Differences in Pronunciation

[Irishhenman]

Backyard Chickens is an international forum and this topic always gets some funny replies. What words do you think British (including English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) and American/Canadian people pronounce funny. I will start off with a couple of words that I think Americans pronounce strangely.

Aluminium - A controversial one but there is definitely a second i in it
tube - Americans pronounce it toob
tomato- Americans pronounce it tom - aye - to
herbs - seriously it annoys me when I watch American tv and they say erbs. It has a H !!
zebra (and pretty much any word with a Z) - There is no second e it is zebra not zeebra
data - you say d-aye-ta

That's just a few to start off with.

*Just to be clear this thread is supposed to be light hearted so please don't take it too seriously*

*Please keep it PG there are loads of kids on this site*

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Backyard Chickens is an international forum and this topic always gets some funny replies. What words do you think British (including English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish) and American/Canadian people pronounce funny. I will start off with a couple of words that I think Americans pronounce strangely.

Aluminium - A controversial one but there is definitely a second i in it alUmanUm
tube - Americans pronounce it toob tUbe
tomato- Americans pronounce it tom - aye - to tOe-mAter or just mA-ter
herbs - seriously it annoys me when I watch American tv and they say erbs. It has a H !!
zebra (and pretty much any word with a Z) - There is no second e it is zebra not zeebra
data - you say d-aye-ta dAta

That's just a few to start off with.

*Just to be clear this thread is supposed to be light hearted so please don't take it too seriously*

*Please keep it PG there are loads of kids on this site*

You are right on herbs an zebra but the read is how I say the others




Some words/ wording i laugh at from England...

Zed for Z
Duel carriage way
boot an bonnet of a car
caravan
...


Let me go watch a British movie an I will get back to ya on this...

 

[conny63malies]

There is also po-tay-to .
Duke: d-oo-kh and no d-you-k,
it really depends where you live. You would probably a pretty hard time understanding Kentucky Appalachian English. When I first moved here to Ky in 01 I wasn't sure they spoke English here. I had no clue what y'all , yous, youngins, fixin.... meant. THat wasn't the English our scotish English teacher taught us.
THe welsh got some funny words too though. I never learned how to pronounce "kwtch"

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

There is also po-tay-to .
Duke: d-oo-kh and no d-you-k,
it really depends where you live. You would probably a pretty hard time understanding Kentucky Appalachian English. When I first moved here to Ky in 01 I wasn't sure they spoke English here. I had no clue what y'all , yous, youngins, fixin.... meant. THat wasn't the English our scotish English teacher taught us.
THe welsh got some funny words too though. I never learned how to pronounce "kwtch"

You would have been better off starting in the south first. The Appalachian language is pretty much the same down here as it is up there an not far off from the rest of the south but in Kentucky they talk way faster than us down here. Down here we practically spell everything out an in Kentucky they talk like the micro machine man...


I had a friend move down here from fort knox an a few years later she called her brother. He actually though she had been in a wreck or something an something had happened to her brain cause she was talking to slow.




An you forgot younner, sammage, ornah, wenna, reckon, an polecat...

 

[Stumpy]

I watch a lot of UK television and have noticed several words that give me a chuckle when pronounced on these shows:

garage:
I say guh-RODGE. They say GAIR-udge.

schedule:
I say SKE-djull. They say SHED-youll.

Dad:
I say Dad. They say Dadt.

Maryland:
I say MAIR-i-lund. They say mair-i-LAND.

 

[Rosa moschata]

It's not just differences across the Atlantic -- there are variations here in the US that often hurt my ears, and I'm sure the effect runs the other way as well. And that's just when people talk -- I won't even go into how irksome it is to me seeing frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax, etc. It becomes humorously ironic when those errors pepper posts about how "other people" seem to "talk funny".

But that's part of how languages evolve. It may be interesting to know that once upon a time, English and German were one language. When the Saxons infiltrated what is now Great Britain and Ireland, they were speaking the Old German of that time, which gradually morphed into what we now call Old English among those who settled what is now Great Britain and Ireland. That language almost entirely usurped the native Gaelic. Over time, as changes accumulated independently in the two areas, what we now call modern German and modern English developed from their much more closely related Old German and Old English ancestors. Comparing literature from both groups going back in time, one sees their differences gradually fading away the further back one goes. Regional preferences of pronunciation, spelling, etc. differed between the two groups, leading to ever increasing differences in their languages, resulting in what we see today.

 

[BellChell123]

Quote: I'm American, but have grown up watching British Shows/movies (Check out my signature) so I sometimes pronounce certain words like British do and not even realize it, much to the anger of one of my sisters. "Herbs" for some reason is one that really annoys her. But I agree with you! There's a H in it!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

One of the residents where I work is from Australia. I love his accent, but sometimes he talks to me and I just don't understand what the heck he is trying to say! I feel so bad asking "What?" a million times! LOL

One of my favorite things he says is Trah-Kia for "Trachea" (Tray-kia).

 

[oldrooster]

Quote: Rebel they are close to NY and you've heard of a New york minute, and they speak like it there 90MPH so it spreads south into KY and slows down as it heads south.

 

[canada-goose]

As a West Coast American, I can safely say that I pronounce everything correctly, and the rest of the world is just confused.

Just kidding. I know us West Coasters sound funny too, and it's all a matter of perspective. And even we don't understand each other half the time, or so it seems.