I'm not usually a nit-picker but this is bugging the hell out of me.

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Originally posted by Zelda:
To take another example from cinema, a lot of people have trouble for the first section of "Trainspotting," until their ear adjusts, and never end up understanding a word Begby says. (Probably just murdered the spelling of that name.) In college I knew a Japanese girl who was trying to read the book, and she had flawless American English, accent and all, really, really bright girl, and she was just beating her head against the thing because apparently the first chapter(s) are written phonetically in dialect, and she was spending something like 20 minutes a page trying to figure out what anything meant!

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Yeah, it's not just the first chapter. It's most of the book, and most of Irvine Welsh's books do tend to have Scottish accents phonetically spelled. It IS massively headachey until you get the hang of it.
But some of my favourite books when I was younger were Gone With the Wind, Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyer, and they all have phonetical spellings, so I think my brain is kind of used to it.Also, I'm not a native Japanese speaker. :)

"You two are the two who are the two! I'm the other one!"

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I saw this map of the US a while back that was absolutely fascinating. It breaks down the usage of the terms pop, soda, coke, etc. by counties.

http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

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In response to the pop/soda thing..

I, too, live in the Midwest (Illinois, to be exact) and always, ALWAYS call it pop. I work at an ice cream shop, and we had been talking about how we should put ice cream sodas on the menu. Later in the week a woman asked me if we sold soda, and I said no, assuming she meant ice cream soda. Later we cleared up that she meant pop. Or coke. Or whatever. How about carbonated beverage? But that moment was a bit embarassing.

Anyway, even though I say pop, I think soda sounds a bit more sophisticated.

And I have to say, I really like french fries dipped in Frosties.

Zee

Mal: If he calls back, you keep him occupied.
Wash: What do I do, shadow puppets?

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Originally posted by Ankhagogo:
We always called flip-flops "thongs"... here in Oklahoma.

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I know, it drives me crazy when people are looking for "thongs" and I send them over to the shoe department and they really wanted underwear.

www.thatweirdgirl.com

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Hey don't worry about spelling. if you can read it than it's fine There was a test conducted at Stanford or some big college like it. That said if you get the first letter and the last letter in the right place then it doesn't matter what order the middle is.
Methinks that something else was bothering you at the time and you were using displacment because as you say you don't usaully nit-pick.


With Hope because love is nothing without hope.

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On the great dialect debate...

Try being a Canadian Infantry Sergeant trying to translate for an Angry Canadian Sergeant Major (Who was born in Glasgow) and an angry Major from Alabama!!!! NOT SHINY!!!
Seems i could understand both of them, and they could understand me but they couldnt understand a damn thing each other was saying...
And proceeded to grow angrier with me because of it.

Interesting point:
"Gawd-Damn *&&%&%%& Helicopter" to an Alabaman is "A Great F&*(-Off Rotating Machine" to the guy from Glasgow

I love cross-cultural exhanges!

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Okay, I'm checking back in after a very long absence, and that map amused me so much I just sent it to nearly everyone I know.

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Came across this thread quite by chance, and I must say I'm rather tickled by it.

Here's my bit towards this thread:

Not sure if this is common knowledge but the 'All American' brand Marlboro, known worldwide for its wild west image of rugged, tough-as-nails cowboys, wide open country and free-running wild Mustangs thundering across the plain, originally came from Britain, and it was originally spelled MARLBOROUGH.

Won’t bore you with the details but suffice to say a British fellow founded the company but it didn’t really take off in Britain. He later went to America and sold the brand to someone else. The new owner change the brand’s image and made a small change to the name’s spelling, and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Originally posted by Ankhagogo:

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Just by the by -- We always called flip-flops "thongs" when I was little, here in Oklahoma. Not just my family,but everyone I knew.

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Some things from my point of view, and some questions:

I know Flip-Flops as 'Slippers'. What's slippers to you guys?

I know what tomato ketchup is, but ketchup to me is also what you call soy sauce.

We dip our fries in everything, tomato ketchup, mayonaise, vinegar, salt, chilli sauce, tartar sauce, whatever. We're not prejudiced :)

Soda to me is either a very strong corrosive chemical you need a license to sell and buy, or a fizzy drink mixer. We call our soft drinks, well soft drinks, or gassy drinks. Pop to me is a kind of music.

If in American English 'through' is spelled 'thru', then why is 'grotesque' not spelled 'grotes'?

Can someone explain to me why a torchlight is call a flashlight? I understand torchlight because it lights the way like a torch does, but it definitely don't 'flash', unless you're trying to send a signal.

And ORANGUTAN is not pronounced O-raang-oo-ten, its O-rung-uh-taan, just wanna clarify

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