Stephen <mcavoysAT@aolDOTcom> wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:41:12 +0200, clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> >Then I drove down to the English Midlands, and at some point had to ask
> >for directions late at night. I stopped and asked some bloke that
> >happened to be there. He told me, and I nodded and thanked him politely.
> >
> >Then I drove further down the road to ask someone else... >_<
>
> Scots is a Germanic language and if you have a noticeable German accent the
> people will speak slowly. Which is more than can be said of a lot of people in
> the midlands (Bill excepted, I'm sure :). They make no allowances for outsiders.

Well actually if you'd asked me for directions you'd hear a generic southern,
possibly south london accent - I don't originate from these parts!

I think a lot of the difficulty with understanding brits (I'm sure this holds
true in other languages too) is the huge variation in vernacular and idiom.
Rhyming slang in particular, a great deal of which has been absorbed into
standard english without many people noticing - there's a brilliant and
hilarious scene in Guy Ritchie's 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' where a
minor character relates a story using well over 50% cockney rhyming slang. Even
the english versions of the film subtitled that scene!

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On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:57:43 EDT, "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom>
wrote:

>
>Well actually if you'd asked me for directions you'd hear a generic southern,
>possibly south london accent - I don't originate from these parts!
>

Phew! :)

>I think a lot of the difficulty with understanding brits (I'm sure this holds
>true in other languages too) is the huge variation in vernacular and idiom.

It is strange going abroad to English speaking countries who have their own
idioms. In Nigeria I spent ages greeting people with "Howdy" when actually they
were saying "How day" or "How are they" meaning "how are your family?" a
traditional greeting. Or nearer home in Aberdeen where they say "Fit like ma
loon". In Glasgow we say "no bad" when we mean it's good.

>Rhyming slang in particular, a great deal of which has been absorbed into
>standard english without many people noticing - there's a brilliant and
>hilarious scene in Guy Ritchie's 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' where a
>minor character relates a story using well over 50% cockney rhyming slang. Even
>the english versions of the film subtitled that scene!
>
>
Cockney rhyming slang is beyond the pale (the English controlled parts of
Ireland in the 15th Cent.) China.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 08/16/09 12:31, Stephen wrote:
> It is strange going abroad to English speaking countries who have their own
> idioms. In Nigeria I spent ages greeting people with "Howdy" when actually they

	Freeman Dyson wrote in a recent article about a Russian advisor of his 
at university:

"Although I was only seventeen years old and Besicovitch was already a
famous professor, he gave me a great deal of his time and attention, and
we became life-long friends. He set the style in which I began to work
and think about mathematics. He gave wonderful lectures on
measure-theory and integration, smiling amiably when we laughed at his
glorious abuse of the English language. I remember only one occasion
when he was annoyed by our laughter. He remained silent for a while and
then said, 'Gentlemen. Fifty million English speak English you
speak. Hundred and fifty million Rus- sians speak English I speak.'"


-- 
I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any 
difference. - Steven Wright

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On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:04:13 -0500, Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:

>"Although I was only seventeen 
...

I'm not sure that I follow you.
BTW I was not laughing at Nigerians I was amused at my own misunderstanding.
You understand me mon?
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Chambers wrote:
> (Usually it's due to a poor job mixing sound levels, as the dialog will 
> be quite low while the music / sound effects will be incredibly loud).

That might be your sound system. Check that you don't have 5.1 turned on 
with two speakers, or vice versa. Usually the voices are mixed for the 
center channel, and if you're missing the center speaker it sounds muddled 
like that.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> the english versions of the film subtitled that scene!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Ef5Aob4cE

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Darren New wrote:
> Chambers wrote:
>> (Usually it's due to a poor job mixing sound levels, as the dialog 
>> will be quite low while the music / sound effects will be incredibly 
>> loud).
> 
> That might be your sound system. Check that you don't have 5.1 turned on 
> with two speakers, or vice versa. Usually the voices are mixed for the 
> center channel, and if you're missing the center speaker it sounds 
> muddled like that.
> 

Hmm... that would make sense.  I guess a more permanent solution would 
be to fork out for a surround sound system, of course :)  Unfortunately, 
it's going to be a while before I can do that, so I'll try setting it to 
stereo instead and see if that helps.

...Chambers

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>  However, in practice it seems that the difference between an average
> British accent and an average American accent is way subtler and much more
> indistinguishable, at least to me.

The most universal difference I've come across is how "t" is pronounced.  In 
America it seems nobody actually pronounces it as a "t" but more of a soft 
"d" sound.  To me, an American who says "Dakota" sounds pretty much the same 
as "Dakoda", in an average British English accent they are completely 
different sounds.

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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >  However, in practice it seems that the difference between an average
> > British accent and an average American accent is way subtler and much more
> > indistinguishable, at least to me.
>
> The most universal difference I've come across is how "t" is pronounced.  In
> America it seems nobody actually pronounces it as a "t" but more of a soft
> "d" sound.  To me, an American who says "Dakota" sounds pretty much the same
> as "Dakoda", in an average British English accent they are completely
> different sounds.

Indeed, many southern english accents wouldn't pronounce the 't' at all...! I
bet that's a real pain for non-brits.

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Warp wrote:

>   However, in the movie "No country for old men" they spoke with such a
> thick Texan accent that at many places I had really hard time understanding
> what they were saying. Do Texans really speak with such a thick accent?

Some do, some don't.  It could be that in those places, the actor was 
not speaking very clearly to begin with, such that other Texans would 
have trouble understanding the dialogue as well.

However, I am told that from a accent/dialect viewpoint, English is one 
of the least diverse of the major languages, although some regional 
accents take a bit of getting used to.

Regards,
John

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