Can British people pretend to speak like Americans?

Maybe or maybe not we've covered this "subway" thing before in this forum. In this country the underground metro system (tube) is called the Subway only in Glasgow for some reason.

http://www.spt.co.uk/subway/

Every other city in the UK with an undergroud system it's either called the metro, or in London especially simply the underground or (more commonly) the tube.

A subway in the UK (apart from Glasgow) is a pedestrian walkway going down under the street/road from the pavement (sidewalk in US) on one side and up to the pavement on the other side , as has been described. Sometimes it's steps that take you down and then up, or simply a long slope down/up on either side. These are far more common in town/city centres, and a fair number of them have public loos (WCs, toilets, lavvies - call them what you will) down there in the tunnel or at the exits/entrances. It's no accident that many of these conveniences are lit by meaningful blue lights. Also the walls down in the tunnels can be positive galleries of wonderful displays of artistic graffiti - or on the other hand - the othe kind of graffiti it costs local authorities loads of dosh to wash or sand blast away or whatever it is they use to remove it all.

Some people call subways "underpasses", as in Glasgow, to distinguish from the metro system.

Pedestrian footbridges (as shown by Uriel) over busy roads are mostly found further out in the suburbs or in rural areas.

I know for sure that American tourists here, particulary, can be confused when they see street signs saying "Subway", thinking it means a metro/tube station when all it means is a way down under a very busy street and up out on the other side.

"get a car, loser!"

Very American, very rude.

Damian, we call your subways "underpasses"; they are quite uncommon, being magnets for crime and vagrants. I know of only one.

Yeah, I would not be wanting to walk down into an underground enclosure where all kinds of things might be waiting for me! I suppose that's the psychological advantage of the pedestrian overpass -- you're out in the open, with good visibility, and at least the polite fiction of an escape route.

<<Christian Bale did a perfectly serviceable job in Batman>>

Perusing archived interviews in NPR, I found this one Bale did while promoting his Batman movie. He did it in an American accent because he felt that Batman is the quintessential American character. The interviewer is amazed to find out in the course of the interview that it's not his "real" accent. At one point, though, he says [k@n"tr\Av@`si] (13:54) which I think is an almost unknown pronunciation in the US.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4700914

Yeah, here it always CONtro-VERsy.

And he did Batman with an American accent because ... Batman is American. That's sort of not a personal choice thing.

Although lately there's more choice to some things than you would expect. I was surprised to hear Peter Pan with an American accent, for instance ... and even more surprised to hear the rest of the cast -- who were mainly British -- rationalizing it away. On studio orders, I'm sure. Not that a little American boy couldn't have been kidnapped from Kensington Gardens -- London's a cosmopolitan city -- and there ARE Indians in the story, but still.....

All in all, though, the kid playing him did a great job, and I would rather NOT see him suffer through a fake accent -- they're hard enough for adults to pull off, and his last name wasn't Streep, so he didn't have that genetic edge to fall back on, either. And from the comments on the BBC, most of the little British girls posting there didn't care if he talked in Swahili, because he was pretty cute. Good looks will get you out of anything!

<<And he did Batman with an American accent because ... Batman is American. That's sort of not a personal choice thing. >>

What I meant to say was that not only did he play the character with an American accent (which, as you note, is not much of a personal choice) but also used this accent throughout the many interviews he gave to promote the movie.

That's right he did, but I have seen other interviews with the bloke and he still spoke with an American accent. In-fact I am yet to hear his 'real' accent yet. The film's "The Prestige", "The New World" and "Reign of Fire" had him 'doing' an English accent but neither were the geezer's real accent. It's strange that a person who clearly had a very plummy English accent in the film "Empire of the Sun" now has to 'put on' an English accent.

The thing is, cut glass English accents seem to be easily corruptible. My mate's sister is dating an aussie who has lived here for 5 years and to these ears he sounds as fresh as the day he arrived. My cousin who is from England moved to Perth, Australia not even 2 years ago and he has picked up the accent a lot to a point where most 'normal' people (i.e. people that don't listen to people's accent/pronunciation as I oddly do) would probably think he was an aussie.

My next door neighbour is from Chicago and has lived here for 10 years and apart from a few words that she uses (I never tire of hearing an American say "wanker" & "bollocks") she does not sound even remotely English. I suppose some accents just can't be lost, such as Scottish.

I think the traditional pronunciation here in Britain is con-tro-VER-sy, which is the same as the yanks, but con-TROV-er-sy is being said more and more (I am one of them) - I don't know why. It is the same with "often" which is normally pronounced with a silent t, but increasingly the t is being emphasised.

Blimey - they call the Glasgow underground a subway!! I wonder why or how it got that name. Did they have subways in England before the Glaswegians called it this (I mean, cars did not exist then so maybe the English subway did not exist) or was this called a subway after the other meaning for subway came about. In which case, if a meaning for subway has already been established here then why would the call it subway (did that make sense people??) Maybe the American's got it right then!!!

Yep, underpass is also used here for subway, and that answers my question which was "what do American's call subways"?? Now I know (the same as what we call them!!)

I'd like to quickly ask, should there be a full stop outside of the brackets of that last sentence?? I have not put one there because the sentence, despite being in brackets, ends with an exclamation mark which I was told acts as a fullstop. Any help would be brilliant.

Cheers.

As ever - sorry for the typing errors. I'd be here all day if I tried to go through them all, but seeing as I am late for work already I can't.

Pub Lunch, few people outside the Commonwealth would understand the use of "full stop"; it would be referred to as a "period". I know that "period" would cause guffaws in the UK. ;-) With this in mind, I bet a lot of UKers get the giggles when they watch Judge Judy.

On an unrelated note, what has always confused me is that, in Europe, the 1st floor is one floor up from the ground; in the States, at least, the 1st floor is the first floor sitting on the ground. This confuses me when I watch BBC--I have to do the math in my head.

Here's another interesting Americanism: a "fanny" is a nice word used by grannies to describe your backside; in the UK, a "fanny" is a rude word describing, well, female genitalia. That one must cause some interesting incidents.

Lordie, lord, I got carried away.

Ahoy there Jasper!! Periods instead of full stops???? It just gets weirder matey!! So that it was why American's (Canadian’s??) say period at the end of sentences!! Suddenly it all makes sense!!!!

Mate, the different use of 'fanny' never fails to crease me up!!! I discovered the difference when I was on my travels and I spent 2 months in the US. Whilst out shopping I can remember seeing "fanny packs" for sale. Mate, I lost it, I just could not stop laughing and the thing was it would have been too embarrassing explaining why it was funny to complete strangers, so people just looked at me like I was a nutter. For the record, "fanny packs" are called "bum bags" here.

The best one is still the use of "fag" and "faggott". Here in England we smoke "fags" & we eat faggotts!!!!! Faggotts are Welsh meatballs (they are lovely!!!) and fags are a very popular term for cigarette. When I asked an American where the area was so I could "smoke a fag" the look I got back was one I'll never forget.

Actually, the faggott one used to be funny but its US meaning has cottoned on over here, so it is not so funny anymore. Randy is another one that has lost its funny factor. When I watch American programmes and I hear someone referred to as Randy I can't help but smile. I think this will be lost on people such as my 12 year old sister though, because the term “randy” to describe someone that has ‘got the horn’ has definitely lost ground to the American "horny". The odd thing is that in the 80's (when I was a lad) if someone was horny it meant that they were good looking (or sexy), as in "that girl is well horny".

I sort of see what you’re saying with the ground floor but look at it like the order of numbers starting from naught (or zero). 0,1,2 etc. The 0 is the ground floor and 1 is the first floor. This one will confuse you; a “public school” in Britain is what American's would call a “private school”. I could explain why but you have probably lost the will to live.

But back to grammatical matters, within this post I had a similar problem to the last one.

I wrote.....

<<Faggotts are Welsh meatballs (their lovely!!!) and fags is a very popular term for cigarette.>>

Should the "and" have a capital A because it follows an exclamation mark??

In my previous post I wrote......

<<Now I know (the same as what we call them!!) >>

Should there be a full stop/period after the bracket or is one not needed because the sentence ends with an exclamation mark.

Any help would be brilliant because I really do need to improve my grammar. Cheers.

<< So that it was why American's.....>>

???????

That was meant to read "So that is why American's (Canadian's???) say period ............

Wasn't it actually meant to read: "So that is why Americans (Canadians???) say period...." :)

<<The 0 is the ground floor and 1 is the first floor. This one will confuse you; a “public school” in Britain is what American's would call a “private school”.>>

Now, PubLunch--with all due respect-- that doesn't make sense; how could there be a 0th floor? A floor that doesn't exist? The first floor, in terms of cold logic, seems like it would refer to the first floor on the ground.

I knew about the "public school" but, once again, this one doesn't make sense in terms of cold logic; would you be good enough to explain? You won't bore me.

Point 1: The capital "A" isn't necessary in that instance.
Point 2: I'm not sure about the !! mark usage.

Anecdote: An Englishman got off the plane at San Francisco airport; he walked up to a bartender and asked,"Excuse me, but could you tell me where I can get some fags around here?"

The bartender, shocked beyond belief, replied,"We don't use that word around here much.."

This conversation was actually heard by a friend of mine. :-) I heard, myself, a man telling his father, at the Minneapolis airport, "I'm going to go out to blow a fag." I chuckled.

There is another meaning for the word "fag" - nothing to do with ciggies or gay people - well, not directly anyway. I'm not sure if it still goes on in exclusive public schools (ie: the British version of public school - which I think Americans call private schools). I don't think it does, not even in Eton or Harrow. Anyway, a fag was a new entrant pupil to the school, just starting up there and who was involuntarily recruited by a senior pupil to be a sort of menial dogsbody who had to perform a whole array of tasks/chores for him, often just on a whim, and this young lad had no recourse whatsoever to complaint or protest to the masters/teachers at the school - it was accepted practice and he had no choice in the matter. In time, as the "fag" progessed through the school years he, in time, became a senior pupil, or even a prefect and he would then have the luxury of his own "fag" doing all his donkey work for him - to perform "fagging" duties.

Thomas Hughes' novel about life at Rugby Public School in Warwickshire, England (which still exists) - "Tom Brown's Schooldays" - brilliantly describes the fagging practices there in the early 19th century. Tom Brown himself became a fag for that most sinister and sadistic of prefects Flashman, who derived enormous pleasure from inflicting pain and torture on his poor "fags" in different ways (such as making them stand right in front of a roaring fireplace, as close to the flames as possible, or subjecting them to a series of lashes on bare legs from a whip with Flashman having the advantage of running at the poor guys from the far end of the room), and it was all quite "legal" as far as the school authorities were concerned, so he got away with it and he became notorious and much feared. They bred them tough in those days.

Flashman would definitely not get away with it these days and that's for sure.

"Fag" can also mean something which is tiresome to perform due to lack of energy or will.