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Heaven: 2021 Proof Americans and Brits speak a different language

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  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    To me "bored of" and "bored by" is a nuanced distinction having to do with how long I've had to tolerate the boring thing. So I might be bored by the long sermon my pastor is preaching, but if he's been doing this every week for ages, I may be growing bored of his sermons, and perhaps his whole ministry, in a more general sense. That might just be how I use it though.
  • Saw this meme today: Those who don't know burro from burrow don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Fun item for this thread- Jay Leno when he did The Tonight Show used to do a bit called "Headlines", sort of like our "Headlines of Utter Weirdness" except it was anything printed in newspapers including things in the body of the story, classifieds, and photos. I ran across an old clip where he had a photo of Prince Charles meeting and shaking the hand of the CEO of Walmart with a woman standing back between them. The caption said: "The woman was unidentified but she might have been an interpreter." :lol:
  • I heard a curious Americanism with no British equivalent that I can think of when someone told my wife's elderly grandpa something he didn't believe. His immediate response was, "So's your old man!" I asked about it later and was told it was a perfectly normal thing to say in Montana.

    (Exact conversation... Neighbour: "Walter - there's water in the irrigation ditch!" Grandpa: "So's your old man!")
  • I heard a curious Americanism with no British equivalent that I can think of when someone told my wife's elderly grandpa something he didn't believe. His immediate response was, "So's your old man!" I asked about it later and was told it was a perfectly normal thing to say in Montana.

    (Exact conversation... Neighbour: "Walter - there's water in the irrigation ditch!" Grandpa: "So's your old man!")

    There are phrases in Anglo-English that serve the same purpose. 'And the rest!' leaps to mind. It certainly doesn't literally mean exactly the same as 'So's your old man!' (and now I come to think about it, I'm not sure quite what it's literally meant to mean) but both are short phrases capable of being spoken in a thoroughly disbelieving tone - which to at least some extent is the point of them.
  • "Tell it to the Marines" was common in England, to express incredulity, but is probably dying out.
  • In the Socialism thread, as the topic turns to buses (as it always does), people are speaking of buses "picking up" and "setting down" passengers. This contrasts to nomenclature in the States (as I have experienced it): buses don't set down passengers, they let off passengers. (Or to be more accurate they let passengers off, although splitting the phrasal verb doesn't change the meaning, only the expression.)
  • Does a bus passenger being let off mean he doesn't have to ride the bus any more? :tongue:
  • Does a bus passenger being let off mean he doesn't have to ride the bus any more? :tongue:

    At least at that moment, yes.
  • "Pull the other leg, it's got bells on!"
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Or in the words of the Scotrail guard at Wishaw - 'Ah yous in there for oot here get aff'.

    I seem to remember that bus passengers 'alighted' back in the day,
  • In Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno they descend:
    He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
    Descending from the bus:
    He looked again, and found it was
    A Hippopotamus.
    'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
    'There won't be much for us!'
  • The announcements on the tube often say ‘alight here’ though I don’t think it is commonly used by the passengers.

    I always think of ‘alight to lighten the Gentiles’...
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Or as it's paraphrased in graffiti in pub lavatories: "a light to lighten the genitals".

    I'll fetch my own coat.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    mousethief wrote: »
    In the Socialism thread, as the topic turns to buses (as it always does), people are speaking of buses "picking up" and "setting down" passengers. This contrasts to nomenclature in the States (as I have experienced it): buses don't set down passengers, they let off passengers. (Or to be more accurate they let passengers off, although splitting the phrasal verb doesn't change the meaning, only the expression.)

    I think I would go with letting off passengers here... although the whole idea that it's somehow up to the bus (or even the driver) rather than the passengers feels odd. You just get off the bus.

    Yes, I realise that this is only practical if the bus ceases to move, but that's what happens if you press the button to indicate you want to get off at the next stop.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Passengers may well be let down - the train goes speeding through a station where it's meant stop, for example.
  • 'Tell that to the Marines' - originally 'Tell that to the Horse Marines' i.e. people who don't exist.
  • "It's a bit black over Will's mothers" (or Bill's mothers) is a phrase used in parts of the UK (although possibly now falling out of usage) to describe when there are heavy clouds on the horizon, threatening a downpour.

    Has this phrase made it across the Pond? And are there any American phrases that have a similar usage in predicting the weather?
  • Piglet wrote: »
    Or as it's paraphrased in graffiti in pub lavatories: "a light to lighten the genitals".

    I'll fetch my own coat.

    I have naturally enlarged testicles. Every so often the doctor wants to check to see if there is not an anomaly. Guess how he does he does it.
  • I was looking at the thread in the Circus, where you mangle a song by replacing the word "girl" by the word "squirrel". It occurred to me that maybe these words rhyme in American English. Would that be correct?
  • Ack so they don't in Britspeak? I never thought of that.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Ack so they don't in Britspeak? I never thought of that.

    Not outside Scotland (and possibly N Ireland). One syllable vs two
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'd say both Scots and Irish would say 'girl' and 'squirr-el'. Definitely not near homophones.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    edited February 2021
    King William II, called William Rufus on account of his red hair, was killed in hunting accident by a Walter Tirrell, hence the rhyme:

    Nobody knows if the fellow called Tirrell
    Was trying to shoot at the King or a squirrel. (Eleanor Farjeon)
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Piglet wrote: »
    Or as it's paraphrased in graffiti in pub lavatories: "a light to lighten the genitals".

    I'll fetch my own coat.

    I have naturally enlarged testicles. Every so often the doctor wants to check to see if there is not an anomaly. Guess how he does he does it.

    Too much information 😳
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    ... where you mangle a song by replacing the word "girl" by the word "squirrel". It occurred to me that maybe these words rhyme in American English. Would that be correct?

    Yes, that's correct.

  • It really depends. I say squirr-el.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I was looking at the thread in the Circus, where you mangle a song by replacing the word "girl" by the word "squirrel". It occurred to me that maybe these words rhyme in American English. Would that be correct?

    Took me a while to realise they can rhyme in an American accent - it was from finding a song from Guys and Dolls, where I realised that, in Adelaide's accent, the song would still rhyme when girl was replaced by squirrel. Then I realised that was probably the point of the game, rather than an amusing coincidence!

  • fineline wrote: »
    I was looking at the thread in the Circus, where you mangle a song by replacing the word "girl" by the word "squirrel". It occurred to me that maybe these words rhyme in American English. Would that be correct?

    Took me a while to realise they can rhyme in an American accent - it was from finding a song from Guys and Dolls, where I realised that, in Adelaide's accent, the song would still rhyme when girl was replaced by squirrel. Then I realised that was probably the point of the game, rather than an amusing coincidence!
    For most Americans, it actually works the other way around. As I normally hear it, “squirrel” is one syllable and is pronounced skwirl.

  • I'd call it one-and-a-half syllables--it's got that glide thingy going on at the end (someone more erudite can give it the proper name). Basically a schwa in the second syllable.
  • I'd call it one-and-a-half syllables--it's got that glide thingy going on at the end (someone more erudite can give it the proper name). Basically a schwa in the second syllable.
    Maybe in some parts of the US. Here, not so much—no more of a schwa before the l than in girl or swirl.

  • Yes, exactly. I pronounce those as syllable-and-a-half, as I do "world" as well.

    I'm from California originally (LA basin).
  • Hmmm. FWIW, I just looked up “swirl,” “girl” and “squirrel” in the dictionary, and I got these for pronunciations:

    ˈswər(-ə)l
    ˈgər(-ə)l
    ˈskwər(-ə)l

    So an “optional” schwa in each.

    BTW, for “squirrel,” it gives as a chiefly British pronunciation: ˈskwir-əl

  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    Jonah--

    IME, "girl" and "squirrel" are close in US pronunciation, with some regional variance. "Squirrel" is generally pronounced as two syllables, though, so doesn't rhyme with "girl" *exactly*.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    For most UK speakers, girl has the same vowel as 'air', and the r is not pronounced in either. It's not, for us, remotely like squirrel, where the first vowel is like the one is the one in "is", and only the second is a schwa.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Hmm. This UK speaker would say that ‘air’ has the same vowel as ‘care’ or ‘there’, whereas ‘girl’ has the same vowel as ‘curl’ or ‘twirl’.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    BroJames wrote: »
    Hmm. This UK speaker would say that ‘air’ has the same vowel as ‘care’ or ‘there’, whereas ‘girl’ has the same vowel as ‘curl’ or ‘twirl’.

    Always been "gairl" for me (same vowel as "care") to the extent I've always considered it one of those words with a weird spelling for its sound. I'm familiar with the "gurl" pronunciation but don't use it myself.

    I presume the 'air' variation is where the upper class "gels" comes from.
  • Gracious RebelGracious Rebel Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    Yes here in the UK squirrel definitely has 2 syllables, the first one is like the sound in squid (without the d of course) and the second has a schwa vowel and begins with a non rhotic 'r'. Whereas girl is a single syllable, rhymes with curl (and neither of these words has any r sounded at all). Very different to squirrel.
  • Nigel Molesworth (of 'Down with Skool') spells it 'gurl'. Just saying.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I rhyme girl and curl. I think I do pronounce the r: it's just that as I have a non-rhotic accent you can't tell.
  • *stunned*
  • And in the vernacular in these parts “girl” is gir-ul, so not a million miles from squirr-ul.
  • Then we could get into 'film' vs 'fil-um'. I first heard 'fil-um' from a friend in Inverness, and not again until I was in Texas.
  • Then we could get into 'film' vs 'fil-um'. I first heard 'fil-um' from a friend in Inverness, and not again until I was in Texas.

    Gaelic doesn't run consonants together, which is why you tend to get those epenthetic vowels in Scots and Irish accents. Don't know whether Welsh does this, but I'm sure one of our Welsh speakers will enlighten us. Why do Texans do it?
  • Texans believe in never using one syllable where three can be used.

    (unfair stereotype :wink: )

    Actually, I don't know. But I could listen to it all day. It's rather beautiful.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2021
    Then we could get into 'film' vs 'fil-um'. I first heard 'fil-um' from a friend in Inverness, and not again until I was in Texas.

    Gaelic doesn't run consonants together, which is why you tend to get those epenthetic vowels in Scots and Irish accents. Don't know whether Welsh does this, but I'm sure one of our Welsh speakers will enlighten us. Why do Texans do it?

    Welsh does. Cefn - back, ysbyty - hospital, but notice it doesn't (or didn't) like starting words with some clusters so stuck a y (pronounced as a schwa) at the front. With virtually every Welsh speaker in Wales (as opposed to Patagonia) over the age of around 6 bilingual with English, those clusters no longer represent a problem and we hear stafell for ystafell (room), sgwennu for ysgrifennu (to write) and so on. However, pobl (people) and cwbl (all) are often pronounced, and sometimes even written, as pobol and cwbwl.
  • Back on squirrels, when somebody posted a link to this a few months ago, I didn't really think about the pronunciation beyond the fact that the singer (of course) had an American accent (I don't know enough to say what kind of American accent; Wikipedia says that he comes from Georgia). In the light of the discussion here, I wondered whether I would have realised what the song was about if I had just heard it without seeing the title or the video. Listening to it again, I notice that he seems to pronounce the word sometimes as a single syllable almost rhyming with the way Nigel Molesworth and I pronounce 'girl' (but with the 'r' somewhat noticeable), and sometimes as two syllables much more like the UK pronunciation; compare 0.33 and 0.48 in the video. In context the former doesn't sound as odd to me as the statement that 'squirrel' and 'girl' rhyme in the USA does in isolation.

    (Nigel Molesworth, for anyone unfamiliar with him)
  • Texans believe in never using one syllable where three can be used.

    (unfair stereotype :wink: )

    Actually, I don't know. But I could listen to it all day. It's rather beautiful.

    My friend Rich was on a tour of the Holy Land many decades ago, and one of the people on the tour was an older woman from Texas (she seemed older to teenage Richie — probably no older than we are now). He remarked to her how he liked the way she said Baaaaaaahubull. She asked well honey how do you say it? "BY-bəl" he answered. She replied, "It don't hardly sound like the Word of God like that!"
  • Less piously, I was always impressed by the way a Texan colleague could effortlessly say "Sh-i-i-t" in three syllables when the rest of us could only manage one.
  • I can do two! But then, I'm in Missouri.
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