British English

Dutifully I have just attended Easter Mass at a local Church here in Putney, South West London - this YT clip features the Yorkshire town of Harrogate - a health spa among other things, and scene of the English novelist Agatha Christie's mysterious "disappearance" in December 1926.

For personal reasons of her own she decided to "escape" from the world and sought refuge in the seclusion existing in those days in one of Harrogate's prime hotels leaving behind her husband and everyone else who had no knowledge whatsoever of her whereabouts for about eight days. Back then means of rapid communication was nothing like it is today with, among other things, no paparazzi press to speak of and that most hated of professionals - intrusive and brazenly hard nosed journalists. She signed into the hotel under a fasle name and nobody had any idea of her identity. Perhaps she was cooking up some new storyline in her very fecund writer's brain.

Again for some reason, Harrogate has a fairly largeish American contingent living in and arround the town. Well, it is an affluent and gracious town but a wee bit too "genteel and elderly and twee" for me, and most of it's younger elements tend to go to nearby Leeds for a wee bit of fun. Harrogate seems to be obsessed with holding flower shows, apparently. We;ll, spring is well and truly here with us now and everywhere is bursting out into bloom and blossom.

Easter blessings to all for whom it is significant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4nthSdRMGk&feature=related

Dutifully I have just attended Easter Mass at a local Church here in Putney, South West London - this YT clip features the Yorkshire town of Harrogate - a health spa among other things, and scene of the English novelist Agatha Christie's mysterious "disappearance" in December 1926.

For personal reasons of her own she decided to "escape" from the world and sought refuge in the seclusion existing in those days in one of Harrogate's prime hotels leaving behind her husband and everyone else who had no knowledge whatsoever of her whereabouts for about eight days. Back then means of rapid communication was nothing like it is today with, among other things, no paparazzi press to speak of and that most hated of professionals - intrusive and brazenly hard nosed journalists. She signed into the hotel under a fasle name and nobody had any idea of her identity. Perhaps she was cooking up some new storyline in her very fecund writer's brain.

Again for some reason, Harrogate has a fairly largeish American contingent living in and arround the town. Well, it is an affluent and gracious town but a wee bit too "genteel and elderly and twee" for me, and most of it's younger elements tend to go to nearby Leeds for a wee bit of fun. Harrogate seems to be obsessed with holding flower shows, apparently. Well, spring is well and truly here with us now and everywhere is bursting out into bloom and blossom.

Easter blessings to all for whom it is significant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4nthSdRMGk&feature=related

I cannot imagine that Queen Elizabeth and Britney Spears would have a hard time understanding each other. I do not understand, however, why Europeans seem to think Britney Spears represents any thing more than herself, and even of that, I am skeptical. Have you never heard of Gore Vidal, Meryl Streep, or Maya Angelou . . . anyone other than Britney Spears?

The Queen and Britney would have no trouble understanding each other. General American and Received Pronunciation are much closer to each other than either is to some of the more obscure regional accents in North America and Britain.

There are unusual-sounding accents all over the English-speaking world, European. Try South African or Australian sometime, and then compare them to RP. This phenomenon happens in all languages, I'm pretty sure.

"What about American and British pronunciation and intonation (particularly the posh one)? Sometimes they sound like two different languages.....Try to hear The Queen and Britney Spears? Do they speak the same language?"

The Queen is an altogether better singer, but apart from that there's no difference other than the fact that that the Queen can exit a vehicle without exposing herself.

>>The Queen and Britney would have no trouble understanding each other. General American and Received Pronunciation are much closer to each other than either is to some of the more obscure regional accents in North America and Britain.<<

I would go further and say that the differences between GA and RP, aside from one being rhotic and the other being non-rhotic, are utterly trivial as variation between English dialects goes. GA has a few vowel phoneme mergers, and more extensive ones before /r/ (but mind you that RP already has a number of mergers before /r/ in reality), while RP has a few lexically-specific vowel shifts. There are also a few differences in usage, but they are likewise trivial, with even the difference in the usage of number with respect to collectiveness being overstated. These differences are nothing compared to the differences between many less standard English dialects and their closest standards.

With a bit of effort, any two native speakers of English could understand one another. There may be individual words that are unique to a certain area but the underlying structure of the language is the same.

People who have learned standard English as a second language may experience problems with unfamiliar regional accents and dialects as they don't have the same grounding in the language that a true native speaker does.

All languages have dialects, ranging from minute differences to serious comprehension problems. Despite it's geographical spread and sheer weight of native speakers, English has converged towards mutual understanding of a common form over the last few decades, most probably due to the overwhelming presence of English in popular media.

The problem is that only 3% of British people use RP...Most people have heavy accents (even dialects!!!) In Northern America, heavy accents/dialects are used in limited areas of the South and on some scattered areas on the East Coast, but even there, many people speak like newscasters (unlike in the UK). In the UK, ''standardized'' accent is class-related, in the US, it is not. Many young people in the South fancy California and they end up imitating the SoCal accent (not only Hillary Duff, Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears ;) but ordinary people too )


Americans seem to adore British English, but when it comes to comprehension, they need subtitles to understand ''Trainspotting'' and American kids need translation to understand Harry Potter books.

Meryl Streep

She's the most famous and skilled American actress. She's well-known all around the world!

>>The problem is that only 3% of British people use RP...Most people have heavy accents (even dialects!!!) In Northern America, heavy accents/dialects are used in limited areas of the South and on some scattered areas on the East Coast, but even there, many people speak like newscasters (unlike in the UK).<<

Such also applies to much of the Upper Midwest as well in the former regard, but then, practically no one there really speaks General American proper even if they use quite careful and formal speech which seeks to emulate such (which seems to be more common middle-aged middle and upper class people than in younger or older people).

>>In the UK, ''standardized'' accent is class-related, in the US, it is not. Many young people in the South fancy California and they end up imitating the SoCal accent (not only Hillary Duff, Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears ;) but ordinary people too )<<

Depends - many of us tend to regard much of that associated with southern California more with revulsion than anything else, actually.

>>Americans seem to adore British English, but when it comes to comprehension, they need subtitles to understand ''Trainspotting'' and American kids need translation to understand Harry Potter books.<<

At least for me, Trainspotting was perfectly understandable without subtitles (even though I hear that the Scots used in the book rather than the movie is far less intelligible to those who do not know it). Likewise, those here in the US who are aware of the translation of the Harry Potter books tend to find such to be ridiculous, to say the very least.

The language used in the Trainspotting novel was a phonetic rendition of Edinburgh street vernacular. I live just over the water in Fife and even I found some of the words strange.

Interesting how later novels by Irvine Welsh toned the dialect down significantly......an international marketing strategy perhaps?

In contrast, I thought the dialogue on the film was clear. Edinburgh accent yes, but not that far removed from normal English.

<<Americans seem to adore British English, but when it comes to comprehension, they need subtitles to understand ''Trainspotting'>>

Is there a totally unintelligible clip from "Trainspotting" on YouTube? (All the ones I've found so far aren't all that bad.) I have seen 99% unintelligible UK accents (from Scotland) and 90% unintelligible accents from the US (Gullah) on YouTube, though.

Most of the book Trainspotting wasn't so bad either. Most of the character POVs didn't too much dialect and the ones that did, well, reading outloud to yourself is only humiliating if other people can hear you.

The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) commented "No Englishman can open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him".

It isn't quite as true as it was in Shaw's day, but there is still prejudice against both regional and class accents among some people in Britain.

In Wales and Scotland, because of nationalist tendencies, some people have strong feelings against any English accent.

Some southern and northern English tend to be prejudiced against each other's accents.

Some "educated" Britons tend to look down on people with "working class" accents, particularly the London and south-eastern accent.

Some working class people tend to regard those with "educated" speech as arrogant or conceited.

Actually, thinking about it, Shaw might say exactly the same thing if he came back and witnessed what is still going on!