5 Jul 2006
greenmamba
A capital idea but I suggest that Liz start with something smaller; South Africa maybe. She could then move on Canada and Australia before tackling the big fish. (Yes I did leave out New Zealand.)
On the pronunciation of "alumini(u)m" et al."
300m Americans say "aluminum"
80m Brits say "aluminium"
Who has won? When I first moved to the North American continent I was all huffy about speech until this sank in. I do however draw the line at 2 words that particularly irritate me:
They say "erbs" when they mean "herbs." How dare they!
They say "leeesure' for leisure. For some reason, possibly related to 70s fashion, this makes my blood pressure jump. I once had a British business colleague, Oxford educated, who said, "leesure." I spoke to him very roughly about the matter and he apologized. (Oops.)
5 Jul 2006
Mary Jackson
And they say potato when we say tomato.
Leezure is horrible. But some pronunciations diverge even more. For example, they pronounce "Sod off" as "Have a nice day".
5 Jul 2006
greenmamba
I used to respond to "have a nice day" by snarling, "don't tell me what to do!" It raised a few giggles until I heard Peter Ustinov suggest the more urbane, "no thanks, I have other plans."