Whoops. Lawng Guyland, I meant. I was so incensed that I forgot proper spelling for a moment… whew
The newscasters in BBC World are by far the best I have heard when it comes to foreign pronunciations!
Yes, but the way people use “obliged” in the US is not quite the same as the way it’s used in the UK. I’ve often heard it used in the same sense as Americans use “obligated”.
can i start using rhyming slang on them yet guys??? can i???
I’d hate for you to actually hear me speak… I can manage to say the same word three different ways in one sentence.
I was brought up in Massachusetts but while school tried to teach me to speak “correctly” my family all spoke with that “New Befuh” accent. I say woostashir sauce. Cars are “kas” Centrifugal is “sentrifikle” I say tonic as “tahnik” Pop is “pahp” I actually say appreciate as “apprikate” sometimes. sigh the list is endless. My public speaking teacher in college (kahlidj) had a ball with me during my speeches 
I had an english lit prof that said Don Joowan… I couldn’t get used to that and could NEVER make myself say it when asked to read. It was a painful class!
PS I absolutely ped myself every time I watch Eddie Izzard do the whole thing about how we speak differently … And that’s just cheating at scrabble
Sorry, but any attempt to rhyme “vaunt” and “Juan” is going to end in tragedy, no matter how you pronounce either word.
Miller…
I believe Juan is supposed to rhyme with one
an A B A B A B C C rhyme scheme
Cosmopolitan said:
What? You mean all Yanks are not alike??? 
Doesn’t it hurt the back of your throat to say “Lawng” all the time? It gives me sinus problems even just once or twice a year.
That’s the trick - I don’t. 
I just say cawfee & yestuhday. Ugh… I need to move.
Dawn Joo-awn – Home-grown 'Merican that I am (having spent a total of five days in the UK), I first heard this in Les Miserables: “I am agog, I am agast/Is Marius in love at last?/We talk of battles to be won/And here he comes like dawn joo-awn . . . .”
And I had no idea what they were saying. I was quite puzzled – “What the heck’s a dawn joo-awn?” I didn’t know what was being said until I read the lyrics sheet, and even then it took me a couple more listens before I realized that “dawn joo-awn” = “Don Juan.”
I wish I could say this was when I was young and stupid, but it was only a couple years ago, so young (at least) I was not.
Pahk yeh cah in Hahvahd Yad an’ give the lad a quahtah;)
Y’all don’t? I’ll be gosh derned!
Down here, even the erudite must slip a “y’all” into casual conversation now and again, lest they be thought pretentious and accordingly subject to inflated prices from mechanics to get their trucks repaired.
My guess is that it makes the sing-song way children learn their alphabet a lot less musical.
“a b c d e f GEE…”
“h i j k l mno PEE…”
“q r s”
“t u v”
“w x y ZED” !?!?
Canadians are kinda stuck in limbo, we all “offically” use british english, but I often find my self saying zee instead of zed (mostly because of the rhyming in the son… so I sing it in my head when I am going through the alphabet, so waht???)
The american influence is pretty big, we all watch your TV, but then have to go to school and pass English, where words like color don’t fly!
One of my favourites Lieutenant:
Canada (and Britan I can only assume: LEF- ten-ant
US: LU-ten-ant
Also, this Canadian suffers from severe typo-itis!
(Sorry Yanks for not capitalizing American) Oh look at that, I didn’t capitalize Britan either… in reading this post I am thinking I should just call it a day and go home! 
“Pahk yeh cah in Hahvahd Yad an’ give the lad a quahtah”
iampunha, that’s almost it except I really roll the stupid R’s in yard and quarter (kwarrterr) and the your is more like yer…
Oh and it’s a bubbla!!! not a water fountain (watta fount-in)
We talked about a lot of the ways the languages diverged in a history of the English language class I had. That was a lot of fun. I actually wrote a paper for the class about one of my favorite authors, Jeff Noon, and had to learn what in Vurt was made up and what was just Britishisms that I wasn’t familiar with.
Oh and if the world’s waiting for America to explain its fascination with Zee over Zed… it is in for a long wait because we don’t know
Yes, but ligatures can come out sounding kind of strangled…
[sub]Quick! See if you can spot the pun![/sub]
…and it’s spelled gray.
Or spell it correctly. Britain.
Which is why Tolkien wrote several books featuring the character Gandalf the Grey.
So some people’s logic is that because b is ‘bee’ and d is ‘dee’ so z should be ‘zee’. That sounds fine.
But what do we do with h, and i, and l de we make them ‘hee’ and ‘iee’ and ‘lee’
I don’t think so.
So why make ‘zed’ into ‘zee’ just because b is ‘bee’?