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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ZORIAH

Friday, May 14, 2004 4:36 AM

Not to be confused with 'chippie' apparently. I used this term in front of my american grandma when I was referring to a bad of crisps. She was mightily offended LOL.

MAKEROFPATHS

Friday, May 14, 2004 6:21 AM

Gunhand:

"We got even with him though when we told him on no uncertain terms that you do not put mayo on fries. "

Ketchup? Bahhh! Doesn't the 17th commandment say: Thou shalt dress thine fries in bounteous mayo?

RKLenseth:

"It appears they spell the plural of tomato tomatos witout an e while we Americans spell it tomatoes. I even looked it up in my Webster dictionary and it was spelt tomatoes but one of the English people looked it up in their Oxford dictionary and it was spelt tomatos. "

My COD (Canadian Oxford Dictionary*) shows -es.

Iamjacksusername:

"I learned British English spelling in school, but I usually much prefer the USA spelling: color to colour, realize/realise, center/centre (but I don't like the USA "meter" as distance), dialog/dialogue, archeology/archaeology... USA punctuation is illogical tho."

This'll throw you Yankeedudes for a loop: manoeuvre, manoeuvring, manoeuvred. (cf source above*)

In Canada, we blend U.K. and U.S. spellings, although U.K. spellings tend to dominate. We also speak Franglais sometimes (e.g., quel drag) and clean the mukluks (Indian for thongs/flipflops -- okay, not really but they are boots). BTW, meter is a gauge; metre is a length. But we never go so far as to write: archaeology or aesthetics.

BTW, this is a fascinating thread. Thanks, Ebonezer.

ZORIAH

Friday, May 14, 2004 7:10 AM

Heeee we call thongs/flipflops/mukluks - jandals.

RUXTON

Friday, May 14, 2004 7:23 AM

GUNHAND, pull yer socks up and tell EBONEZER to keep his pecker up. He'll catch on eventually.

[The first of the two phrases above was sorta dirty but the other one was not. My ex-girlfriend's mother, who was British, often told her son to keep his pecker up. And she could have said the same thing to her daughter.]

Oh, and it's vinegar that goes on fries...which are called CHIPS, of course; and one drives screws with a turnscrew, not a screw driver.

SAMURAIX47, I was about to say you got one wrong. American spelling is "specialty." Brits spell it "speciality." But my Merriam Webster's Collegiate gives both spellings, with no national preference. Each is pronounced as spelled.

Going on about accents, do y'all know what nationality James Marsters is? Here's a clue: His trying to sound like a Brit speaking American when he was with Xander once on Buffy was brilliant. He really did sound like a Brit trying to speak American.*

It's time to throw another faggot on the fire.

..........Ruxton

*Marsters is, of course, American.

WREN

Friday, May 14, 2004 8:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ruxton:
GUNHAND, pull yer socks up and tell EBONEZER to keep his pecker up. He'll catch on eventually.

Erm, you might want to start running for the hills now cos Ebo does not have a pecker (ie she is of the female gender) and she tends to get a mite cranky when people refer to her as a male.

LIZWHIZ

Friday, May 14, 2004 5:34 PM

Um, in Britain, I don't think that "pecker" refers to a certain piece of the male anatomy. I think it's more like "keep your chin up".

And this discussion is fascinating. I majored in Linguistics at University, and this is taking me right back.

Sigh.

GUNHAND

Friday, May 14, 2004 5:39 PM

Only time I ever heard,"Pull yer socks up." was in the movie Snatch. And no it isn't a porno for those of you with smutty minds.

As for the dipping the fries in the chocolate shake, one of my best friends (the BBQ-Meister) is from Alabama and I picked up the habbit from him. Although he was stationed at El Centro and Pendleton so he may have picked it up in California to begin with. I'll have to ask him.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

SAMURAIX47

Friday, May 14, 2004 6:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by LizWhiz:
Um, in Britain, I don't think that "pecker" refers to a certain piece of the male anatomy. I think it's more like "keep your chin up".

And this discussion is fascinating. I majored in Linguistics at University, and this is taking me right back.

Sigh.

Pecker comes from the word peck which the dictionary says is what you do with a beak, like chickens pecking at their food... so yes, that's correct "keep your pecker/chin up"

Jaymes

SAMURAIX47

Friday, May 14, 2004 6:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ruxton:
Going on about accents, do y'all know what nationality James Marsters is? Here's a clue: His trying to sound like a Brit speaking American when he was with Xander once on Buffy was brilliant. He really did sound like a Brit trying to speak American.*

It's time to throw another faggot on the fire.

..........Ruxton

Marsters is a California boy. When I saw him in Boston several years ago he said he learn a lot of his accent from following Anthony Head (Giles) around who doesn't speak at all like Giles.

Jaymes

AKS

Monday, May 17, 2004 8:33 PM

Re: the Swedish/Norwegian discussion.

I'm Swedish, so perhaps I can bring some insight into this.

Everyone's been pretty much right this far. Swedish and Norwegian are different languages. However, not very long ago (we're talking hundreds of years of course) they were indeed as closely "related" as dialects. I have almost no trouble whatsoever understanding spoken Norwegian (unless they're speaking a very strange dialect). However, and this is perhaps interesting for people who're not from Scandinavia, when it comes to *reading*... give me a novel in Danish any day!! Yep, it's easier to read Danish, but I don't understand a word of what they're saying. Odd, perhaps.

There are studies done about this from time to time and the resluts show that Norwegians understand spoken Swedish and Danish very well. Most Danes don't understand spoken Swedish, though, and most Swedes don't understand spoken Danish. However, Danes understand spoken Norwegian rather well, as do Swedes.

The explanation for this is (apparently) that Danes have pretty much the same words for things as Norwegians do and we Swedes have pretty much the same pronunciation (to a certain degree).

I'm betting everyone is *more* confused now. :D

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