Do British people understand American slangs?

Previous page Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next page

One important thing to remember here is that the UK is a far smaller place than English-speaking North America. I myself primarily interact only with people from the Midwest and Inland North in my daily life, aside from some Russians and like who I work with, and even then most of them are from either Wisconsin or the Chicago area. Of course, one part of this is that the Upper Midwest rather is, can we say, out of the way as the US goes, so hence we really don't get a whole lot of immigrants from other parts of the US outside the Midwest and Inland North. Aside from some people who move about the country a lot as contractors, the primary people from other parts of English-speaking North America that we get moving here are people from Chicago or Minnesota.

As a result, the dialect here really has not been "diluted" a whole lot, with the only major recent outside influences being from other Inland North dialects (and then it is primarily rather general phonological changes, which often vary at a local level, at work). If anything, there has been a general backpedaling of outside non-Inland North influence due to the apparent reduction in prestige of GA from my parents' generation to my generation combined with more regional sound changes away from GA which are stronger amongst younger people than middle-aged or older people here (such as Canadian Raising and the NCVS becoming stronger over time here).

My fellow Scottish mate and I went down to Cornwall on a ten day jaunt in Summer 2006 - the first time for both of us to go down to the West Country of England, and actually going right down into what is known as the "toe" of England - the Cornish Peninsula - was even more exciting for me than it was for my friend, who is the same age as I am.

Neither of us had been to the South West of England before - although one set of my grandparents (one Scottish - her, and the other English - him) moved down to a village near Hereford a few years ago, Herefordshire being not quite that far down south west, being one of what is known as the Marcher counties - ie English counties bordering onto Wales, Herefordshire actually being a South West Midlands county, officially. Although Herefordshire borders onto Wales it is very much an English county in character in every way, and having visted my grandparents several times down there I noticed it's very pronounced "Englishness" very much - not only is the gentle rolling landscape exceptionally beautiful, with it's very green landscape, red soil, thick woodlands and lush meadows alongside the rivers - especially the River Wye, acres and acres of apple orchards (think Bulmers cider and that's Herefordshre - especially the mind blowing, gut corroding scrumpy cider - which the locals pronounce something like "zoider" - as in Somerset. Herefordshire is full of little villages and towns full of lovely old black and white timbered houses and cottages, 12th/13th century churches built in so many different styles, and old mansions and stately houses, one of which is apparently going to be the home of Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton once they get married. It's in that bit of Herefordshire between Hereford city itself, and amazingly beautiful Ross-on-Wye.

The local acent in Herefordshire varies between the western parts (close to Wales) and the eastern parts, further into England. A definite Welsh lilt occurs in the people living in the western parts, and a distinctly West Country type accent in the easten parts, although with the younger people it's predominantly RP English English, with traces of Estuary - as ever. Nearby are the Malvern Hills, an amazing range of hills (remnants of prehistoric volcanoes) rising up to a height of c.350m and which form the boundary betwen Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and once into Worcestershire you are heading towards Birmingham and the Black Country, and around Worcester city the accent becomes clearly West Midlands, with the first traces of Brummie taking over as you get further up towards Kidderminster,Redditch and Bromsgrove.

Anyway, back to Cornwall and the trip my mate and I went on, driving all the way down from Edinburgh. We were no way in a hurry so we took it easy, even though we used the motorways for the most part, just ventung off now and again just to mooch around. My mate had never been further south in England than York, so our first stop was there, but as York is a big tourist centre it was full of all sorts of accents, but as I was at uni in Leeds, close by, I was already well familiar with the West Yorkshire accent.

Heading further south the Midlands accent took over and we stopped off at Warwick, to have a look at the magnificent castle, and we stopped the night a wee bit further on at Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of old Will. Again, masses of tourists -accents were international, and the people at the guest house we stayed at were all rather posh English English RP.

Next day, down the Fosse Way, a road which stretched on and on and on across the lush English countryside - a busy modern highway now but it still follows the route of the old Roman road, the Fosse Way. Down into the Cotswolds where the scenery was out of this world - gorgeous towns and villages all built of Cotswold stone, which is a sort of light golden fawn colour. All the people in the pubs and shops seemed to speak standard RP, although in Stow-on-the Wold the main street buzzed with American accents!

Beyond the Cotswolds, past the city of Bristol (which looks really nice but very hilly!) and into Somerset - truly in the West Country now. We made directly for Glastonbury, for obvious reasons - apart from the famous rock festival it is amazingly historic, and is reputedly the spot where Joseph of Arimathea planted a thornbush on the slopes of Glastonbury Tor (a steep hill with an ancient castle on its summit) and the thornbush flowers to this day although protected by an iron railing. Everyone in the shops and pubs in Glastonbury sounded quite standard RP, quite posh sounding at times.

Into Devon, where we stayed the night just beyond Exeter...still mostly RP (ignoring the many non Brit accents knocking around - lots of Dutch people for some reason!). Next day tearing along the A30, over the river Tamar just past Plymouth and we were into Cornwall at last - and already it didn't "look" like England and more. We were in another Celtic region, and the names were different, the landscape looked different, and we began to see the St Piran flag, the Cornish flag flying here and there.

Cornwall is truly unique, and the coastline is amazing, all rocky cliffs and headlands and wee bays & coves and small fishing villages, and on the north coast lovely sandy beaches with huge waves, making this area the very best for surfing in the entire UK. We had a go at surfing when we were near Newquay a few days later.

It was in Cornwall that we heard the real West Country accent, but mostly it was from the older people. Everyone our own age spoke the universal RP type English English, even here in so called Celtic Cornwall, and only once did we find sometone who could speak Cornish, and he actually taught it in night school in Truro, Conrwall's capital city with a cathedral which only dated back to the mid 19th century, easily the newest of all British cathedrals.

One evening we had a good laugh with a group of people in a pub overlooking the wee harbour at Mousehole (pronounced "Mah-ooo-zl") - a former fishing village across the bay from Penzance and St Michael's Mount- a rocky island whichcan only be reached on foot at low tide. In this pub were a group of old guys quaffing ale from tankards and speaking in the real Cornish accent which to us may well have been Swahili for all we knew - we could hardly understand a word they said but that night was one good laugh! The meal we had in that pub was fantastic too - fish freshly caught that day.

I was disappointed in hearing Cornish being spoken only once, but it did die out once and was revived again in the 20th century by a small group of enthusiasts. It looks very similar to Welsh - that's no surprise at all, as they are blood bros after all, as are the Bretons just over on the other side of the Channel.

My mum told me turkeys sit on leaves in trees. She said the leaves fall off the tree in the autumn and that's why Americans call it the Fall. Turkeys fall out of trees in autumn because they were sitting on the leaves. That's why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in the Fall and eat turkeys. We never have any turkeys sitting in our tree so we don't celebrate thanksgiving. Dad put a birdbox in the tree but I suppose the turkeys dont like it or maybe the cats scare them away. oh well.

Turkeys are generally flightless (no more than a few meters) so they don't end up in trees that much... We eat turkey because, story has it, that's what they ate at the First Thanksgiving. In reality though it was probably a lot of fish and corn.

If anyone dares suggest that British people talk like Americans I'm a gonna hunt chu down and pop a cap in yo ass muthaf****.

The town that I live in (In California) was once 80% Cornish, so we actually do get a fair amount of influence from that culture, especially at Christmas, believe it or not.

I read somewhere that the word broil is used primarily on the West coast and is actually a Cornish word that came into regualar usage on this end of the country, but not elsewhere. I'm not very tended to believe that, (I mean, ovens have a broil setting) but I still wonder if its true. Can anyone verify that? Damian?

As far as I can make out the word "broil" can have several meanings, but it's most often used in a culinary sense - similar to "grill", by which we mean cooking food under the source of heat on a grilling pan - the ones with ridges in them, usually. My dictionary says that "broil" (as in cooking) is use mostly in North America, whereas here in the UK we tend to use "grill".

Broil can also mean becoming extremely hot, as in exposure to searing, direct sunlight, as when sitting down to a picnic, without any shade, at midday, in the sands of the Libyan desert with the nearest oasis 500 km away to the north of you, in a temperature of 50C. It can also mean fury, anger - as you would experience on discovering that you had left your parasol back at base camp.

Broil can also mean a brawl, a skirmish, a violent encounter - and being involved in this sort of caper is to become "embroiled" in it.

Apparently the word "broil" is believed to be Old French in origin ("bruillir" - to burn) but it's all a wee bit uncertain. If the Cornish use the word "broil" more than they do "grill" then maybe there is some kind of Cornish connection, but we never heard it used when we were down there, and we sure as hell never became embroiled in any kind of fracas either. (Pronouced "eye-thurr" btw!) ;-)

Another definition of origin could be another Old French word "brouiller" meaning a combination of to mix and, for some strange reason, "broth", the stuff they usd to eat long ago in Victorian times when they were feeling "unwell" or going into a "decline".

I never knew there was a Cornish colony in California. Is that because the surfing there is better than it is on Perranporth beach? You just cannae get a more Cornish name than Perranporth! The "porth" bit is Celtic for a harbour or a coastal haven, I believe - the same as in Welsh...all part of the bond of Celtic Brotherhood! ;-0

I loved driving across Bodmin Moor - in the middle of the Cornish Peninsula - you can see both the Cornish north coast (Atlantic) and the Cornish south coast (the English Channel) in both directions. The south coast is crap for surfing.

<<I read somewhere that the word broil is used primarily on the West coast and is actually a Cornish word that came into regualar usage on this end of the country, but not elsewhere.>>

Just out of curioity, what word do we use on the East Coast in place of broil?

Damian- It was a mining town and apparently times were tough for the hard rock miners over in Cornwall, so somehow they all landed here.

Thanks for your rather discriptive definitions of the word "broil". So do ovens in Britain come with a broil setting?

It sounds like this is similar to the difference between what a Texan means when he says barbeque and what a Californian means by the same word.

Rene - ovens can come in all shapes and sizes, but all of them have "grills" (or "broilers" if you prefer....I prefer grills as it sounds nicer) and of course they have different settings. The grills are usually placed below the top plates and above the over proper. When you make toast it's better to place the slices of bread under the grill rather than in a toaster - that doyenne of the culinary arts Delia Smith said that, something to do with the escape of the steam from the bread, but of course you have to keep your eye on it unless you like your toast charred black and your kitchen full of the smell of burnt toast.

Many people like to have Aga cookers (either solely or in addition to "normal" cookers, but I'm not sure whether they have grills (sorry - broilers). I suspect not.

The mines in Cornwall were mainly tin mines - the shafts went down an incredible distance and the tunels extended well out under the sea......a very dangerous environment but the commercial profits at the time (18th-20th centuries) were enormous. Cornwall also had a great many clay quarries, some of which we saw near St Austell. They were blots on the Cornish landscapes, now being aesthetically camouflaged by different means. The highly successful Eden Project is one such - that is one amazing experience - all the world's climates and relative vegetations contained under those massive thermostatically controlled domes.

I was so disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm in the revival of the Cornish Language in Cornwall. We only heard one bloke speak it, and he only had a very limited vocabulary. Maybe we needed to look into it a wee bit more but we had so many other distractions down there in Kernow.

<<I read somewhere that the word broil is used primarily on the West coast and is actually a Cornish word that came into regualar usage on this end of the country>>

The word "broil" appears in Middle English, no doubt as Damian mentions from (Norman) French.

Here's a short extract from Chaucer (1343-1400) which includes the word:

"He koude rooste, and sethe, and broille, and frye"

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/cookport.htm

Interestingly we only use the word "seethe" today when we mean someone is furious, whereas in the sentence it means boil - I guess when we say someone is seething, we are effectively saying that their blood is boiling!

In San Diego one of my friends told me he bought his girlfriend a barbecue... And I said "a barbecued what...?"

I've always been aware that there are people out there who refer to a grill as a barbecue, but I didn't think in the US... A "barbecue" to me, a Texan, is a type of sauce or a type of party, at which you have food with barbecue sauce, etc.

I think in the South they're called cookouts. In the rest of the US they're called BBQs (like that Simpsons episode with the BBBQ, etc.).

In Britain a barbecue is a grill-thing that men use to prove why they should never be allowed in the kitchen unsupervised.

BBQ sauce is something poored on sausages and other meat (that is black on the outside, pink on the inside) and is used to embellish the rich flavour of fire-lighters that most Brits seem to find delicious on a summer evening.

Personally I don't attend BBQ's because I have a gas-oven that does the job much better but I'm aware that some people prefer to forget about hundreds of years of progress and use some primative method instead. That's their choice - unless they live next door to me. I don't want your smoke thank you very much.

It's strange how hungry you suddenly feel when you become aware of your neighbours' BBQs. The aroma of grilled (or broiled?) steaks or sausages or burgers wafting over the boundary fence or hedge has you running straight for the fridge or freezer.

Previous page Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next page