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Did you know that a lot of American words, expressions and pronunciations are more English than the English?

For example the Appellation "hillbillies" settled there in the time of Queen Elizabeth the first.
A lot of their words, pronunciations and songs are like a time capsule of England 500 years ago.

I caught this the other evening and it made me laugh........although I don`t travel in lifts [elevatorzzz] my energy supply company have an automated meter reading service and it cannot understand my Scottish accent - even my name !
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzY98WWknhk[/youtube]

I don't have the Canadian/American distinction problem, because there was a Canadian family in the town where I grew up, and I've also lived abroad and mixed with people from all over the world. But when it comes to knowing different accents within the US, I'm not very clued up. Unlike you, I haven't lived in the US, so the few I can spot are all based on people I've known personally or seen on TV.

The Neyoo Yeeowk one (a la people like Ruby Wax)
The Hispanic Bronx one (a la people like JLo)
The Californian one (a la numerous celebs)
The Texas one (a la my Texas friend who sadly I've now lost touch with)
The Boston one (as spoken by several Hollywood stars)

And, well, I think that's about it.

Canadian accents are definitely different from northern US ones. I spent just over two weeks in Toronto once so I managed to get to grips with the accents. Plus you've got the issue of the people of Toronto being from all over the world anyway.

I despise the way Canadians say "out"/"house"/etc. That sound they make for the "ou."

Sounds vaguely southern Irish.

if you mean the oot & aboot pronunciation, that is only the maritimers from the east coast (affectionately termed "Newfies" as they are largely from newfoundland and labrador)and a few pockets in southern ontario. the rest of us over-pronounce the "ou" in a deep gutteral way, as oppposed to an american "awt and abawt the hawse".

one part of the canadian pronunciation which embarrasses me is the tendency to speak a hard, sharply spoken "R" sound.

for the lulz, i will demonstrate some words with the "ou" and "r" sound. i've also used an archaic word that is still relatively common here, complete with our own whacked-out pronunciation. i used one of my photographs in the background. i was too shy for you to see me!

i am from alberta.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nENxp7yWRgY[/youtube]

If aspergers individuals do not understand the culture they live in how come temple grandin as a american accent?

People that say European Accent really bugs me. Each country has its own distinct general accent, with many sublayers of accent.

I suppose its a bit like telling a Californian they sound the same as someone from Brooklyn.

I knew that.

Somebody else knows! Yay!

*all_white starts eagerly blabbing about one of her special interests - grammar*

Here's an example of British weirdness:

Past participles of verbs from the same family generally follow the same rule and can be grouped together.

Beget ------> begotten.
Forget ------> forgotten.
Get----------> got? What's up with that?

The Americans quite rightly carried on saying "gotten," but we inexplicably changed it to got, yet carried on retaining the original expression "your ill-gotten gains" and never changed the participle in that one at all.

We're a nation full of contradictions. I choose to stubbornly continue to say "get," not because it is logically correct, but because it forms part of my weird, random, patchwork heritage.

Only on saturdays.

jmnixon last visited WP on 25 Apr 2019.
Most, if not all of the others have stopped coming here too.

Where did they go? Scary when people dissapear.

Last edited by Mountain Goat on 14 Jul 2021, 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I only know that they stopped logging on here.

jmnixon95 started the 'five letter word' thread in the Off The Wall section.

It's one of the most prolific threads on the site, at getting on for 2000 pages.

This is despite the fact that around three quarters of the posts disappeared into some kind of black hole after WP closed down for its revamp in 2014.