Can British people pretend to speak like Americans?

<<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>>

That does sound strange when you put it like that, there is no 0th floor - but there is a ground floor!!! Jasper, 0 is the starting point for a sequence of numbers from 0 to whatever; I mean 0 is a number, so thinking of 0 as the ground floor and then 1 as the first floor I suppose would be correct -as strange as it sounds. Anyway, I made the analogy up on the spot - perhaps it was not a good one.

<<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. >>

No worries mate - here goes.

In Britain, when a child goes to school, the school that the child is eligible to go to is determined by the address they live at. A village, town or city is divided into catchment areas and each area is allocated a school/schools that children living within that area will be able to attend - basically the one/ones that are nearest geographically to their home address.

Children living within these areas have first option on attending these schools, some allowances can be made for children wishing to attend schools out of their specific catchment area (naturally, some schools are better than others) after the children living within that schools catchment area have been offered a place, however these places are strictly limited. For most children, the school you are offered will be the one you will have to attend.

These schools are called comprehensives

There is also what is known as 'religious schools' were students need to be of a certain religion to be able to attend

There are also single sex schools where students have to be of a certain gender.

And then we come to private schools, which, regardless of catchment area, religion or sex, children will able to attend so as long as mum & dad can pay the fees.

Hence we have public schools - because these schools will accept absolutely anyone (allegedly) whilst the other schools have certain criteria to be met (I realise paying fees is in itself a form of criteria).

That's my very crude attempt at the theory behind it anyway and I am sure a more informed person, such as Damian, would be able to explain it better. But that should be just about the bones of it.

<<Point 1: The capital "A" isn't necessary in that instance. >>

Many thanks!!

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

Gabriel - so it is "Americans" not "American's"?? That would be what I would normally do but Google always makes me write the apostrophe (I was looking up the history of American boxing recently and Google always asked if I meant "American's" not "Americans". Ok, I've got it!!! cheers.

Okay mate, it is of to bed for me (gone midnight).

<<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!!!! >>

Why did you think we said it? ;)

<<Mate, the different use of 'fanny' never fails to crease me up!!! >>

Quite all right. I may be 35 and (ostensibly) mature at my age, but I snickered all the way through your "faggot" passage. (Ooh. That sounded bad...)

<<In Britain, when a child goes to school, the school that the child is eligible to go to is determined by the address they live at. A village, town or city is divided into catchment areas and each area is allocated a school/schools that children living within that area will be able to attend - basically the one/ones that are nearest geographically to their home address.

Children living within these areas have first option on attending these schools, some allowances can be made for children wishing to attend schools out of their specific catchment area (naturally, some schools are better than others) after the children living within that schools catchment area have been offered a place, however these places are strictly limited. For most children, the school you are offered will be the one you will have to attend.

These schools are called comprehensives

There is also what is known as 'religious schools' were students need to be of a certain religion to be able to attend

There are also single sex schools where students have to be of a certain gender.

And then we come to private schools, which, regardless of catchment area, religion or sex, children will able to attend so as long as mum & dad can pay the fees.

Hence we have public schools - because these schools will accept absolutely anyone (allegedly) whilst the other schools have certain criteria to be met (I realise paying fees is in itself a form of criteria).>>

That's actually exactly how public and private schools work here, as well. I think the big difference is that (traditionally, at least), in the US, only private school kids wore uniforms, while public school kids wore whatever they wanted. Opposite of the UK.

<<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.>>

Change "fag" to "freshman" and "senior pupil" to "senior" or "upperclassman", and you have a vague American approximation of what you describe. Although our practice was to simply haze freshmen on entrance to the school, and then they were off the hook. (Watch Dazed and Confused some time.) Doesn't happen much any more. Tends to be illegal now.

But what you describe does still happen in ritualized form in college fraternities, where "pledges" have to submit to all manner of ridiculous treatment by the already established members before they can be admitted in full standing. Paddling and naked human pyramids are what I remember watching from my dorm room window, which faced Fraternity Row. Quite amusing how homoerotic many of those pledge activities were!

<<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. >>

Ah, I didn't realize that, Gabriel. That's a little weird, if you ask me!

<<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.>>

How was The New World? It looked interesting, and my mom used to work at Jamestown, so it would have had some personal resonance for me, but my god, these directors today don't seem to care about the state of your fanny -- or should I say bum? -- after sitting though their long-ass movies anymore!

By the way, just saw a preview for 3:10 to Yuma, and his American accent sounded just fine. As did Russell Crowe's. But he's had plenty of practice -- in fact, until Gladiator came out and I heard him speak on the red carpet at the premiere on TV, I had no idea he WASN'T American, since that was all I had seen him play.

I have to comment that the last few movies I saw with Clive Owens attempting to sound American....well it was pathetic. I felt someone in editing should have stopped this after the first day. I mean why does he have to be American why can't he just play English - it was really really terrible....the movie with Jennifer Aniston ....really bad.

Using holidays for vacation is pretty weird. Christmas is a holiday, but there aren't any holidays in the summertime...

Uriel, do not (I repeat, do not) waste your time with The New World. I wasted a whole three hours on it. It was stupid, boring, and historically inaccurate.

Interesting discussion, I'm English and I have been told by Americans from various parts that I do a good California accent when I try to do "American" My australian always slips after a few seconds, I believe I can do Scottish, Irish and Welsh as well as Cockney (I'm northern) quite well but I've never tried these out on natives to test. American is probably the easiest accent to fake, especially for those of us that watch too much TV.

helo
thank you for chossing this topic.really i have never thought about such a tpic.from my small experience with defirent tourists that i meet every day in my work in a hotel,i think that british people can speak with the american accent if they like;but they like thier own way of talking so they will never use others accent.and about the american they can't cause the way they pronounce some alphabets are very hard for them to change it like R. YOUSSFE

"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?? "

Here's another difference. In the US ( ) are called parentheses, and [ ] are called brackets.

I was confused by your post at first because I couldn't find the brackets!

<<Here's another difference. In the US ( ) are called parentheses, and [ ] are called brackets.

<<I was confused by your post at first because I couldn't find the brackets>>

Blimey!!! () are called parentheses and [ ] are called brackets?? What the hell do we call [ ] in England then??? It is all well to confusing mate!!!

( ) are brackets!!! How can that one get different meanings???

It's funny stuff though!!! Here is another; In England we call the secondary toilet in a house a "cloak room", but 'apparently' in the U.S this means a place where you hang coats!!!!!!!

Where does it end???????????????????????

Do you watch the show : " the Riches? "
There's a britsh actress, i don't remember her name, sorry, but when she's acting she has a good american accent ( southern america). Allright, sometimes we can heard some words which sounds britsh but she's a good actress and she has a good false accent actually...

<<Blimey!!! () are called parentheses and [ ] are called brackets?? What the hell do we call [ ] in England then??? It is all well to confusing mate!!!>>

As a student of British English, I was taught to call them brackets ( ) and square brackets [ ], but maybe this use is not universal in the UK.

I've noticed that in the UK they use the term "poo" to refer to feces. This must have caused a lot of UK citizens to giggle when they saw "Winnie the Pooh".

It has always made me laugh Jasper!!! The odd thing is that the Winnie-the-Pooh stories were written by an Englishman!! Why pooh Mr Milne - why????????

Hold on a sec, 'poo' does not mean poo in the U.S then???? What does it mean then????

PubLunch, "poo" wouldn't be used alone. You might say "poo-poo" to a baby, but to everybody else, it would be called "poop".