seems to be the only correct pronunciation, as per my original premise:
That a child taught to spell with phonics must have problems in England and elsewhere!

Firstly, my observation excludes that California subgroup of speakers who use "Ebonics" or foreign cultures who are still indoctrinated to use their pronunciations who came here within the last 2-3 generations.

Let's look at some of the goofy pronunciations within my state (there are a few):

"bin" used for the word been, like "I've bin to the store."
- it should sound like the English pronunciation - "bean."

A few words that for some reason my neighbors don't get, never will understand. If a peace officer asks for your California Driver's License - that's a singular object - folks might answer, "No I don't have them." - Say what?? At least, that is common here in Central California in what is known as the San Joaquin Valley.

It's as though they think that there is more than one "licen," thus "lincens" - ?? Actually, it must be just a herd thing - that's what Mama and Dad say, so they say it, to. And I couldn't get one fellow peace officer in the Valley to pronounce "siren" correctly; he'd always say, "I put on the sireen." His dad, whom I knew, spoke the same way.

Everywhere in the world, practically, folks can pronounce almonds with an "l." Not the Central California almond growers, who are responsible for 80% of the world's supply. They call them "ah-munds," using a short "a" like in "hat," "cap," "cat." And it's usually just the farmers who insist on mangling this word - You tell me why! If you look it up in a most current dictionaries, and since dictionaries are usage driven, you will see that either pronunciation is allowed. Well, why bother using the "l" at all?!?

As noted, we say (most of us who were born here) "Herb" with an "H" for a man's name, but "erbs" when we talk about vegetation used as seasoning. Most of us say "fore-head" for forehead, not "far-ed" like folks from Massachusetts like to say.

Of course, forget all of the foreign words that our rich language has assimilated, like Cordon Bleu, Pinot wines, and other stuff - since even the French (with those two words) will turn up their noses unless you have the adequate amount of spit in your throat and air rushing through your nose to satisfy their language. We also can't say "Acccchhhmed" correctly; but that is another culture and that's why.

But with good ol' English and Anglo-Saxon words, excluding some really strange spelling rules (like the different sounds of ough in rough, rouge, bough, and cough), Californians will usually pronounce a word like it is spelled!

"car" for car, not "cah," "caa," etc.
"this" instead of "thee-yis" in the South and parts of Texas -
my wife listens to a Texas cook, Paula Deane on TV. We say "this" like it is spelled.
Also - "Yee-ooh" for you, "they-ere" instead of there.
Then there is "all" instead of oil - as they pronounce it in a heavy oil state - Oklahoma!

I remember one TV show, Candid Camera or something, in which folks working on the rigs were asked to pronounce "all," and then "oil." They did so with a straight face, and sounded precisely the same to the TV viewers!

But no, as great as the wonderful State of Texas is, including most of its residents (I'd rather live there than put up with the impossible politics, laws, etc. here - but for my family and church), their conversation is definitely not perfect. There is a twang in many words that don't show up on the letters of the written word.

And by the way my memory failed me - it is indeed "zed" for "z" that I was thinking about. I had learned that this is one trick used by certain border authorities - have an incoming Californian or North American read something phonetically that contains that letter, to see if they are really Canadian residents if they attempt to claim that citizenship.

My mother was from Greenville, Illinois and she had a really, really weird habit of pronouncing many words with an "a" like "o" and words with "o" like "a" -
"form" and "former" for farm / farmer;
"carn" for the sweet vegetable that grew during her childhood in ears on her "form."

Once on a long road trip in the car, as a bored youngster and after conspiring with my older brothers, I asked Mom to pronounce "Fort McArthur." She quickly answered "F*rt McOrthur" and my three brothers roared. Of course, Dad didn't; he reached back and slapped me not so lightly on the cheek, gave me a few choice words about respecting my mother, and kept driving.

[piller]

Other oddities in Texas. You need a Subscripshun to obtain your medicine. Atenolol is pronounced atnol, Omeprazole is Oh-Mee-Pruh-Zoal-ee instead of Oh-mep-ruh-zole. Cipro is pronounced See Pro instead of Sip-row, and Keflex is pronounced Kay Flakes instead of Keff-lecks. Digoxin is pronounced Die Gox in or Dig oxen rather than Dij oxin. Coke in Texas is a fizzy drink that comes in many forms including Pepsi, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, RC Coca Cola, and even as Coke.

PillHer is from Northern California and pronounces sandwich as Sand Wedge, and milk as menk.

[flatnose]

I went into a hardware store(ironmongers in the UK), and asked for solder. ''Solder...what?'' was the reply. ''
''Solder,'' I said ''the stuff you use on copper plumbing pipes and electrical connections'' . ''You mean sodder''. I picked that lesson up quick. ''o.k then, i would like a roll of lead sodder please''. That didn't help much. Turns out that sodder of the lead variety is banned in the state of california.
An ironmonger is the seller of typically iron goods. So what is a costermonger then?
Thought I would add this comedy sketch from the Two Ronnies in the uk in an ironmongers store, to illustrate how confusing the english language and accents can be, even to the british. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ

[vancelw]

My wife and I were on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls one day when a man walked up and asked us a question (I could tell by his inflection) but I couldn't understand a word he said. He picked on on that (due to my baffled expression) and repeated himself, but I still had no idea. About two words into his third attempt, I realized he had a Cockney (I think) accent! Once I programmed my brain with that information, I understood every word he said. We had a nice conversation after that.

Sometimes you just gotta get your mind right.

I'm a native Texan, as is all my family. I've spent time in the Great Plains, California, visited New England, my son-in-law is from Boston, visited Europe and Africa. I've enjoyed every minute of hearing other cultures speak. But I have become dismayed that most Texans don't speak like Texans anymore (even that depends on what part of the state you're from.) Too much TV and internet influence. I wonder if that's what Orwell had in mind with "Newspeak"?

[Charles]

Learning to read and write by phonics is a fairly recent methodolgy. I started school in 1948 and we were all taught by what is now called "sight reading". We learned by memory how to spell and pronounce each word. We had long list of spelling words and spelling test. It didn't matter how you pronounced the word. You could still read and write it.

Sight readers in general, do not spell as good as folks who learned by phonics, but that is not a big thing in life.

[JohndeFresno]

Learning to read and write by phonics is a fairly recent methodolgy. I started school in 1948 and we were all taught by what is now called "sight reading"...

It depends upon where you live, apparently.

I was raised in Los Angeles, CA (age 3 to age 15). The teachers probably did not use the term "phonics" back then, but we were taught in grammar school to break down each syllable and sound it out to pronounce the word, and my memory goes back to a reading group as early as the fourth or fifth grade - mid fifties. Fourth grade for me was approximately in 1954 (9 years old).

But even in Kindergarten or 1st grade, whenever we started learning the alphabet, we were taught sounds - "C" was associated with "cuh" sound, "A" was associated with "aww" or "ah" sound as in cat, and so on. I vaguely remember that. I started in Kindergarten at about 1950.

Of course, some words had to be learned by rote, since they didn't "sound out" as one would expect, like the word "solder" as mentioned above. We pronounce it "sodder" throughout the state.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

my wife listens to a Texas cook, Paula Deane on TV. We say "this" like it is spelled.

I'm pretty sure that's a Georgian accent.

I was thinking that many native born Floridians speak perfect English. I believe this effect is the result of the mixing of the Southern accent that's common to the region with all of the various Yankee accents of the large number of retirees that migrate down to our state. The result seems to be that they cancel each other out to those of us exposed to both from birth.

I recognize Paula's accent from having attended college in Georgia. That and the fact that my great-grandmother lived in Fernandina Beach, Florida, right across the river from Georgia, and the accent sort of bled over the border there.

BTW, Georgian is pronounced "jaw-jen" in Georgia.

[Ji in Hawaii]

It was my understanding that most national news broadcasters were from the midwest since their English is the easiest for all othet parts of the country to understand.

Funny story. My sis and her husband both worked for Pacific Bell and at a company function one employee an immigrant from the Philippines introduced himself to her as "Beans" so for the next half hour or so she was introducing him to others there as "Beans". Her husband walks up to her awhile later and said "I see you've already met Vince". She heard "Beans".

[BAGTIC]

and of course "al-yew-minium" (would be spelled aluminium) for aluminum!

Well, it was a Brit discovery and, after some dithering, they settled on aluminium in 1812 . The US spelling/pronunciation came later.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/aluminium.htm

Actually many of the elements ended in "-ium", the latinized suffix, so in this case the British version is more correct.

[JohndeFresno]

my wife listens to a Texas cook, Paula Deane on TV. We say "this" like it is spelled.

I'm pretty sure that's a Georgian accent...

Ya know what? I believe that you are correct, now that I recall my short stay in Georgia (FLETC, in Glynco, Georgia). They have an interesting way of savoring their vowels, kind of musical.

[Bob Hatfield]

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
George Bernard Shaw

and where do they get bespoke out of benchmade?


Now, let me hear you say wisKAHNsin.
The problem is clearly universal - no one speaks English.

I'm a Californian - Wisconsin. See?

The way I see it, the settlers spoke proper English. Then, there was a little disagreement between the Colonies and Mother England, and around that time some Frenchmen got into the battle and perverted some of our language with their strange sounds - probably over several bottles of wine.

Then, the North and the South had a few differences, took things personally, and the South decided to create their own code language to confuse the Yankees.

Well, there was so much disagreement on the East coast that some reasonable folks decided to jump into funny looking wagons and head West. But they met so many Indians that they started talking funny, so you have that weird Midwest language - like Wis-Cahn-sin.

The smart and energetic ones moved to California (this was before the invention of "welfare"); but they were so confused by the way the language was perverted that they started over by learning from tapes that their relatives had carried over on the Mayflower.

And that's it.

And we then had "Valley Girl" language LOL

[gamekeeper]

This advert is currently on Brit TV....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTLQsRhM ... r_embedded

[Old Ironsights]

This advert is currently on Brit TV....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTLQsRhM ... r_embedded

That was... annoying. But clever.

Why is the American so Tall?