I work with a Brit (in the US) who says “I’m not sure if I want to take a check from a company that can’t even spell it”.
unclviny
Lobsang, I find American accents are no more annoying than southern English ones which draw out some sounds:
graaass instead of grass
etc.
Now, now, it’s perfectly sensible to say “shedule”–if you also say “shool” and “shism” and “sheme.”
As for “zed,” Brits and Canadians have a perfectly reasonable explanation for saying it that way. Of course, this means they have no reasonable explanation for refusing to pronounce the second letter of the alphabet as “bed.” Apparently mangled Greek is only a permissible explanation for the last letter.
I feel safe in saying it would not help anything or anyone if I talked like Prince Charles.
I said this already in another thread last week - this is called the intrusive R and is used to connect two syllables, the first of which ends with a vowel, and the second of which begins with one.
Of course in a Southern English accent, we don’t pronounce trailing Rs either, so the intrusive R occurs when there is an R.
Thus “Korea® is”. Or “my ca® is”, or even “draw®ing”.
It’s also incorrect, especially with regard to speaking “Received Pronunciation”, the “proper” English accent. I had this habit without realising it until I attended speech classes at college.
Corollary: it isn’t incorrect when there actually is an R in the spelling, as in the “car” example.
Okay, let’s not have a country whose favourite words are “y’all” and “all y’all” be criticising anyone else’s speech, alright? (This from someone who can’t say two sentences in a row without inserting an “eh” or two. :D)
“btw, I’ll take the wor-ster-shire-sauce and raise you an ala-min-I-um shed”
That would be pronounced “Woostah” wouldn’t it?
"My country, 'tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrim’s pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring.
My native country, thee,
land of the noble free,
thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
thy woods and templed hills;
my heart with rapture thrills
like that above.
Let music swell the breeze,
and ring from all the trees
sweet freedom’s song;
let mortal tongues awake,
let all that breathe partake,
let rocks their silence break,
the sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God, to thee,
author of liberty,
to thee we sing;
long may our land be bright
with freedom’s holy light;
protect us by thy might,
great God, our King. "
Happy to help. 
And you’d never catch me saying “eh”… “aye” would be more like it…
L…M…N…O…Piss…
Doesn’t quite have the same flow (pun intended)…
:rolleyes:
Weirddave, wrong anthem. Giraffe was refering to the british national anthem. I was trying to be funny by admitting that I, a brit, do not know the words to it.
Everyone : I posted this thread well before the unfortunate tragedy in America. my thoughts go out to all affected. And this thread is meant to be a mild-mannered, friendly dig. I would never (not anymore at least) have a serious dig at you guys.
The world didn’t end today, no reason anyone needs to be tip toeing through the SDMB. Tragic yes but the world didn’t come falling down around us. Oh and the OP started this before the shuttle burned up. :rolleyes:
Now, on to the OP, remember that various parts of the US have varying degrees of how words are spoken. Heck we even have ebonics which they tried to get into the public schools as a proper language. Dats some funky language.
Right tune, though.
As this is the Straight Dope®, we should probably be sure that even our quips are not erroneous or misleading.
The Oakland School Board attempted to secure funds to instruct their teachers in Ebonics (or African American Vernacular English, as the actual linguistically recognized dialect is more formally known), so that the teachers would be able to more effectively communicate with their students. The proposal was flawed from several perspectives, (and brought down the scorn of such unlikely allies as Bill Bennet and Jesse Jackson), and may have been nothing more than a crude attempt to get more Federal monies into the district, but there was never any attempt to get Ebonics “into the public schools as a proper language” (despite the fact that it is, indeed, a recognized dialect of English and merits the phrase “proper language” every bit as much as Standard English Vernacular).
With all due respect, are you insane? Great(er?) portions of the country never say “y’all” unless they’re reading out loud from a work by a southern author, or poking fun at southerners. Y’all indeed 
Most of us don’t own cowboy hats or boots neither.
is it chicago or shicago? I was surprised when a native shicagan referred to her hometown as chicawgo, for all this time I have been saying it wrong, but I’m pretty sure oprah says shicago too.
Right.
It’s “sh” (like “chic”). I’m guessing this is a French influence. And while we’re at it, Chicago is on Lake Michigan (that’s “MISH-ih-gan”, not “MITCH-ih-gan”).
“Worcester” is pronounced “Wooster”. “Worcestershire” is “woostashur” (or “woostasheer”). I don’t even want to get into the “aluminum/aluminium” debate without a detailed history of the word (which was briefly “alumium”, BTW, before becoming “aluminum”, “aluminium”, and then “aluminum” again).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it has to be “zee” because otherwise the Alphabet Song won’t rhyme.
I’m not sure anyone can accuse Americans of liking syllables after the “aluminium” thing, but I’ll also offer up “orientate” as an example of British words with more syllables than their US counterparts.
Don’t get me started on BBC English. If I hear another Radio 3 announcer say “Don JEW-an”, I’m gonna go postal. It’s “HWAN”, dammit, “HWAN”. And Wagner’s first name is pronounced with a hard K sound. You’re a professional radio announcer; please try not to butcher foreign names.
The thing where two vowels are stuck together in one freaky looking letter is called a “dipthong” (no, really.) The thing that goes in the beginning of Aesop is an “a-e dipthong,” oestrogen begins with an “o-e dipthong,” etc.
Dipthong dipthong dipthong. Man, what a great word.
Are you sure that is a US/UK difference? Having just looked in two American English dictionaries and one English English dictionary, they all include both words and none of them identifies either word as being associated with a particular country. In fact, the Concise OED is the most dismissive of “orientate”: it says “= orient” and leaves it at that. The US dictionaries were Websters and American Heritage.