I got lost in Wales and asked a pedestrian for directions. He had been talking for at least a minute before I realized he was actually speaking English. I managed to glean that he didn't drive and didn't know what road to take to get to Cardiff, but the rest of what he said went right over my head.
This reminds me of an old Blackadder episode... Blackadder : Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick? Baldrick : No, but I've often thought I'd like to. Blackadder : Well don't, it's a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough sinewy men roam the valleys terrorising people with their close-harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the placenames. Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick, you'll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight.
I have a half-philadelphian accent......I say Water sometimes "wooter" and mostly "wawder"....I don't think anybody really say "WATER" expressing the 't' in my area. I can't really tell. It's hard to talk about your own accent.... Z
LOL, I speak very basic welsh myself, its not that well spoken in the south east, though nearly all schools being built are of a welsh medium now. I wish I did speak welsh. However, I was watching a documentary and Liv Tyler was talking about her learning elvish (not Elvis) for Lord of the rings, and I thought that it sounded very much like Welsh indeed. As for not understanding Welsh people speaking English i think that could be attributed to any accent, on my first trip to Newcastle, I couldn't understand a damn word they spoke up there and even thought they had their own language (I was 8). What makes me really laugh is when you watch American programms and they have somebody British on there (with an accent) and they subtitle it LOL, I mean with America being so vast they have properly a plethora of accents to get used to, so it really should be that necessary to subtitle a British accent?
i've got the american non-accent. you can't even tell what part of the country i'm from until i say "y'all" ("you guys" just sounds wierd). that's the only indicator, but if you wanted to get a more exact idea of my current location, i'll tell you that later on today i gotta go "make groceries." Know where I am?
Some of us are more than savvy to Blackadder, The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, Eastenders, Coronation Street, To The Manor Born, Are You Being Served, etc... Edit ~ Oh, and one of my favorites, Keeping Up Appearances. "Bouquet (Bucket) Residence, Lady of the house speaking!"
LOL, Dont mind Blackadder (slight) maybe Red dawrf (before cable TV and nothing else on) but the rest. Blurch, they are the worst of Brit TV HeHe each to tehir own they say.
Well, luv, we takes we gets 'ere in the states, aye? PS. Did I mention I love Danger Mouse! (Penfold, hush!)
PMSL, errr erm, acronym for laughing so much I'm wetting myself (I'm sorry), the non sware version. PS also started the thread on cartoon characters
Sorry I don't mean to seem picky it's just 'British' and 'English' don't mean the same thing. The UK stands for the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', so a British accent could be from England, Scotland or Wales.
PG, luv, we've gone round and round with this one. Accept the fact the we yanks are a bit thick when it comes to the wording of things from the UK and its constituent parts.
I agree, but in the spirit of the thread in which we are posting, the average (I said average!) American ear is deaf to the differences in U.K. accents that for you are startlingly clear from one town to the next. Our own accents here in the states are quite pronounced to us and the slight variations in word usage can pin a person down to a given state or just a part of a state, to us. I doubt these very subtle differences would be apparent to someone not from the U.S. And, just as another example of not knowing certain geo-political facts about other countries which are clear as day in that given country, without looking on the internet for the answer (be honest now), can you tell me in which state Washington D.C. resides?
Thats actually missing the point, and is a poor example. It would be the same as me saying New York is part of Canada. Whilst they share the same North American Continent, they are most certainly not the same country. Wales, Scotland, N Ireland and not the same Country as England, nor are they "states" of England. Its not Geo-political its Geo-graphical. Pedantic Bugga ain't I
Sorry maybe I have mentioned this before, I know everyone probably has something that foreigners get wrong which annoys them and this would be mine. So sorry it's just I can't help correcting people on this issue, but i will try stop mentioning it here. It's not just Americans that do it, everyone does, so I probably should just get over it, or become a Scottish nationalist and campaign for independence that will make my issues with identity easier
Virginia? I'm reasonably sure, i think... I think though the US is in the news a lot and we have lots of tv programmes on the US, so it's understandable that british people are going to know a reasonable amount on the US.
damn that's wrong! Oh well I was close, at least i didn't say Texas Or is it? Wikipedia confused me just saying that it's in the district of Colombia, bordering Virginia and Maryland? Ah well in my defense my point was more with identity than geography
