Do Us English Find Uk English Annoying?

[hodge]

Oh, and Montreal? My mom and her husband once traveled there and went to a McDonald's (don't ask me why! out of all the likely wonderful restaurants in Montreal), placed an order in English and they refused to serve them unless they could give their order in French. Luckily, her husband was of French descent and managed to articulate enough of what they wanted, so that the attendant would serve them.

 

[hodge]

Okay, back to English. My husband fumes when he calls a computer support line and has to try to understand someone in India. Luckily, I spent several years in a relationship with a Pakistani when I was in college and so have no trouble understanding an Indian or Pakistani accent. I have offered to make those calls for him, but he has valiantly done them himself :-).

 

[Anarchy]

A slight tangent from the Montreal experience.

English isn't the only language which has dialects and usages which have died out in the country of origin, but which have survived (fossilised) in America

An Italian friend says about Americans who have passed "Italian" down through the family (probably since the revolts that took place all around Europe in 1848, and everyone who fled the crackdowns when the revolts failed)

In English, people with different dialects can generally sort of understand each other - In Italy, much less so, A "Dialect" might be an old form of German, Albanian, Latin or Anceint Greek, and two small cities twenty miles apart might have dialects that are different languages (eg Bergamo dialect - isn't understood outside of the little city of Bergamo - it's a whole different language).

What some of the Americans are bravely speaking as their family's "Italian" can be a village dialect that disappeared from Italy in 1848, and no one can understand them.

 

[Recovery4Me]

@Anarchy my friends from Italy decent use to divide their dialects by their sauces. Lol They would say,"Oh you come from a brown gravy village?" or they might mutter about Red Sauce for Spaghetti. Odd thing for me...I couldn't tell the dialects apart as they all sounded so American being first generation here, you know?:roflmao:

 

[scout86]

That's happened in other languages too. I grew up in a Norwegian-American community and my family is still in regular contact with my grandfather's family in Norway. Apparently "Norwegian", as it's spoken here, not only depend on where you immigrated from, it depends on WHEN, because they immigrant version of the language more or less stopped evolving when it arrived here. Or, maybe it just evolved differently?

 

[Recovery4Me]

@scout86 Very true for me! I grew up in a steel port town and found that for many peoples. :hug:

 

[Anarchy]

There were variations of bad grammar that were unique to every single 50 mile radius and didn't seem to be related to whether people went to school or not.

local variations in grammar tend to be internally consistent, they're not "bad" they're just different

there are also remnants of other languages in there, sometimes in the form of actual words, sometimes just in additional uses for a word, and sometimes in the form of the syntax, tenses and structure of sentences.

to someone who has their ear tuned in, it is sometimes possible to tell almost which street someone comes from.

That makes it almost impossible to pass of a fake regional accent, in front of people who know what they're listening to.

 

[sedna]

Oh, and Montreal? My mom and her husband once traveled there and went to a McDonald's (don't ask me why! ou...

French

Thats funny! A long time ago I worked with a French woman who was really snobby about being French, Unfortunately by boss made me show her around town and take her out when she started at the company. I decided that I would introduce her to an acquaintance I had from Montreal over dinner, so she would feel at home with French stuff. ( I was only 25! ...:rolleyes: ) French girl was responding to all her comments in English, even though she barely spoke it. I told her it was okay to speak French, thats why I brought her, and reassured her it wasn't rude. She turned to me , right in front of the Canadian, and said in very broken English I can't speak French with her, she is murdering the language..it is not French " :roflmao:

We let her murder English for the rest of the time I was stuck as her assistant.

 

[sedna]

local variations in grammar tend to be internally consistent, they're not "bad" they're just different..

I think that the whole accent thing in England is fascinating. I most certainly noticed it, but it was very hard to understand the importance people place on accents there. It's so complex, and there are hundreds of variations and meanings that can be extremely subtle. Not like here, where you hear a Boston accent and think automatically the guy will be rude etc.

In England people are assessing and making judgments constantly based on differences that I couldnt even hear. When I wanted to introduce people that might like each other, like at a kids party or something, I would often have to work hard at forcing people to give each other a chance because they had written each other off at first introduction. This was based only on accents. There were no educational, financial, or appearance differences that were noticeable. I dont think Americans do that or relate to it, the closest situation might be someone dismissing a person that was using bad grammar with a southern drawl as stupid, or possibly ghetto slang ( yikes, can you say ' ghetto' anymore ? ) I dont even know, I'm not going to call it ' the'hood' but you know what I mean.

I saw some real abuses of power based on the whole accent thing in the UK. In the US you can sound like you grew up with a silver spoon in every orifice, but if want somebody's money for your business, you better be able to throw down some hard core credentials and verifiable facts!

 

[sedna]

Oh oops...I dont know how I made that post look like a quote..sorry :wideeyed:

 

[trying2movefwd]

I love to hear English accents. American is quite diverse. From the Yo's to the Ya alls to the hey guys to the . . . Where in the world did we come up with these dialects? Lol

 

[Missycat]

@trying2movefwd , i hear 'hey you guys' a lot in the uk, in fact i say it alot !!! I picked it up from my travels abroad, also a massive influx of American tv.