Americanisms....Tom A toe, Tom Ah Toe.

[Dogs of Doom]

You mean like when they call a pack of cigarettes "fags"? Yeah.

I took a class w/ a guy (professor) that was British proper. He had trouble saying some things, because their different colloquialisms & such...

He kept saying "pop-stud" & nobody knew what he was talking about, until someone that knew, said a pop-stud is a snap. Like a snap on your Jeans. (snap-on buttons)

I'm still waiting on an answer to the article of clothing question above. Fi - Fi - Fo - Fum, I await the answer of an Englishman...

 

[Dogs of Doom]

This thread is great! Where's Holme when you need him?

he'll set us all straight!

 

[DreamerDeceiver]

Wow!
Such culture ,who knew MF ampaholics were linguists too?
Who woulda thunk ?

 

[playloud]

Keeping ones self on a more fitting theme of our beloved Marshall Amplifier, I too have some niggles....

Tube versus Valve is an obvious one, but Tube is becoming part of the language here in the UK now.

Mullard, it's ''ard'' as in Yard and not ''urd'' as in Turd, they are the best and deserve more.

Solder, there's an ''L'' as in Sold, I can't work out an example for what is said in the US, Saaw?

I hear "Soder", a bit like the isle from Thomas the Tank Engine. There was a great bit in the Truth About Vintage Amps podcast where they laughed in amazement at how we pronounce the "l".

When I lived in the US, I got "what?" after every second sentence, even after slowing my speech down about 50% and tweaking the pronunciation of words like "tomato" and "basil". I went for a trip to London at one point and the ability to be understood felt like a super power. I have a distinct memory of talking to some Irish people and noticing that I could double my normal talking speed if I wanted to. It actually felt liberating!

what do the British call this article of clothing?

View attachment 110767

I'm not from there, but I think the correct answer is "hoodie", if only because of the hilarious "hug a hoodie" campaign from ~10 years ago!

Funny thing about German and Japanese (discussed above): they have similar vowels.

 

[Matthews Guitars]

In America English, the L is usually silent in "solder". Right or wrong, it's how we roll.

But only in British English can you string together four letters in a word and pronounce none of them!

Worcestershire. Don't bother to pronounce the RCES in it Or the I that follows. It's "woostersheer".

 

[Vinsanitizer]

I took a class w/ a guy (professor) that was British proper. He had trouble saying some things, because their different colloquialisms & such...

He kept saying "pop-stud" & nobody knew what he was talking about, until someone that knew, said a pop-stud is a snap. Like a snap on your Jeans. (snap-on buttons)

I'm still waiting on an answer to the article of clothing question above. Fi - Fi - Fo - Fum, I await the answer of an Englishman...

Doom, when you said the " Fi - Fi - Fo - Fum" thing, guess what it reminded me of.

That's roight, this heeah:

"These are tour dates... tour dates... tour dates... tour dates...".

 

[Dogs of Doom]

In America English, the L is usually silent in "solder". Right or wrong, it's how we roll.

But only in British English can you string together four letters in a word and pronounce none of them!

Worcestershire. Don't bother to pronounce the RCES in it Or the I that follows. It's "woostersheer".

how about soldier?

 

[Matthews Guitars]

That's another special case word. Pronounced "sold-jer". More often than not.

 

[playloud]

In America English, the L is usually silent in "solder". Right or wrong, it's how we roll.

But only in British English can you string together four letters in a word and pronounce none of them!

Worcestershire. Don't bother to pronounce the RCES in it Or the I that follows. It's "woostersheer".

To be fair, it seems the American version of "solder" could be Middle English (and this seems consistent with the interesting "London accent" video above). I've always thought of the Americans as bigger traditionalists than the Brits. Just look at the Rolling Stones - by '75, they were regarded as 'dinosaurs' in the UK; in the US, their cultural dominance was just getting started.

Besides, the UK has plenty of counter-intuitive pronunciations of their own, often used as shibboleths. Some of my favs are "St John", "Marylebone" and "Magdalen College".

 

[mark123]

what do the British call this article of clothing?

View attachment 110767

Ow, ‘at ‘air izza bimmey blocher.

 

[Dogs of Doom]

British & New British alike, say some things counter phonetically...

Like when they add "r"s where there are none, & then when there is one, they ignore it...

The old "drawing" vs "chest of drawers". They say "drawering" & "chest of draws"...

Here, in California, we call that place, at a store, or mall where everyone parks their vehicles, the "parking lot". I've heard it called the "car park", or in New Englander or Brit, "cah pahk"

 

[Dogs of Doom]

Ow, ‘at ‘air izza bimmey blocher.

here, in the states, it's pretty much called a "hoodie". I would figure that in the UK proper it would be called a "bonnet" something or another...

 

[DreamerDeceiver]

Bonnet is a car hood, boot is the trunk.

 

[Dogs of Doom]

Bonnet is a car hood, boot is the trunk.

so what's a hoodie? (in the King's proper English) ...

 

[playloud]

so what's a hoodie? (in the King's proper English) ...

Sorry to disappoint, but this surely settles it: https://www.marksandspencer.com/l/men/mens-hoodies-and-sweatshirts

 

[Dogs of Doom]

Sorry to disappoint, but this surely settles it: https://www.marksandspencer.com/l/men/mens-hoodies-and-sweatshirts

...

 

[Georgiatec]

Regional accent is also a big division in common language. It's very hard to understand people from some areas of the UK even though I was born and lived here all my life.
Someone with a heavy Liverpudlian accent is tricky, Geordie (Newcastle), even more so....Scots and Irish

 

[playloud]

Regional accent is also a big division in common language. It's very hard to understand people from some areas of the UK even though I was born and lived here all my life.
Someone with a heavy Liverpudlian accent is tricky, Geordie (Newcastle), even more so....Scots and Irish

Absolutely. This is particularly the case in the UK (even northwest England has a crazy number of variants), less so in Australia.

I particularly like people with distinct accents. I heard an interview with Dean Wareham recently (Galaxie 500), and he has a hybrid New Zealand/New York accent (which makes sense if you look at his bio).

One thing I worry about is how these things get homogenized by technology, for example speech recognition and the proliferation of synthetic voices (Alexa, Siri etc.)

 

[PelliX]

I'm still waiting on an answer to the article of clothing question above. Fi - Fi - Fo - Fum, I await the answer of an Englishman...

I'm going to answer blindly and truthfully; I call it a hooded sweater. What the Oxford English dictionary says, I don't know.... jumper, pullover? Hoodie is an American term, I believe?

 

[Eric'45]

This is a fun thread
I'm a native German, no English ancestry or something like that. I learned English at school initially, but my skills really developed by talking to real people, and by communicating on places like the Marshall Forum, of course. What I learned at school was mostly British English, But in the real world, and at work I mostly talk to americans. I guess I have developed some kind of hybrid. I also find languages and their development really interesting, and I can assure you, that for a German, learning English is some kind of relief- many things are similar and you can get many words, while it is simplified. I also realized that some accents of German are closer to English than High German.