This blog has been nominated for the Best English Blog Award 2013 by the ‘Really Learn English’ team! Wow! I’m so flattered. That’s so cool.
I’ve just seen the other blogs and they are all REALLY good. I’m in stunningly good company, so go check them out. Click the badge below and it will take you there. But please make sure you vote for this blog! Ha!
Here’s a video we’ve made contrasting some of the US-UK pronunciation differences we’ve noticed. Obviously Fred and Ginger had already given the ultimate performance, but I thought folks might enjoy hearing some other words that are pronounced differently. So here it is:
It was a bit of a challenge for us to make. After listening to one another for many years, we kept getting muddled up.
If you’re a teacher reading this, check my teaching blog because I’ve written about how you can use it to teach IPA there. And please subscribe to us on YouTube if you haven’t already.
If you liked that video you might also enjoy another one we made.
My ‘merican husband’s a fan of British TV crime dramas, but sometimes he turns to me with a puzzled look. So I plan to show him this to see his reactions.
I should explain that there’s a lot that the guys with the London accents say that I don’t understand, and I understand even less of the country Dorset accent. But here are a few of the words and phrases that went flying by. Ellipsis, cockney rhyming slang and some delightful metaphors all feature.
Perhaps I got some wrong or you spotted others? If so, do share!
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like this one on Law and Order UK.
I found lots to enjoy in this article from the New York Times Sunday review. One of their foreign correspondents, Sarah Lyall, spent 18 years living in London and she refects on the experience as she returns home.
I was surprised to read Sarah say that Brits are unduly exercised by the “special relationship” but then read:
Ha! I’d missed that story, but it is so funny. And yes, the Brit in me would want to endlessly deconstruct that too. Now why?
There are ways in which Brits can be surprising (some might think) hard to offend. Consistently portray Brits as baddies in your movies, and we’ll just find you amusing. Rub our union jack in the mud and set fire to it and we’ll think you must be a bit upset about something without getting slightly miffed ourselves. No, the way to elicit a rise out of us (or our eyebrows at least) is to give us a pile of DVDs we can’t play in return for our thoughtful gift. But look at the joke in that story – isn’t it at Obama’s expense?
I think playing the role of the unpopular kid with a much more popular friend might actually feel rather comfortable to us in an odd sort of way. If you’ve been brought up with a diet of self deprecating humour, it seems to offer a lot of potential for amusement – just so long as you can secretly feel superior.
Sarah described another incident that tickled me:
I got a friend at a party we were having to go up to a man he had never met. “Hi, I’m Stephen Bayley,” my friend said, sticking out his hand.“Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?” the man responded.
Ah wonderful! Click here read more on our greetings customs.
I threw Jay for a loop this week when I told him my khakis were in the wash. Why would I be washing my car keys, he thought. Well, for me khakis are the sort of trousers (pants) I like to wear when I’m at leisure (and that rhymes with pleasure).
So pronunciation continues to befuddle our household, but the good news is I’ve noticed he’s not trying to correct me so much. When I pronounced something differently, he used to repeat it in ‘merican, rather like you would remodel an utterance for a child. He’s always claimed he was just doing it to check he understood me, but I’ve had my doubts. Might he secretly harbour a wish that one day I’ll learn to speak clearly?
Pronunciation has hindered transatlantic romance before and I just adore the old Gershwin song about it.
Of course some of the pronunciation differences in the song are not actually real differences, but why would anyone care? They make terrific lyrics and it’s a humdinger of a song. And isn’t it actually funnier that potatoes – potahtoes aren’t pronounced that way? So why has there always been this teensy-weensy part of me that wishes it were correct, linguistically speaking? Ah dear – how sad is that?
But no more – my pedantic qualms are over. I’ve been working on making a video about BrE and AmE pronunciation differences and in the process I’ve been discovering why Gershwin had to do it like he did. When you’re looking for patterns in the differences, stress patterns feature a lot. He couldn’t feature them – they would have thrown his song off beat. Stretching those rhymes was the way to go. Win!
So I’ll get back to work on my video and tell you all about it when it’s ready. And in the meantime, I’m wondering. We’ve spoken before about some of the misunderstandings that have arisen from vocabulary differences, but has anyone got any stories to share about confusions caused by transatlantic pronunciation differences?
