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

POSTED BY: ebonezer
UPDATED: Monday, April 18, 2005 23:22
VIEWED: 36713
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LETOV

Thursday, January 6, 2005 11:20 PM

When my wife was in college she spent a summer working in London. She loves telling people about how one day she was looking for the guy that was training her when she was told: "He's in the bog sucking a fag." ...about killed her...

- Leto_V

"Well, my days of not taking you
seriously are certainly coming to
a middle." - Mal

INEVITABLEBETRAYAL

Friday, January 7, 2005 12:03 AM

I've loved British slang ever since I was posted with some Brits in Kuwait just before Iraq kicked off (hell, even "posted" is their word!). Bollocks, dog's bollocks, beaver cleaver--it's so much fun. It was strange when one of them asked if I'd like a fag--till I realized he was talking about a cigarette.

Anyway, had to point out the following:

Quote:
Originally posted by ebonezer:
Every sense i joined this site however long agao i joined it...

I believe that should read, "Ever since I joined this site, however long ago I joined it..."

I mean, seriously, as long as we're on the subject.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. The Brits spell Lieutenant and say "Leftenant", but let's not forget that we Americans spell "Colonel" but say "Kernel".

_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

EBONEZER

Friday, January 7, 2005 1:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:

Anyway, had to point out the following:

Quote:
Originally posted by ebonezer:
Every sense i joined this site however long agao i joined it...

I believe that should read, "Ever since I joined this site, however long ago I joined it..."

I mean, seriously, as long as we're on the subject.

Do as I say, not as I do.

-----------------------------------

Four out of five gynecologists recommend calling Ebo a girl.

ZELDA

Friday, January 14, 2005 7:19 PM

You know, to get back (somewhat) to the original complaint, the thing that drives me crazy in the quotes up top is the one that refers to the "crased" pipe dream. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's just a straight-up typo; I'm not aware of any English-speaking country that will accept "crased" in place of "crazed." And Merriam Webster agrees with me, as does dictionary.com.

DIETCOKE

Friday, January 14, 2005 7:32 PM

It's a British/Canadian spelling. They spell theater, theatre. Whole bunch of words are spelled differently. Too many to name.

DIETCOKE

Friday, January 14, 2005 7:47 PM

Speaking of mayo, french fries were really created in Belgium and are eaten with a tangy mayo, kind of like Miricle Whip.

Now in Montana the only time you'd have mayo on a burger is if it was a burger with everything (mustart, catsup, lettuce, cheese, tomato, pickle onion.) Then you'd put mayo between the lettuce and the tomato.

That's another one...do you spell it catsup or ketchup? Is that a regional thing?

I came from Montana and every drink is a coke. Had a hard time ordering a "soda" (that's what you mix with Scotch) in NYC in the early days. In Montana we had milk shakes but in NYC it's just flavored milk with no icecream. If you wanted a Montana milkshake you'd have to order a frap.

PBI

Friday, January 14, 2005 8:27 PM

One point about relying too heavily on American dictionaries and dictionary.com (a US site) when trying to determine if a 'incorrectly' spelled word is, in fact, spelled incorrectly as opposed to using British spellings is that, being oriented more towards ensuring that they have accurate spellings of English as used in the US, they may miss bits that are used outside the US.

Dictionary.com, for example (at least last time I checked), did not know where the phrase 'the whole nine yards' came from. It originated, in English as used in the Commonwealth, from the Great War, where the whole nine yards in question was the length of a belt of machine-gun ammunition. When the enemy got close, or was presenting a particularly lovely target, the order would be given to "Give them the whole nine yards". Presumably, the phrase filtered into American English from British English, but, be that as it may, the fact that dictionary.com doesn't know that makes me wonder how accurate the rest of their material is when it comes to British English.

If you can survive death, you can probably survive almost anything.

LAUREL

Friday, January 21, 2005 2:37 PM

not that i read all this and picked out bits that bothered me or anything but

Quote:

I once knew a guy who, during his time in England, had a girl ask him to "come round in the morning and knock me up." Always good to know about these little cross-cultural things before flying 'cross the pond.

That's a regional thing, most places it would mean exactly what you think it means

Quote:

When in England don't call the bit on the faucet that turns on the water "A Knob" ... trust me! Faucet 'knobs' are called 'handwheels'. A knob is the end bit of anatomy particular to males!

Handwheels ?

Quote:

Also, one of the big differences (in my opinion) is the American "pants" vs the English "trousers". This too, was originally English which was changed when we wanted to distance ourselves from the French and invented the word trousers instead of pantaloons.

Pants are what men wear under their trousers

Quote:

It's true! It's true! Americans tend to think of British generally as aristocratic British - too many adaptations of Jane Austin, perhaps? But many, many of the British dialects are nearly undecipherable to the American ear. I can't remember which movie it was a couple of years ago (something with "Joe" in the title?), but I think the accents were Glaswegian, and they actually subtitled it in the States because American audiences generally couldn't understand a thing.

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!

Lol nobody from outside glasgow can understand glaswegian. They subtitle things from glasgow to show them in england as well. I find trainspotting hard to read as well i don't think it's the accent it's just it being phonetic that bothers me.

Quote:

I must say that it took me a good six months to be any good at crosswords in England (kerb? tyre????),

Kerb is only spelt like that if you are talking about the edge of the pavement otherwise it would be curb ( unless it was some sort of motoring crossword

)

also they're chips and you have chippy sauce on them, which is some mix of brown sauce and vinegar but only chip shops can get it right

NAGA

Saturday, January 22, 2005 11:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zelda:
You know, to get back (somewhat) to the original complaint, the thing that drives me crazy in the quotes up top is the one that refers to the "crased" pipe dream. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's just a straight-up typo; I'm not aware of any English-speaking country that will accept "crased" in place of "crazed." And Merriam Webster agrees with me, as does dictionary.com.

I think you're right about "crased" being spelled "crazed", even in British English, but then again Brits spell "Realize" as "Realise", "Summarize" as "Summarise", so on and so forth...

MAGICALTREVOR

Sunday, February 6, 2005 3:31 PM

I once saw a fire extinguisher with the instructions to "squeese" but that was a typo.

Agree with person about that Glasgwegian accent is hard if you're just hearing it. But there's just something about NEDs* saying "Aum goanee chib yee ya bastirt!" that makes my soul swell with national pride....

*NED = Non Educated Deliquant. Those people wandering round wearing sportwear and Jaynesque machetes.

"Regulator, regulator, regulator.... HURGH!" Let The Blood Run Free

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