Do you speak differently than you write?

<<Maybe you've got me wrong, but I think it's all the same in Germany, too. Everyone understands Hochdeutsch. Most of us speak Hochdeutsch, even if they speak ''Platt'' at home.>>

What I meant was that for the majority of Americans, they both understand standard English AND speak it at home. They don't switch between standard and some other dialect -- standard is all they speak.

I agree with Uriel. Most Americans speak pretty similarly except for some isolated cases.

On my travels to sunny Morecombe, I met a Hasidic Jew on the beach. I had a little chat with him. He said he came from Manchester, so I immediately mentioned Alderley Edge which is where 'Posh and Beck' used to live and Robbie Williams etc. He had never heard of Alderley Edge, twelve miles from where he lived but he had heard of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. He spoke to his children in Yiddish.

He could have come straight out of 'The Fiddle on the Roof'. I told him that I had seen the film and it didn't have a happy ending!

Alderley Edge? Isn't that the place where even the refuse collectors and lollypop ladies converse in cut glass diamond encrusted RP, not a dropped "h" or a misplaced vowel between the lot of 'em?

Fancy having Posh and Becks as neighbours!.....I can't think of any more of an effective impetus to head straight for the estate agent's office poste haste to put your mansion on the market.

And who in their right mind would ever want to live next door to Harriet Harman (the current Depury Leader of the British Labour Party who's main aim in life is the promotion of the most bizarre aspects of feminism to the exclusion of every other, and far more important issues, in British politics)......she was the one in this clip who actually had the temerity (or foolhardiness) to open her ever open gob while the rest of the panel were totally bemused by the question put to them by the guy in the audience in Leeds...not by any stretch of the imagination the usual kind of question asked on BBC TV's "Question Time" program....and the guy responded in what ould only be described as highly appropriate....a case of "if the cap fits!"

Poor old Harriet...or Batty Hattie Harm-a-Man Harman as she is called here.....living as ever in cloud cuckoo land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuNEhUCk1dI&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuNEhUCk1dI&NR=1

Very funny Damian!

I used to live quite close to Godalming too. Now, we are talking stockbroker belt.



I think you will find in a place like Alderley Edge a mix of quite different accents.


Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire, Home Counties, etc.


I think you will find in a place like Alderley Edge quite a mix of different accents.


The man who comes from Leeds has a Yorkshire accent! No he doesn't or does he? Does he roll his 'r's' or are his vowels flat?

Hello Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms .

I don't live in Godalming - I was down there on an assignment today, that's all. It wasn't until I was handed this job that I discovered that Godalming is pronounced "GOD-ull-ming" - when I first read the name I called it "God-AWL-ming" which was met with jeers and cries of "ignorant Scottish bar steward" by some of my colleagues.

Anyway GOD-ull-ming is a really nice wee town - just to remind you of your former home area this is it live on a webcam - as it's now almost 23:15hrs now it's somewhat dark and deserted in the town centre but most probably when you view it you will see more action in the street.

Yes, it very much is stockbroker belt area and it looks and sounds it..."posh EERP accents galore" with tinges of Estuary in some of the younger members of the community.

http://www.godalmingonline.com/webcams/high-street/

Actually Alderley Edge, like nearby Prestbury, Knutsford and other neighbouring towns and villages, is also in a stockbroker belt, south of Manchester - green pastures and all, and I imagine that it's attracted its residents from all over the place, hence the range of accents including those from the areas of the UK you mentioned. I've never been to the area myself but I have been to Manchester city centre - I enjoyed the vast Trafford Centre.

I'm not sure about the accent of the "arsehole" yelling man in Leeds....he didn't sound like a Yorkshireman to me - more of a Midlander maybe. As I went to uni in Leeds I'm quite familar with the Yorkshire accents (even they in themselves vary!) but there again, Leeds is quite a large city so it houses a multitude of accents, foreign as well as homegrown, but the accents situation in the UK is a very complex one indeed....there are many people living in Leeds who sport quite "posh" EERP accents who have never lived anywhere else but in the city area....you'll find plenty of them living in suburbs like Horsforth and Alwoodley, among others.....professional people, so called. ;-)

As I say, questions such as that one in the Harriet Harman clip are exceedingly rare in the "Question Time" program, but you can bet your boots that the questioner had Harman in mind when he put it to the panel...and like manna from heaven she responded - after a wee bit of hesitancy - like a lamb to the slaughter! Wonderful stuff.

If she really succeeds, as is her dearest wish, in replacing Gordon Brown as PM and leads the Labour Party into the General Election next spring the result will undoubtedly be one mega mega landslide for the Conservative Party...the woman is bonkers, plain and simple, afflicted with chronically narrow tunnel vision focussing on one aim only....the promotion of the most virulent form of feminism and the total disempowerment of the male gender almost to the point of castration.

Damian

Godalming is in the stockbroker belt. Stockbrokers do not work in Manchester.

Believe me! Stockbrokers live in commuter distance of the City.

"The London commuter belt is the metropolitan area surrounding London, England from which it is possible to commute to work in the capital. It is alternatively known as the London metropolitan area[1] or the Southeast metropolitan area."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockbroker_belt





I have decided to have a name change similar to the musician formerly known as Prince - now the (the unpronounceable symbol).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)

I think you're a little behind the times. He changed his name back to Prince a long time ago, and is now the Artist Once Again Known As Prince.

On the other hand, since he isn't using the symbol anymore, I suppose you'd be free to use it. I'm sure he's not the litigious type at all.